“‘That’s a Wrap!’ – Cirque’s World of Cinema Goes Dark”

With the plethora of show announcements steaming full speed ahead in 2007 – a show at Madison Square Garden (“Wintuk”), a rumor about a show in Shanghai (which didn’t pan out), Cirque du Soleil pulling out of the Jackie Gleason Theater deal in Miami (which might have seen a South-Beach version of Zumanity installed), announcing Cirque in Dubai (which has also failed to pan out), preparing to partner with Criss Angel in an attempt to re-invent the magic show (“BELIEVE”) and launching a new touring show (“Koozå”) – it’s little wonder that the Cirque fandom was blindsided by the announcement that Cirque would open up a resident show in Hollywood, California by 2010. From the November 19, 2007 release:

Cirque du Soleil will open a new, $100 million production at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood in 2010, the group’s founder announced. The unnamed show will focus on Hollywood’s role in the history of film. Seventy-five performers will put on the show 368 times a year as part of a 10-year agreement between Cirque du Soleil and the CIM Group, which owns the Hollywood & Highland Center where the Kodak Theatre is located.

The $100 million project includes modifications to the showroom’s configuration costing about $60 million, and a production featuring 75 artists. The show will be directed by France’s Philippe Decouflé, who directed the Albertville Olympic Games opening and closing ceremonies in 1992.

By way of inspiration, the creation team will be able to draw on a treasure trove of film archives. According to founder Guy Laliberté, the number of seats in the hall will be cut from 3,400 to about 2,500 to provide Cirque with the space it needs to create “an imposing show,” making extensive use of new technologies.

“We may include archive images in the show,” he says, “but they will be reworked. We’re not here to cut and paste. Over the last 10 years, Philippe Decouflé has developed his own signature style when it comes to using multimedia.”

After the initial announcement regarding the show concept, information became lost in the shuffle of the debuts of CRISS ANGEL BELIEVE at the Luxor in Las Vegas, ZAIA at the Venetian in Macao, China, and ZED at Tokyo Disneyland in Japan. That is until news of a delay began to circulate in early 2009 (pushing the show from its originally announced 2010 premiere into 2011). The reason for the delay was not widely known until a June 29, 2009 article in the Los Angeles Business Journal shed some light on the matter:

The Los Angeles city government is stepping in to help save plans for a reconstruction of the Kodak Theatre so the home of the Oscars can accommodate Cirque du Soleil’s 10-year Hollywood-themed show. L.A. developer CIM Group, which co-owns and operates the Kodak at Hollywood & Highland, is seeking a $30 million loan from the city to replace a private financing deal that collapsed in the capital market meltdown.

Under the deal, the city essentially would borrow $30 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and then loan that money to CIM for the project. It carries some risk to the city. If the Cirque show tanks or otherwise is unable to pay, then CIM is obligated to pay. But if it can’t, the city would lose up to $30 million of HUD money.

Already, design changes have forced a delay of at least nine months in the project’s opening, pushing it back to summer 2011 from the September 2010 opening date originally announced. The major change has involved fitting an on-site training center for Cirque performers into the existing complex.

A month later the loan situation would be resolved. A five-member committee of the Los Angeles City Council voted to move ahead with the $30 million loan to bring a decade of Cirque du Soleil performances to the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. The council’s Housing, Community and Economic Development Committee unanimously forwarded the loan proposal to the full council for a vote, saying the deal would boost the economy by drawing tourists to the Hollywood & Highland shopping mall, where the theater is located. Under the proposed loan agreement, TheatreDreams LA/CHI (a joint venture with CIM/H&H Retail, LP, which operates the Kodak Theater and the Legendary Chicago Theater) would promise to create no fewer than 858 jobs and stage the acrobatic show 368 times per year.

With the loan situation behind Cirque and its partners, attention began to turn toward the question of bringing the company to Los Angeles in the first place. Considering that Cirque celebrated its 25th Anniversary in June 2009 and had plans to open VIVA ELVIS in Las Vegas by the end of that year, the LA Times pondered, “Hasn’t everyone seen at least one Cirque du Soleil show by now?”

It doesn’t matter, says James Hadley, senior artistic director for Cirque’s North American shows. “Our biggest challenge is not about diluting the brand,” Hadley said as he stood in the shade watching his performers go onstage at the Grove. “It’s letting people know each show is different. People see Cirque du Soleil once and think, ‘Well, I can cross that off my list.’ One of the reasons we came to the Grove is to show how different each show is.” On Sunday afternoon, performers from each of the six Vegas shows performed an excerpt from their shows.

The Kodak Theatre show would be new and centered on a history of the movies — as befits the Hollywood location. And referring to the legendary story of Laliberté’s gamble on Los Angeles in 1987, he said, “now to come back to Los Angeles is just a wonderful way to complete the circle.”

And how was the show fairing?

“It’s coming along,” Gilles Ste-Croix, Cirque du Soleil’s SVP of Creative Content said in Québecois-accented English, confirming that Cirque Hollywood was on track to launch sometime after the annual Oscars show in 2011.

“Right now, they will transform the theater because it’s a theater for the Oscar, but we want to have the possibility of [installing a] lift and all that, to have scenery changes, new rigging points and all that. So they have to transform the theater.”

Ste-Croix suggested that Cirque also will reconfigure the seating arrangement of the vast Kodak space to make it feel a bit more intimate. Although Cirque’s new Hollywood production will be performed year-round, for something on the order of 368 shows annually, it probably won’t be able to fill a 3,400-seat house for that many performances. After all, as tourist meccas go, Hollywood isn’t quite on the order of Las Vegas.

On September 22, 2010, Cirque du Soleil officially announced IRIS to the world.

The name of the show, IRIS, taken directly from a camera diaphragm as well as the colored iris of the human eye, presents an imaginary journey through the evolution of cinema – from the foundations of the art form to the bustle of the soundstage – through optical effects and film genres. IRIS transposes into a language of dance and acrobatics all of cinemas splendor, inventiveness and, above all, its sense of wonder. IRIS also conjures up a place between motion and picture, light and sound, which shifts constantly between reality and make-believe, to explore the limitless possibilities of cinema. By combining dance, acrobatics, live video, film footage and interactive projections, the show illustrates both the mechanics of cinema and its extraordinary power to deceive the eye through a number of “scenes” using acrobatics as their core, such as:

Aerial Straps Duo — In an atmosphere of light and shade, two acrobats soar through the air suspended from single or double straps. They take off high above the stage and land with grace and fluidity, delivering a performance that makes one think of an aerial hand-to-hand number.

Shadows and Contortion — In an evocation of shadow stories played out on prehistoric cave walls – the very beginnings of what eventually would become cinema – four contortionists adopt striking poses and undulate like dancing flames. The flexibility of their movements is amazing as they are transformed into living sculptures.

Hand to Hand — Two porters launch their partners into the air to perform stunning feats requiring absolute mastery and control. Generated live by their every move, the kaleidoscopic projections above the acrobats decompose motion to add a poetic dimension to their number.

Filmstrip — In a choreography that calls for high-speed precision, performers advance from one frame of film to the next to create the illusion of continuous movement.

Kiriki (Icarian Games) — The principle of Icarian games – one of the oldest circus arts disciplines – calls for a porter lying on his back spinning an acrobat with his feet. This dazzling number features eight acrobats who literally blur the lines between reality and the impossible as they push the act far beyond its traditional boundaries with cool daring.

Movie Set — Controlled chaos reigns over a succession of highly visual numbers and audacious plunges as a bold allusion to various aspects of filmmaking. The choreography brings the circus disciplines of teeterboard, Spanish web, Russian bars, aerial silk to floor gymnastics and original choreography.

Trapeze and Broom Manipulation — An artist on stage manipulates his broom while above him, a trapeze artist – the embodiment of his dream – performs with fantastic artistry. Their interaction turns into a gentle complicity.

Trampoline (The Rooftops) — In a tribute to gangster movies and to the work of stunt actors, trampolinists deliver a number packed with thrills on the roofs of buildings, multiplying their astounding leaps, flips and glides in a non-stop action movie atmosphere.

Hand Balancing — Playing the part of the show’s heroine Scarlett, a young woman balancing on canes performs a number infused with romanticism, subtlety and sinuous strength that captures the already conquered heart of Buster. Before it’s over, they will share a tender kiss.

Aerial Ball — In an aerial bungee ballet that pays tribute to 3D movies, women in costumes studded with crystal dive and soar in unison from the ceiling above the audience in a thrilling, swirling flight.

The show got off to a great start; however, by the time IRIS was celebrating its second anniversary, ripples of change were abound. Not only did the theater change hands (from Kodak to Dolby), but as early as summer 2012 (and unbeknownst to most) Hand Balancing and Hand-to-Hand acts had been cut from the show and the intermission removed. Other remaining acts were shortened so the run-time matched other resident productions: 90 minutes. And then shocking and sad news reached the fandom on the evening of November 30, 2012 – due to low ticket sales IRIS would have its final performance on Saturday, January 19, 2013. From IRIS’s Facebook page (where the news first broke):

After close to 500 well received shows at the world renowned
Dolby Theatre, the last performance of IRIS by Cirque du Soleil
will be January 19, 2013. Despite phenomenal reviews and
enthusiastic audience response, demand has not met projections.
We have been honored to work with both the City of Los Angeles
and the CIM Group to launch IRIS at this iconic location. It has
been a joy to stage IRIS in the beautiful state-of-the-art Dolby
Theatre and we appreciate the wonderful relationships we have
built in Los Angeles. For the time being, we will redeploy as
many as our artists and employees to other Cirque du Soleil
projects.

Performances of IRIS from 20 January through 26 January have
been canceled. Any customer who has purchased tickets for these
performances, please return to your point of sale for a refund
or exchange into another performance.

Indeed the Los Angeles Times asked in the wake of the shocking news: Why did the show fail? Their answer: IRIS just failed to ignite the passions and imagination of the Los Angeles populace.

Despite promises that “Iris” would run for 10 years, the consensus is that the show never captured the public’s imagination, confounded by a low level of excitement in Los Angeles and high ticket prices, which rose to as much as $253 for certain VIP packages.

“It didn’t capture the fancy of Angelenos like ‘Wicked’ or ‘The Lion King,’ which became must-see events,” said Leron Gubler, president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. “I did not hear a lot of people say you have to see ‘Iris.’”

Danny Elfman, who composed the music for “Iris,” said in an interview that he had expected the show to run “at least to the summer,” after which Cirque would make a decision whether or not to continue. “Everyone knew that the attendance was not up,” Elfman said. The Oscar-nominated composer, who lives in Los Angeles, said he was extremely happy with the show from an artistic point of view, but said that he was disappointed by the lack of general public awareness. “After a year of advertising, the fact that most people I ran in to had no knowledge of it being there says it all. It wasn’t able to get into the general consciousness,” Elfman said.

Cirque officials declined requests for comment. They also declined to provide box-office figures. At one point the top ticket price of $253 was a record high in Los Angeles. Company officials said that they expected Southern California residents to drive attendance in the first two years of the show’s run, and that then tourist interest would pick up, according to Gubler of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. But that obviously has not happened. Michael Ritchie, the head of Center Theatre Group, said that tourists who come to L.A. don’t usually put theater-going on their itineraries.

We here at Fascination are saddened that IRIS will not have the opportunity to work out the kinks in its cog and mature into one of the Cirque’s classic productions. But in amongst the uncertainty, the cast and crew are keeping their head up: they just celebrated their 500th performance (on December 9, 2012) in style. Will IRIS surface again in the future? Only time will tell. All that we do know is that artists who wish to continue their careers with Cirque du Soleil are being offered all available spaces and those who don’t are lining up new opportunities.

We wish them all luck and hope to be seeing them in the future!