It’s hard to visit a top-tier Cirque du Soleil show and not drop your jaw just a little. A rare combination of surreal scenery, technical muscle, and muscle of the human sort works to create an experience that is, honestly, pretty awesome—if a bit strange (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
To find out how the company (yes, Cirque is a brand name) pulls of their nightly feats across Las Vegas (where it has eight shows in residency) and around the world, I spoke with two of the brains behind the bizarre: Pierre Parisien, Cirque de Soleil’s senior director of show quality; and Calum Pearson, Cirque’s vice president of its resident show division.
We’re seeing new Cirque shows based off of existing IP, such as the Beatles and Michael Jackson shows. For designers and directors, how is the creative process for these projects different from a whole-cloth original idea?
Parisien: The Beatles and Michael Jackson were extremely creative artists who left huge legacies. We have always decided and controlled the themes of a new show during creation, until we were presented with the exciting challenge to imagine shows around the work of these two great artists. When we started to develop shows around the work of The Beatles and Michael Jackson we entered worlds where we had access to a multitude of themes very well defined. Acts, set, costumes, lighting, music and all the different aspects of the new show will be developed around that theme. The songs, the rhythms, the words, the characters strongly established in their pieces opened us up to many possibilities. As an example, in our shows the composers will write the music inspired by the acts in development. With The Beatles Love and Michael Jackson One we did the opposite. We created the acts inspired by the rhythm and the images coming from their music and universes.
The performers seem to be in pretty incredible physical condition. What sorts of background and training is typical of a performer in Kà, or other such Cirque shows?
Parisien: Our performers are in incredible physical condition. Being fit is second nature for them. A major part of their lives. They must be in excellent shape and maintain their physique due to the demanding acrobatic nature of the work they accomplish nightly. To be able to safely perform and sustain the high level expected they maintain their extraordinary ‘machines’. All Cirque shows must recruit gymnasts and acrobats with solid background and experience. Some of our performers are former Olympians who come with strong experiences and who are used to working hard. When new gymnasts or acrobats are hired for the shows, before they begin performing they have to follow a very specific regimen to prepare for the acts they will be in. Preparation could last between one to six months before they are fully integrated into their assigned acts. To maintain their physical condition, the performers have regular weekly training sessions. Those mandatory sessions are conducted by our expert coaches to maintain the high level of acrobatic and artistic components. Those sessions also allow the performers to explore and try new acrobatic elements that could eventually be integrated into the acts.
Kà recently brought back the final “Battle” scene. Is there anything different about it now? If so, tell me about what changes were made and why?
Pearson: We implemented new technology into the Battle Scene which created new safety protocols. For example, the final exit of the spearman from the scene is now automated. This didn’t require any modification of the choreography for the scene as a whole, except that we now make the final departure of those characters subject to a speed limit built into the cue; as well as overriding the artist control of the winch for that one exit. We also doubled the computing capacity to allow a redundant monitoring of the move. So when the cue enables, there is a second part of the software whose sole function is to monitor the main computer and ensure it is doing what we told it to do.
What did Cirque use as a substitute for this scene? What was the audience response to it?
Pearson: The immediate replacement act was a ceremonial dressing scene that allowed the twins and their newly found loves to be established as principals for their tribe following the escape from the clutches of evil witnessed during the Wheel of Death scene [Writer’s note: We are aware that readers who haven’t seen the show may find the previous sentence to make little sense]. This was replaced by a hand-balancing act at the first opportunity, and then ultimately replaced by a high-definition video of the actual Battle scene that had been filmed earlier in the show’s residency. It was important for the story that the final conflict between good and evil was witnessed by the audience, and the video allowed us to present the original artistic vision of the storyline.
The audience response was across the spectrum. We had some people express disappointment that the final scene was not live, while others expressed their support and sympathy as we moved toward bringing the act back. Ultimately, it was imperative that we took the time necessary to assess every finding from the investigation, and walk through every aspect of the technical changes that had happened with the show team. Also, as this is a very demanding act that requires the body to be conditioned in a certain way, it was also necessary to ensure we had adequate time to reintegrate the artists into the physicality of the scene, not just the choreography.
Other than this notable scene, has the show evolved or changed much since it debuted? Is this typical for a Cirque residency?
Pearson: Our shows are always being reviewed by the artistic and creative teams. They have a challenging mandate, in that they need to preserve the integrity of the stage director’s original vision, while ensuring that we maintain a living art piece and not a museum piece. This is not a small undertaking. It is typical for a Cirque residency to maintain its original theme for a long period, but at the same time certain changes will come in for artistic relevancy or if a specific act decides to move on in their career. Kà specifically had one major act removed early in its run, which was the ‘pillars’ scene. This involved a parkour discipline where the fight scene was acted out while jumping to and from different pillars that rose out of the smoky depths. It was without a doubt a beautiful scene, but the length of time it took to set up and strike the equipment created large lags in and out of the scene. It was also difficult to maintain the number of people we needed in that discipline, so the decision was made to remove the act, and hvae the fight scene take place on the downstage edge or ‘Passarelle’.
What is the most technically challenging part of KÀ to pull off? What part seems to be the most challenging to viewers?
Pearson: The entire show is a technological challenge. Even 10 years on we are presenting live theatre in a way that is beyond its time. The main Sandcliff Deck, our floating, rotating behemoth will always appear as the most technically challenging piece to the audience due to the sheer scale and unique nature of what is being witnessed. The real technical challenge though is in the backstage choreography that happens twice a night to ensure that everyone and everything are in the right place at the right time so we don’t have to delay an entrance or scene change. The coordination between stage management and technical management on this show is the most beautiful ballet that no one will ever see.
I imagine there is a massive, highly specialized technical staff that makes all the cogs move behind the scenes. Are there any completely unexpected jobs that are necessary for a show like this? For example: A guy whose job is just to do one tiny task, that a spectator may not know even exists.
Pearson: Absolutely, our shows have many unique roles and responsibilities; here are just a few at Kà. We have a very high dependence on wireless communication for this show, and as such we have to ensure that the airwaves are free of any interference. This is true for all our shows, so we have people whose job is to monitor the airwaves doing a spectral analysis and ensure that no one else is operating on our frequencies. This is crucial to ensure the communication between the stage managers, technicians, and artists is clean and clear. We don’t want a situation where if a net is not at tension or an airbag is not fully inflated, that we can’t communicate with the artist on stage to let them know. We also have a role for cleaning cork and ensuring that it stays within a certain humidity percentage. The beach scene is done with cork, and if we don’t maintain the correct humidity we have problems. Too dry, and it leaves dust on the stage that can cause people to slip. Too humid, and the cork could grow mold that causes air toxicity problems. All of the Spearman shoes are hand crafted with the prosthetics that create the look of open toes. These are individually glued and then painted to ensure they can stand up to the scrutiny they receive when the warriors are among the audience members. This is also true of the costumers who ensure that each costume piece matches the skin tone of the artist wearing it. The list goes on, but needless to say, our technical teams are detail driven and very passionate about their roles in presenting the best show each night.
If you could redesign and rebuild the stage today, with years of shows under your belt, what would you change about it? What was not obvious when the space was conceived?
Pearson: Huge leaps and bounds have occurred in projection, so we would definitely make use of the changes in that medium. For the engineering, we have made certain changes since the original concept, such as changing the control software and the design of the rollers that travel up and down the steel beams spreading the weight. Other than that, the original design still remains very robust and reliable.
On the flip side, were there any aspects or features of the stage that the show designers initially wanted to build in, but were removed for any reason? Perhaps they didn’t work right or they proved too costly?
Pearson: For the main stage, we didn’t remove anything. In fact, we added when it came to the interactive projection. One night the designers were in a bar looking at a projection table, and decided that would look great on a bigger scale. There were, however, several ideas that were discussed that never made it to fruition due to the scale of the engineering. In the original concept, the stage was also going to move from side to side and have performance platforms that could be switched out. As the laws of physics come in, some of those ideas have to be tempered to fit a budget or maintenance schedule, but it will never stop us from dreaming when we have a blank page.
The audience can only see a small part of the multistory stage apparatus. What are they missing?
Pearson: They are missing the Tetris game that is going on above and below to ensure every entrance and exit happens. The harness checks, the costume changes, the net pulls, the airbag deployments, setting scenery, all the things that, honestly, we don’t want them to see. Because of what is happening on stage.
{ SOURCE: Forbes | http://goo.gl/F28h8e }
