Welcome to the latest edition of Fascination, the Unofficial Cirque du Soleil Newsletter.
There’ve been quite a number of developments in the Cirque du Soleil world since we’ve last spoken – from the announcement of Cirque’s newest production designed specifically for Broadway, KURIOS celebrating a milestone (500th performance), JOYA also celebrating a milestone (250th performance), to details leaking out pertaining to the CELEBRATE PROJECT (Cirque’s Theme Park & Resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico), the media getting a look-see with TORUK-The First Flight in development in Montreal, and so on, and so forth – it’s hard to know where to begin!
So, let’s start with the CELEBRATE PROJECT. After the initial press release announcing the resort late last year, very little about the project had been made public. Was it a theme park? Was it a hotel? Was it something more? We were just as much in the dark as you were. But that all changed after a video reached YouTube discussing the project in huge detail – it totally blew us away! There was so much to take in, but the video disappeared just as quickly as it appeared, taking all its secrets with it. A few days later a slightly modified version of the video reappeared (and quickly disappeared), but not before we “obtained” a copy of ourselves for further study. (Well, to drool over.) Within this month you’ll find a transcript of that video, which details the plans Cirque du Soleil, Grupo Vidanta, and the Goddard Group (who are designing the resort) have for this amazing project in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It’s massive and could turn out to be quite the awesome experience once complete! The first phase of which is projected to be complete in late 2018 or early 2019, so there’s plenty of time yet for plans to change, but if they build half of what they talk about in the video, the CELEBRATE PROJECT should be a huge success.
And talking about success. Cirque is looking for it on Broadway in a huge way. Already working to revive THE WIZ on Broadway in late 2017, On July 24th, Cirque du Soleil Holdings registered and trademarked a new name – PARAMOUR. We speculated it might be the name of Cirque 2016, the new big top touring show directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, but we weren’t sure. The name didn’t match what Cirque already teased about the concept: that Cirque 2016 would be “creatively inspired by Mexico in all its exhilarating spirit.” So… what could it be? Fortunately we didn’t have to wait long – PARAMOUR is Cirque’s newest show made especially for Broadway. And what we found interesting about the press release was how very IRIS-like PARAMOUR was going to be, right down to the fact that the Atherton twins would be joining the show! We’ve since been advised that PARAMOUR is basically IRIS 2.0 with new music, more Broadway-style choreography, and an updated story. Otherwise, acrobatically, we’re looking at the same show. We’ll have to see how it all comes together in April 2016, of course, but in the mean time check out the press release within for information about this new show.
That’s not all we were told, though. Hang on to your hats!
As many of us know by now, ZUMANITY received a mild refresh earlier this year and that THE BEATLES LOVE at The Mirage is due to receive a bit of a fresher next year (to celebrate it’s 10th Anniversary), but while Mystere may be safe until 2021 (thanks to a recent interview the Montreal Gazette had with Jerry Nadal, SVP of Cirque’s Resident Show Division in Las Vegas), and “O” and KA and MJ ONE are doing great, it appears that Criss Angel BELIEVE may not be. Rumors abound that the show’s initial 10-year contract will not be extended, so come 2018 BELIEVE is set to disappear from the Luxor. While we know that’ll make a few fans happy, this next bit will most certainly not: our party on the east coast may be coming to an end. Scuttlebutt is LA NOUBA will close in 2018 to coincide with all the work the Walt Disney Company has been doing to transform Downtown Disney into Disney Springs. They aren’t abandoning the theater, mind you. A new Cirque show will occupy the theater at West Side, but just what has not yet been decided. (But if you don’t mind a suggestion: since you don’t really want to close Quidam, but feel you have to now that Alegria and Dralion are no longer performing, might we suggest porting Quidam over to the Cirque Theater at Disney Springs?)
While a decision is still looming on La Nouba’s replacement, Cirque’s new owners are not beating around the bush about where their intent lies: they want to focus heavily on what is currently working and expand/duplicate those options globally. TPG’s hope is to double the company’s profitability within the next five years and – are you sitting down? – to either sell the company or take it public. While we think taking Cirque du Soleil public is a big mistake, what do we know? In either case, some of the cities Cirque is rumored to be scouting for resident shows are those we’ve heard of and wrote about before: London (with a clone of LOVE), Berlin (perhaps with a clone of ZUMANITY), Shanghai (perhaps with a clone of “O”), and with new concepts in Dubai, Las Vegas, and others. But resident shows aren’t the only concepts getting a push: it looks like we’re going to see back-to-back big top shows for 2016 and 2017, just like we did with 2009’s OVO and 2010’s TOTEM. But while the Hospitality Group (SANDBOX) is rumored to be folding up (perhaps this is the reason ON THE RECORD BAZ abruptly left LIGHT on Sunday, August 30th), CREACTIVE is set to expand to over 23 other Club Med locations world-wide, TORUK is going to be spending a lot of time in China (after its tour in North America of course), and another branded arena show is coming – “everything is awesome!” (And that’s a hint!)
That’s certainly quite a bit to take in for sure. We’re still stunned by it all, but remember all of this is simply rumor until confirmed by Cirque du Soleil. We’ll be watching that’s for sure!
A number of you asked us what NEST was all about, and what C:LAB was, so we took a look and provide a couple of answers within. NEST is an immersive experiment initiated by C:LAB, a creative experimental laboratory within Cirque du Soleil. Originally designed as a sensory experience for the 2015 edition of the C2 Montreal conference, visitors to the NEST were invited to venture inside, two strangers at a time, and participate in a mysterious ritual of choice and chance. Those brave enough to enter the NEST found themselves engaged in a curious and tactile exploration of intuition—that essential, yet elusive, element of any creative process. We didn’t get a chance to partake in this experience, of course, but a video was released detailing the Cirque experiment, which we transcribed within. C:LAB was responsible for the Quadcopter video – SPARKED – that appeared last year, and it looks like they’ll be producing more experimental content in the future!
It isn’t often a Cirque du Soleil documentary gets by us, especially one released onto DVD. But this one did! Released on October 2, 2012, TOUCH THE SKY is a feature documentary for anyone who has ever wanted to travel to space in 2009. Using a fly-on-the-wall-style we follow the owner and founder of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberté, as he makes his way to the International Space Station. From the thrill of watching sparks as we re-enter the atmosphere, to floating through the confines of the ISS as filmed by the ‘Guy cam,” in TOUCH THE SKY viewers follow Guy as he lives the risks and are touched by some of the people that make up the global space community. It’s an interesting peek into his experience. You’ll find a brief description of the DVD within this month, and, of course, where to get it. But the documentary also got me thinking about the whole Poetic Social Mission in and of itself. At the time these events were originally taking place, we here at Fascination were more concerned with the happenings down on Earth – with BELIEVE, ZAIA, ZED, OVO, VIVA ELVIS, and BANANA SHPEEL – so we didn’t give much thought to this endeavor. However, thanks to the documentary we recently re-discovered a text-copy of this journal in our archives, which allows us to explore this extraordinary time in Cirque du Soleil’s history in more detail. Therefore, in our features section this month is the first in an eight-part series looking back at Guy’s Poetic Social Mission through his eyes, from the journal, in monthly installments, taking you through the initial steps Guy undertook all the way through to the launch and landing.
And last, but certainly not least… in our July issue, Alex Faubel of 303 Magazine had a quick Q&A with KURIOS’s Kit Chatham, but this only whetted our appetites for more! So our very own Keith Johnson, who has been following Kit’s career over the years, took some time to catch up with Kit whilst KURIOS was in Seattle, and presents the first part of his conversation within. Check it out!
As always we also have the relevant posts made to Cirque’s Facebook pages, and updates to Cirque’s touring schedule.
So, let’s get started!
RSS FEED — https://www.cirquefascination.com/?feed=rss2
TEXT FILE — https://www.cirquefascination.com/Issues/Issue140.txt
