======================================================================= ______ _ __ _ __ / ____/___ ___________(_)___ ____ _/ /_(_)___ ____ / / / /_ / __ `/ ___/ ___/ / __ \/ __ `/ __/ / __ \/ __ \/ / / __/ / /_/ (__ ) /__ / / / / /_/ / /_/ / /_/ / / / /_/ /_/ \__,_/____/\___/_/_/ /_/\__,_/\__/_/\____/_/ /_(_) T h e U n o f f i c i a l C i r q u e d u S o l e i l N e w s l e t t e r ------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.CirqueFascination.com ------------------------------------------------------------ ======================================================================= VOLUME 15, NUMBER 6 June 2015 ISSUE #137 ======================================================================= Welcome to the latest edition of Fascination, the Unofficial Cirque du Soleil Newsletter. Usually there's a long-winded discussion here about some of the shocking and/or unusual news and rumors that find their way across our desks here at Fascination, pieces that highlight new projects Cirque is undertaking, or even answers to questions brought up as we're doing a bit of research. Not this month. There's just too many little bits to talk about (from KURIOS VR to ALLAVITA! and more!), so rather than single out a couple to talk about here I'll just get on with it - this is a rather large issue! More about the world of Pandora, and TORUK - The First Flight, have come to light this month thanks to Cirque du Soleil's social outreach. We've collected these fantastic morsels - the "Enter Pandora" sweep- stakes search and "Inside the Creators Studio" texts - into "Exploring The World of Pandora" in our FEATURES section this month. If you're interested in TORUK - The First Flight like I am, you'll want to take a look at all the new information cirque has released on the project. Keith Johnson recently had the opportunity to catch not only KURIOS- cabinet of Curiosities under the Big Top but also see VAREKAI in a local arena. See what he thinks about the new touring show and how VAREKAI has fared in its transition to an arena-based show. (Hey, mine isn't the only opinion around here you know! :) ) And last, but not least, Michael Joseph Gross at Vanity Fair had quite the expose on Cirque this past month, focusing heavily on the circumstances surrounding Sarah Guillot-Guyard's death at KA back in 2013. It's a great read. As always we also have the posts made to Cirque's Facebook pages, and updates to Cirque's touring schedule. So, let's get started! /----------------------------------------------------\ | | | Join us on the web at: | | < www.cirquefascination.com > | | | | Realy Simple Syndication (RSS) Feed (News Only): | | < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?feed=rss2 > | | | | The Chapiteau-Fascination! Magazine: | | < http://www.cirquefanzine.com/ > | | | \----------------------------------------------------/ - Ricky "Richasi" Russo =========== CONTENTS =========== o) Cirque Buzz -- News, Rumours & Sightings o) Itinéraire -- Tour/Show Information * BigTop Shows -- Under the Grand Chapiteau * Arena Shows -- In Stadium-like venues * Resident Shows -- Performed en Le Théâtre o) Outreach -- Updates from Cirque's Social Widgets * Networking -- Posts on Facebook, YouTube & Twitter o) Fascination! Features *) "Exploring The World of Pandora" Edited By: Ricky Russo - Atlanta, Georgia (USA) *) "KURIOS and VAREKAI: Where Less is... about the Same" By: Keith Johnson - Seattle, Washington (USA) *) SPECIAL /// "Life and Death at Cirque du Soleil" By: Michael Joseph Gross, via Vanity Fair o) Subscription Information o) Copyright & Disclaimer ======================================================================= CIRQUE BUZZ -- NEWS, RUMOURS & SIGHTINGS ======================================================================= Fight Knocks Out Six Cirque Shows in Vegas {May.01.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- In a first for Las Vegas, six of eight Cirque du Soleil shows will shut down Saturday to serve as sold-out venues for the closed-circuit broadcast of the megafight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. Demand was so feverish that 18,000 seats for the six Cirque du Soleil show venues were sold out. “It’s not going to be an entertainment crowd anyway on Saturday,” said Jerry Nadal, senior vice president of Cirque du Soleil. “People are in town for one reason — the fight.” Only the aquatic themed “O” at Bellagio and “Mystere” at TI will remain open, Nadal said. As mammoth as the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight has become, a Muhammad Ali superfight would beat it. “If Ali was fighting today, they’d be delivering his money in a Brinks truck because of closed-circuit TV. That’s where the money is today,” said Gene Kilroy, Ali’s business manager for a decade. “The media is 80 percent larger today,” said Kilroy, a Las Vegas resident. The projected numbers are staggering: pay-per-view, 3 million buys (previous record, 2.4 million for Mayweather vs. Oscar de la Hoya in 2007); and $74 million in gate revenue, compared to the previous record of $20 million (Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez in 2013). Saturday’s fight should generate more than $400 million in revenue for the fighters, with Mayweather banking about $160 million and Pacquiao taking home $120 million. { SOURCE: Las Vegas Review-Journal | http://goo.gl/ryWxd0 } Up close and personal with Varekai’s performers {May.04.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai production is coming to Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum this May, but before the performers take the big stage, a few of them stopped by Vancity Buzz HQ to offer a closer look at some of their intense moves. The Varekai show has been touring the world for over 10 years and this will be its second time in Vancouver, with the last openeing in 2006. With over 50 artists travelling with the show, the arena production offers a bigger performance than the big top productions. “The show is still intimate but movements have to be bigger and everything has to be re-choreographed,” says Vanessa Napoli, publicist for the tour. In her opinion, the best thing about the upcoming show is the ability to bring it to more people. “The arena show is more accessible to people who can’t afford the big top experience. Even if you’re higher up, the seats are still pretty good.” For the most part, the Varekai story remains the same as it has been for over 10 years. Napoli says themes of rebirth and struggle are the underlying component of what makes the tale, about the Greek myth of Icarus, so important. Varekai re- imagines the classic story of what happens to Icarus after he flies too close to the sun and falls from the sky, landing in a forest of eclectic and exotic creatures. But still, Napoli confirms “the show has evolved so much. Technology and talent has evolved. New talent has come in and their skills constantly bring something unique to the show. The show will have the same story but it will feel different.” For the performers, the experience of starring in a Cirque du Soleil production is nothing short of a dream come true. “Varekai is the first show I ever saw and ever performed. It’s very special to me. The thing that I really love to do is my job,” said Soen Geirnaert, one of the show’s skilled performers from Brussels, Belgium. “My dream came true, after seven years of work. Every day I am still excited. We’re doing the same thing every day but it’s always different,” Geirnaert’s partner, Ayla Ahmadovoea from Azerbajan added. For Raphael Nepumoceno, who plays Icarus in the show, training began when he was only nine years old. “It was a dream to work here. I started martial arts at 9 years old, and 8 years later I started to do break dancing on the street with my friends. What I am doing now is very special to me because I can express my background.” Nepumoceno grew up in Rio, Brazil and has been with the company since 2011. Watching the artists stretch and bend in directions virtually unseen outside of a Cirque du Soleil production makes one think they must follow a very strict health and fitness regime, but that is not always the case. “It depends from person to person. Of course sometimes we can have a sweet treat, but if it’s getting too hard for my partner because I’m getting too heavy, then she needs to go work out,” Geirnaert joked. Even a kilogram of weight gain can impact partner work, but the performers are usually able to adjust with time. “We check our weight every Friday. We’re always exercising, training and on the treadmill,” Geirnaert added, on a serious note. The Varekai production visits 44 cities in a year and these performers estimate they have been to over 120 cities with the show. With the arena tours, they will typically tour for 10 to 13 weeks in a row and then receive two weeks off. The big top productions move much slower due to set-up and take-down time and allow the artists more rest. PHOTOS /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5880 > { SOURCE: Vancity Buzz | http://goo.gl/U5LU5X } Brisbane Cirque-inspired street art project unveiled {May.06.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Lord Mayor Graham Quirk has unveiled Brisbane’s new street art project along Coronation Drive in a world first collaboration with Cirque du Soleil. Comprising of four murals painted along the Coronation Drive overpass pillars, the artworks are inspired by Cirque du Soleil’s production TOTEM, currently showing in Brisbane. Local contemporary artist Matthew Stewart completed the project in only six days, despite Friday’s downpour. “The rain definitely added another day’s worth of work, but I’d been coming here since 5:30am for the last couple of days so I’d managed to get quite a bit done before the rain started really setting in,” he said. This collaborative public art installation is a world first for Cirque du Soleil, who selected Mr Stewart after seeing his work celebrating the Brisbane opening of The Lion King last year. “They gave me an open slather, so I basically came up with a concept, sent it over to their office in Montreal and they approved it immediately, so that was pretty amazing,” he said. “They left it completely to my interpretation.” The artist’s concept pays homage to TOTEM’s evolutionary theme, with each pillar beholding a set of individual, brightly- coloured eyes, an idea Cirque du Soleil artistic director Neelanthi Vadivel found “especially poignant”. “The eyes are windows into our world and all the enigmatic characters, but they’re also silent witnesses over Brisbane,” she said. “To be able to share this with Brisbane is something we’re really appreciative of.” After adding his own splash of paint to the street-art-style project, councillor Quirk thanked Cirque du Soleil as well as Mr Stewart, calling the murals a “wonderful offering” and “a brightening” in the day of pedestrians and cyclists on the Bicentennial bikeway to the city. “This is authorised art, this is the sort of stuff we love brightening up our infrastructure the way Matt has done,” he said. PHOTOS /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5888 > { SOURCE: ABC, Cirque du Soleil | http://goo.gl/tq704B } Graphic on CREACTIVE by Cirque du Soleil {May.06.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- PHOTO /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5902 > Place Ville Marie: a Montreal consortium for the Au Sommet Place Project {May.07.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Ivanhoé Cambridge, gsmprjct°, Claridge and Sid Lee/Cirque du Soleil Partnership announced today the creation of a consortium seeking to establish an observatory at the 1, Place Ville Marie building that will celebrate the cultural and culinary attractions of Montreal. The Montreal investors’ mandate is to develop new experiences to be offered on the upper four floors – the 43rd to 46th – of Montreal’s emblematic Place Ville Marie complex. “We are all very proud to announce this major project for Montreal,” said Alexandre Taillefer, Managing Partner of XPND Capital and shareholder of gsmprjct°. “The consortium members have been working very hard for nearly three years to envision what will become a must-see attraction, not only for tourists but for Montrealers too. We will be returning the top four floors of Place Ville Marie to their former glory.” The Au Sommet Place Ville Marie project, which will draw on some of Montreal’s best creative talent, will offer Montrealers, as well as tourists, a new entertainment and dining destination in downtown Montreal. The consortium is also proud to announce a collaboration with Les Enfants Terribles restaurants, which will offer a gastronomic experience. Offering stunning views of Montreal, Au Sommet Place Ville Marie will enable visitors to discover a new and unique view on the Saint Lawrence River, Mount Royal, the Quartier des spectacles and many more sites in the Montreal region. Construction on the project will begin this coming summer, with the opening planned for early 2016, a year before the 375th anniversary of the foundation of Montreal. Au Sommet Place Ville Marie will deploy around five areas within the tower: o) 46th floor: the Observatoire o) 45th floor: the Exhibition Gallery o) 44th floor: the Terrasses and Les Enfants Terribles o) 43rd floor: the Foyer o) Commercial level: the Reception and the Boutique The project will help to highlight the original, 1960s-style architectural heritage of Place Ville Marie. Whether visitors are looking to discover or rediscover the city, the facilities will celebrate Montreal’s unique character, while showcasing its diversity, its icons and its cultural mainstays. Au Sommet Place Ville Marie will also move to the beat of the city’s famed downtown events, festivals and seasons. More information will be announced in the coming months. Visit: www.ausommetplacevillemarie.com PHOTO /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5906 > { SOURCE: Canadian Newswire | http://goo.gl/wJjkNA } Cirque du Soleil’s yo-yo master shows off {May.08.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Things that most people can do with a yo-yo: flick it towards the ground and watch it not come back up. Some of the things Tomonari “Black” Ishiguro can do with a yo-yo: o) Create pentagrams. o) Twirl it in every direction imaginable without breaking radio equipment. o) Let it “sleep” for up to half-an-hour. o) Manage to make yo-yo interesting for Cirque du Soleil audiences. Ishiguro is a four-time world yo-yo champion and an unlikely highlight in the latest Cirque touring production Kurios. He stopped by the Eyeopener studio to show off. VIDEO /// < http://goo.gl/VIm8hy > { SOURCE: CBC.ca | http://goo.gl/xYqhyC } Building the Fantastical Bicycles for KURIOS {May.09.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Most mornings, Stephane Roy begins his day with a bike ride alongside his wife through the rolling hills of the Quebec townships north of Montreal. If that sounds like a fantasy, considering the beauty of the area, wait until you hear about his day job. Roy is the set and props designer for Cirque du Soleil’s Kurios, a new show currently running under the big tent in Calgary. Like most Cirque shows, Kurios offers up an entire fantastical universe that seems plucked straight from the imaginations of people like Roy. But what struck me while watching the show recently, because I’m a bike nerd, was the use of bicycles. Bikes seem to be everywhere in the show — transporting characters, spinning through acts and even being used as props for those trademark Cirque acrobats to contort their bodies around, which, unless you are lucky, may be the only time you’ll see a woman in tights using a bike in that way. So I jumped at the chance to speak with Roy on the phone from Quebec about bikes. He told me that use of bicycles was no accident. The decision to build the bicycle into the show so intricately was made early in its conception, not only for practical reasons, but because of the feelings and sentiments the machines evoke. The show is inspired by Paris of the early 1900s, when excitement for the future was wrapped up in the technology of the day and the world was in the midst of an iPhone-like craze for bicycles. In creating the kind of fantastical turn-of-the-century steampunk world of Kurios, the bicycle was a perfect fit, a kind of visual short-cut for the technological optimism of the time. Then there was the practical side of things. The simple mechanics of the bike were put to good use by Roy in moving props, sets and characters around the stage. “In circus, it’s the body that makes things move. We try to use biomechanics as much as possible,” Roy said. “The bicycle is one of the best examples of technology that comes from manpower.” Roy said building the perfect bikes for the show was a challenge. He experimented with the big-wheel-in-front penny farthing designs of the Victorian era, but eventually settled on more utilitarian models because he felt they fit the performance better. He was convinced that everyday Dutch-style bikes were the right fit, but tracking down suitable models with the right look was a bit of a challenge in Quebec. He eventually found some Second World War-era Dutch models with the right look online, and had them delivered to his workshop. Once there, he stripped the bikes down and got to work turning them into machines that could exist in the Kurios world. Plastic parts where replaced with leather. Some were outfitted with hooks that enabled them to be elevated above the stage. For parts of the show in which bikes pedal themselves, a remote- controlled motor, not unlike those found in toy cars, was hidden in some luggage strapped to the back rack and connected to the bike’s transmission. All of the bikes were converted to single-speed models for simplicity’s sake. But even that wasn’t as straightforward as you might think. For a scene involving a bike and a Russian cradle, in which a performer hangs by his knees while tossing a lithe acrobat about, the correct gear ratio had to be found. Too low might make for an awkward-looking start. Too high and the rider would have difficulty pedalling. Roy eventually settled on a gear that was big enough to allow for a smooth start while still enabling the performer to pedal smoothly. At one point, there were more than 10 bikes in the show, but several were eventually cut to streamline the performance. But in speaking with Roy, who has worked on more than 100 stage productions in his career, that experimentation seems to be part of the joy of his job. “It was a prop show, and it was crazy fun,” he said. “In the case of Kurios, the moment we started, it was a universe we loved. So it was easy.” And there’s little doubt those early morning bike rides had a little hand in the inspiration. { SOURCE: Calgary Herald | http://goo.gl/MKSxut } Cirque du Soleil Ignites Rock in Rio with Explosive Never-Before-Seen Performance {May.10.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- On May 8 at 5:30 p.m., the world-famous Cirque du Soleil kicked off Rock in Rio with an electrifying, never-before-seen performance on the Main Stage that featured a unique multi- sensory experience complete with astounding acrobatics, breathtaking aerial acts, live music and exciting pyro. Created specifically for Rock in Rio by Cirque du Soleil Artistic Director Sandi Croft, the 15-minute montage featured some of the most gifted performers from all of the resident shows in Las Vegas. Check out these photos! LINK /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5984 > { SOURCE: Las Vegas Informer | http://goo.gl/JRWJHb } Meet Michael Naumann – Production Manager, Varekai {May.11.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Just what does it take to move an entire arena-style circus around the planet? Michael Naumann, the production manager for the Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai knows the answer to that question, and it isn’t an easy process. “With an arena show, there’s a total of 18 trucks used for transport. It takes us about two-and-a-half hours to do our load-out in 18 trucks. We hire about 60 people on load-out days to pack up the show,” said Naumann. Crew arrived in Penticton on Sunday as they prepare for a five- day run of Varekai, which opens on Wednesday at the South Okanagan Events Centre. Naumann began his career with Disney on Ice in his hometown of Boise, Idaho. He was attending school for radiology when he was offered the chance to join the show’s road tour, so he postponed his education for what was originally going to be one year. He has been with Cirque du Soleil for nearly seven years now, starting as a carpenter on Saltimbanco in 2007. In his first two years, he found himself in a production stage manager position, and has since worked his way to being the production manager. He is the man in charge of the logistics of moving the Varekai production, as well as the technical integrity of the show. One of the more unique challenges he faces is figuring out how to handle intercontinental travel. Naumann says that North America is fairly easy to tour because of the newer arenas and having crews on hand who are used to working with the bigger shows. Europe however, provides completely new challenges to the tour. “In Europe the buildings are old, and they aren’t designed to hang the weight (of the equipment),” he said. Roughly 80,000 pounds of lighting, supports, and other various rigging equipment is set up to make the performance really dazzle. There are 110 rigging points in the ceiling structure, and 108 moving lights are used during Varekai. The South Okanagan Events Centre will challenge the Varekai crew a little bit more than normal, as the scoreboard must be lowered and removed. “The rigging is all done with boom lifts (in Penticton), so they can’t walk along the steel like they normally do. We have to go in a day before our normal load-in to hang all of our motors from the ceiling.” Naumann still has great appreciation for Cirque du Soleil, even after all this time. “It’s a great company to work for. It’s great to be a part of such a good production, the show quality is so high. You can walk out and watch a show, and sometimes you take it for granted, but it’s amazing what they do on stage every single day.” { SOURCE: Kelowna Daily Courier | http://goo.gl/ZnSpiz } See the First Promotional Art for NBC’s The Wiz Live! {May.11.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Following the successful live broadcasts of “The Sound of Music” and “Peter Pan,” NBC will debut a new live television production of the hit Broadway musical The Wiz Dec. 3, Robert Greenblatt, chairman, NBC Entertainment, announced March 30. Entering into a partnership with NBC on “The Wiz” — to be executive-produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron — is Cirque du Soleil, whose new stage theatrical division will co-produce the live TV event and then present it as a major Broadway revival for the 2016-17 season. Tony Award-winning director Kenny Leon will stage both the television production and Broadway revival in collaboration with Tony winner Harvey Fierstein, who will contribute new material to the original Broadway book by William F. Brown. “We love this yearly tradition and we’re more excited than ever to not only bring another Broadway musical to America’s living rooms, but also see it land on Broadway as well,” said Greenblatt in a statement. “It’s a natural next step for our live musical events and we’re so pleased to be in business with this award-winning creative team and Scott Zeiger, President and Managing Director of Cirque du Soleil’s new theatrical division. Cirque’s incredible imagination will help bring the fantasy world of Oz vividly to life and give this great show a modern spin on the age-old story we all love.” “We are delighted that NBC and Cirque du Soleil will present ‘The Wiz,’” added Zeiger. “It’s a musical I have wanted to produce for years and it’s the perfect show to present under the new Cirque du Soleil Theatrical banner.” “We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to not only produce this as our next live musical for NBC, but to then see it move to Broadway for a new generation to experience,” said Zadan. “It will be a joy to work again with Kenny Leon, who did ‘Steel Magnolias’ and ‘Raisin in the Sun’ with us,” added Meron. Universal Television will produce. Casting for both the NBC telecast and Cirque du Soleil’s Broadway production will be announced at a later date. William F. Brown wrote the book for the soulful contemporary retelling of L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” The Wiz also features music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls. The original 1974 production, directed by Geoffrey Holder and choreographed by George Faison, won seven Tony Awards including Best Musical. The premiere Broadway company featured Hinton Battle, Tiger Haynes, Stephanie Mills, Ted Ross, Dee Dee Bridgewater, André De Shields and Mabel King. Diana Ross and Michael Jackson starred in the film version. The Tony Award-winning score includes “Home,” “Ease on Down the Road,” and “If You Believe,” among others. The musical, according to NBC, is described as such: “Dorothy, a young woman from Kansas, is swept up in a tornado and relocated to a fantasy world that is inhabited by munchkins, good and bad witches, and, of course, flying monkeys. She eventually takes a path down a yellow brick road to find a wizard who can help her go home and along the way meets a scarecrow, tin man and cowardly lion, who all learn to help one another.” PHOTO /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=6015 > { SOURCE: Playbill | http://goo.gl/LZrXXm } VIDEO /// Quick glimpse of Matt Stewart’s tremendous work creating the TOTEM Murals {May.13.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Quick glimpse of Matt Stewart Creative's tremendous work of creating the 4 TOTEM Murals along Coronation Drive in Brisbane! This massive art piece will permanently bring the wonder and colors of TOTEM to the city after our stay! Only two weeks of performances left in Brisbane through May 24! VIDEO /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5991 > { SOURCE: Cirque du Soleil } KURIOS Performers WOW Calgary crowds {May.14.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- With a juggling act, a couple back-flips and general mischief, the cast of Cirque du Soleil’s latest show KURIOS paraded down Stephen Avenue to promote its last two weeks in Calgary. Six of the 46 cast members from the production meandered from Olympic Plaza to 2 Street SW, stopping for performances and a few selfies with fans from the crowd. Check out a video from the Calgary Sun here – http://goo.gl/frc0Cf – or the pictures from Metro News below! PHOTOS /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5997 > { SOURCE: Metro News, Calgary Sun | http://goo.gl/X3OcKv } Meet Tim Hastings – Stage Carpenter, Varekai {May.14.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Tim Hastings’ stage career started with building sets for Mount Boucherie school productions. Now, he’s doing it for Cirque du Soleil. Hastings is a stage carpenter for Cirque Du Soleil’s Varekai show, which is playing this week at Penticton’s South Okanagan Events Centre. Hastings got his start with Cirque when he was part of a local crew hired to help put a show together. Through this experience, he established relationships with the company and its production manager and “was drawn to its exceptional nature.” When a position opened up, he applied. “After the application, I didn’t expect to hear back for a few months because they were busy touring the Middle East, yet they called back in two days and said they needed me in 10. Therefore, I packed up my life in two weeks and jumped on a plane to Beruit.” Hastings says the job itself is as unpredictable and exciting as Cirque’s shows. Typically, he spends much more time travelling than at home. In his first 12 months on the job, Hastings visited 14 countries. “I went from blazing heat in Gran Canary to freezing cold in Alaska within a few months.” When asked if he misses the stationary life, Hastings agreed there is something special about home. “There is something about your own friends, couch and neighbourhood,” yet travelling is exciting, unpredictable and forever an adventure, he said. “Just for an example, my first day on the job. I got off the plane in Beruit and entered an airport full of army personnel because of a Syrian hostage situation. At that point, I knew that my wish for adventure was coming true.” As for the working hours themselves, they can range from relaxed to exceptionally demanding. “Frequently, I find myself working long days. Today, I started at 9 this morning and won’t wrap up until 10:30 this evening.” Hastings assures us this is required to execute a performance that will invigorate the audience, something he and his team of 100 Cirque employees are “entirely committed to.” This commitment is what leads Hastings to say, “I don’t have a job, I have a lifestyle.” It would seem that, akin to the spectacular physical feats achieved by the Cirque performers, Hasting’s job requires unique degrees of determination, drive and flexibility. As for the performance of Varekai, which will be orchestrated on his home turf, Hastings could not be more excited. “I cannot wait for those from my home to come and see my ‘office,’ so that they can truly experience why I do what I do. But to an equal level, I cannot wait to show off my hometown to my team.” { SOURCE: Kelwona Daily Courier | http://goo.gl/CMx6x8 } ALLAVITA! A World of Wonders! {May.17.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- On Friday May 15, ALLAVITA!, Cirque du Soleil’s show for EXPO Milano 2015 took to the stage. Created exclusively for the Open Air Theater San Carlo on the Expo site, the show will be performed every Wednesday through Sunday until August 30. As those who attended the full dress rehearsal confirmed, all expectations have been realized, and more! So, what is ALLAVITA! all about? (This story contained photos. See them here: Http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=6032) ACROBATICS ---------- Combining theater, dance, clowning, and humor, Cirque du Soleil has created an exciting and compelling event, suitable for all ages. ALLAVITA! is keyed on the themes addressed by EXPO Milano 2015, featuring bread, farming, sustainability, and the passage of time, as well as human history and how it has been impacted by, and how it has impacted, the environment. Thus it all begins with the actors handing out seeds to the audience. Then the action moves back to the stage, where a young boy – Leonardo – is given a magic Spelt seed by his grandmother. An imaginary friend – Farro – appears to the boy, from inside the seed, and takes him on a magical journey filled with wonder, courage, and hope, where they encounter hour-glasses, farmers, foreign lands, and women who might be flowers, or vice-versa. All of this is played out on a stage that is ablaze with color, resonating with music and acrobats a-leaping, all designed to conjure the world’s myriad cultures. The show is structured in 14 scenes and blends the marvels of contemporary circus with theater, dance and clownery. All woven together and further energized by original music, astonishing costumes, astounding make-up and multimedia video and lighting effects. COSTUMES -------- Another element that defines the characters in ALLAVITA!, in addition to the make-up explained to us by make-up designer Eve Monnier, is the costumes, whose colors, shapes and fabrics project the characters to the public, helping to characterize personalities and movements. We meet costume designer Marie Chantale Vaillancourt, who takes us inside the wardrobe department of ALLAVITA! Here – surrounded by costume designs, inspirational sketches, colors and fabrics – she tells us how she works and how costumes and accessories have lots of stories to tell. Clothes and accessories inspired by food and nature reflect the Theme of Expo Milano 2015. “I’ve been involved right from the beginning – explains Marie Chantale Vaillancourt – because we had to design costumes that would last all these performances and that would be safe for the performers, so I had to know what kinds of movements and acrobatics each character would be making. We had to think firstly about safety and elasticity, and only afterwards about shape and color. Each color is conceived for the tableaux which make up the show, and here food has been the dominant inspiration: for example, various costumes evoke the shapes and textures of certain vegetables”, she says, showing us her inspirational book and an example of a costume suggesting a red cabbage. As she leafs through her drawings she adds “For some of the hats I took ideas from corn and bread, for others – like these, with long blue tails – I evoked natural elements like water. There are roughly 124 complete costumes for this show, and more than 500 accessories, from shoes to hats. I’m so excited about our first night!” A WORLD OF WONDERS ------------------ The show will run until August 30, from Wednesday to Sunday at 21:30 until the end of July and at 21:15 during August. There are three ticket options, from 25 to 35 Euros, and an entrance ticket to Expo Milano 2015 must also be shown. Remember, EXPO Milano 2015 is the only place to see ALLAVITA! Ever. So don’t miss this chance! { SOURCE: Expo 2015 } Meet Krista Monson - Writer/Director Allavita! {May.18.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- What to do with a magic seed is the storyline of Allavita!, the exclusive show of Canada’s Cirque du Soleil created for Expo Milano 2015 to celebrate the nutrition for body and soul that nature offers to human beings. Inspired by the theme of the Italian world exposition “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life,” the show debuted earlier this week. It will be held every night from Wednesday to Sunday until Aug. 30 in the open theater of the Expo’s site, northwest of Milan. Allavita! (To life!) is about a young boy, Leo, who receives the gift of a magic seed from his grandmother before she dies, and he does not know what to do with it. A puppet, Farro (Spelt,) will guide Leo into a fantastic world in the discovery of all what nature can offer in terms of nutrition, love and energy. In fact Allavita! is a call to be aware of the roots that bring human beings together and to feed the life with passion. “I wanted to create a show that is fantastic in the universe of Cirque du Soleil but also with a message,” Krista Monson, the writer and stage director for Allavita!, told Xinhua in an interview shortly after the show’s dress rehearsal held earlier this week. “We want 10,000 people to walk out every night with 10,000 different interpretations,” she stressed. “Some people may gain a profound sense as we are talking about the history of the civilization of food, while the imagination and stage technology coming together with human performance may have an impact on others. This was my goal, to create something that all ages and nationalities would appreciate from different levels,” Monson said. The cast is composed of nearly 50 artists from different countries. “I work here with Canadians, Italians, Russians, Americans, Australians, Japanese, Spanish, Cubans … and the sand painter was Chinese, she spent two weeks with us to create the illustrations for the show,” Giacomo Marcheschi, an Italian performer who plays the protagonist role of Leo, told Xinhua. “So it is a great challenge, but we are a beautiful group full of collaboration spirit and energy,” Marcheschi, 28, added. When you have a passion, you would dedicate all the time to it, which is the reason why, at the end of the day, the two-year hard work to prepare the show was only a pleasure, he pointed out. In fact an international flavor has always characterized the Cirque du Soleil in its constant evolution, Yasmine Khalil, the president of 45 Degrees, the event division of Cirque du Soleil, explained. Founded in 1984, the world’s most popular circus production company has travelled across over 330 cities and 48 countries to evoke the emotions and provoke imagination of close to 160 million spectators. In a recent statement, Cirque du Soleil announced an agreement under which TPG, a global private investment firm, will acquire a majority stake to fuel growth and take the cirque to new markets. Cirque du Soleil’s founder, Guy Laliberte, will maintain a stake in the business. The statement also added that Fosun, one of China’s leading privately-owned investment groups, will acquire a minority stake and together the firms will work to launch and expand the Quebec-based circus empire in China. Khalil told Xinhua that having a Chinese investor will be “very exciting” for the Cirque du Soleil. “We really want to go to China and hope that with this new partnership we will have more opportunities to finally be able to go and show to the Chinese world what the Cirque du Soleil is all about,” she said. { SOURCE: Xinhua News Agency | http://goo.gl/ExvfgG } The craziest Mad Max stunts were inspired by Cirque? {May.19.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Of the trick motorcycle driving, masterful truck steering, skilled fighting and crazy pyrotechnics, the most inventive stunts in Mad Max: Fury Road were probably the ones with “pole- cats.” That’s what action unit director Guy Norris called his stuntmen who climbed and perched atop giant metal poles in sequences that were– surprisingly– inspired by Cirque du Soleil and Babe. Norris, who worked with Fury Road director George Miller on Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior over thirty years ago, also teamed up with Miller on the family-friendly pig movie. It was a scene in the latter film, says Norris, that got the filmmakers thinking about incorporating metal poles into the action epic Fury Road. “(In ‘Babe’) there was a street performer that was up a stationary pole,” Norris said. “It was a back lot sequence. I’m not sure it ended up in the movie.” The scene, which we assume it ended up on the cutting room floor (because we couldn’t find it), inspired Norris and Miller to look into what it would be like to have that street performer’s pole swing. And race 50mph across the desert. So Norris did some research. He went to Cirque du Soleil shows around the world and studied the Chinese pole routines. He then had a Cirque performer train Fury Road stuntmen, and then “overtrain” them to make sure the action was “as safe as it can possibly be” without using green screens. Norris’ team also had to develop the right pole, and landed on one with a high fulcrum that “was like the old fashion water duck statue at people’s desks,” and was balanced by weight at the top and very bottom. Stuntmen pushed and pulled the bottom part of the pole at specific angles with assistance from laser beams, while other performers climbed the poles. Then, it was a matter of taking the Chinese pole techniques on the road, so to speak. The pole action– complete with fights, climbs, and drivers who dismounted their vehicles to get on the poles– was done was done in one choreographed five-minute-or-so take that was “like one giant live event that allowed George to put the cameras where he wanted.” PHOTOS /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=6022 > { SOURCE: USA Today | http://goo.gl/ZZEq5D } Are You KURIOS About Virtual Reality? {May.19.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Montréal-based Félix & Paul Studios, a leading producer of cinematic live-action virtual reality content, today announced that its latest VR production, the groundbreaking virtual reality experience INSIDE THE BOX OF KURIOS – Cabinet of Curiosities from Cirque du Soleil, is now available to viewers via the Oculus Store on Samsung’s Gear VR Innovator Editions for the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy S 6. This unique ten-minute virtual reality experience – a coproduction between Félix & Paul Studios and Cirque du Soleil Média in partnership with Samsung for the launch of the new Gear VR virtual reality headset for the Galaxy S 6 – puts the viewer in the midst of a fantastical 3D world full of acrobats, jugglers and unusual curiosity acts. (The Samsung Gear VR, powered by Oculus, is now available for purchase at Best Buy stores nationwide and online at BestBuy.com and Samsung.com.) A STUNNING CINEMATIC VIRTUAL REALITY ------------------------------------ “We’re excited to team with Félix & Paul Studios and Cirque du Soleil Média to bring the stunning cinematic virtual reality experience INSIDE THE BOX OF KURIOS – Cabinet of Curiosities from Cirque du Soleil to a broad range of consumers through the Gear VR Innovator Edition for Note 4 and Galaxy S6,” said Nicholas DiCarlo, vice president and general manager of immersive products and virtual reality at Samsung Electronics America. “Working with our partners Oculus and Best Buy, Gear VR users will experience the magic of Cirque du Soleil in an immersive way unlike anything they have ever experienced before”. With INSIDE THE BOX OF KURIOS – Cabinet of Curiosities from Cirque du Soleil, Cirque du Soleil Média and Félix & Paul Studios have created an original virtual reality experience that immerses the viewer in a mysterious and fascinating realm that disorients viewers’ senses and challenges their perceptions. Just like the theatrical version of KURIOS, INSIDE THE BOX OF KURIOS transports the viewer into the curio cabinet of an ambitious inventor who defies the laws of time, space and dimension in order to reinvent everything around him. The virtual reality version allows anyone with a Samsung Gear VR and compatible Samsung smartphone to immerse themselves in a world that is an ingenious blend of unusual curiosity acts and stunning acrobatic prowess, showing that anything is possible through the power of imagination. “For this virtual reality experience, we teamed up with Cirque du Soleil and created an ambitious and imaginative show – for a single spectator. We want to take our audience of one on a journey that’s really unique, emotionally vibrant, and filled with moments of humor, surreal wonder and fantasy,” said Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël, co-founders of Félix & Paul Studios, who co-directed this experience with Michel Laprise, director of the theatrical version of Kurios. GO INSIDE THE BOX ----------------- INSIDE THE BOX OF KURIOS takes full advantage of Félix & Paul Studios’ proprietary VR production platform, including stereoscopic 360° recording and processing technology. VIDEO /// < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4r13LIfyQ > Michel Laprise: "At Cirque Du Soleil we are addicted to new stuff. We like to talk to the audience in different ways. We like to surprise people. When something like VR shows up of course we want to get involved. I love it! ... Virtual reality is not realistic, but is super authentic. And that's exactly what we wanted to achieve with Kurios." Felix Lajeunes: "Felix and Paul Studios is solely focused on the creation of virtual reality experiences. We needed to identify moments inside of the show that we believe could come together to create a great virtual reality experience. To record the experience we are using our proprietary recording technology that records images at 360° in 3D." Michel Laprise: The camera was on the stage so it was great to play around it. It's like having an audience member on the stage with us. The work was to concentrate on one viewer, without diminishing the level of energy and vitality. The viewer is the new person that arrives in the Cabinet des Curiosités. The viewer will get to experience very intimate and private moments and also grandiose moments. The modulation between those moments will create a very special emotional journey. We're just at the beginning of exploring new ways to tell our stories. ABOUT FELIX & PAUL STUDIOS -------------------------- Félix & Paul Studios is a virtual reality content and technology innovator focused on the creation of cinematic, highly immersive live-action virtual reality experiences. Led by directors and visual artists Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël, the Montreal- based studio has developed a proprietary platform for 3D 360° virtual reality filming, audio recording and production, as well as a unique, pioneering and in-depth approach to the new art of virtual reality storytelling. The studio’s creations set the highest quality standards in the industry and offer viewers a fully immersive sense of presence, time and space yet to be achieved on any other media platform. Félix & Paul Studios is backed by leading investors and advisors in the visual arts, entertainment and high tech industries. { SOURCE: PR Web, YouTube | http://goo.gl/ui1EkA } Five things about Cirque’s Tomonari (Black) Ishiguro {May.20.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- As a featured performer in Cirque du Soleil’s Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities, running until May 24, Tomonari (Black) Ishiguro wows the crowds with his you-have-to-see-it-to-believe it yo-yo routine. Ruth Myles finds out five fascinating things about this astounding artist. 1. After seeing some Americans walk the dog, as it were, Ishiguro set his sights on becoming a yo-yo master. “Before I went into a competition for the first time, I think I spent 10,000 hours practicing in four years.” That was 18 years ago in his native Japan; since then, he’s been world yo-yo champion twice and has given a TED Talk. These days, he works on developing the performance aspect of his routine as he transitions from being a competitor to a professional entertainer with Cirque du Soleil. 2. His year-long (and counting) stint with Kurios is a way of giving back to the community, both here and abroad. “When I won the world yo-yo contest, my dream came true, but when I went back to Japan, nothing changed in my life. I realized society didn’t value my passion. It wasn’t only for me. The world yo-yo contest is held every year, so world yo-yo champion is born every year, but most of them were not recognized by society. I wanted to change that situation.” 3. In his four-minute routine, Ishiguro uses three yo-yos custom-made for him by an engineer friend. (His collection at home numbers just under 1,000.) “A regular yo-yo is too small to show on such a big stage, so I need a big yo-yo. But if I make a big yo-yo, it is too heavy and difficult so I needed a light material. Aluminum is a popular light metal, but magnesium is lighter, so it’s one of the best materials to make this big yo- yo.” 4. Seeing Ishiguro perform, it is hard to believe that those are yo-yos he is manipulating, given how mind-bendingly dizzying his routine is. “That is not only me. Most of us (in Kurios) are performing really amazing or sometimes crazy tricks, but because we are so used to it, sometimes it looks not very difficult. It’s not really important to me to show this is really, really difficult. Asking the audience to enjoy the show is more important.” 5. Given that level of difficulty, things are bound to go awry. What then? “Most of the tricks, I have alternative plans. If I make a mistake with this trick, I adjust with that one. I have so many patterns to correct,” Ishiguro says. (And if you’ve seen anyone perform a yo-yo routine in the past decade, chances are that it contains at least one trick Ishiguro pioneered. “Sometimes, I try not to hide the mistake and that is fine. As I said before, it’s a communication with the audience so I always want to be honest.” { SOURCE: Calgary Herald | http://goo.gl/DK7Oom } Fathom Events: One Night for One Drop {May.21.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Fathom Events is thrilled to bring One Night for ONE DROP Imagined by Cirque du Soleil to select cinemas nationwide in an incredible one-night event on Wednesday, June 10 at 7:30 p.m. (local time). One Night for ONE DROP is a completely original performance that occurred when world renowned performers, alongside artists from all eight Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil shows, volunteered their time for the One Drop Foundation to help raise awareness for global water issues. Produced and created by Mukhtar O.S. Mukhtar, this cinema event includes the performance captured in March of this year at The Beatles LOVE Theatre at The Mirage along with additional behind-the-scenes footage. EXPLORING THE LIVES ------------------- Through the Eyes of One, We Explore the Lives of Many Walking for water has been the life story of many women from developing countries. Who are they? A woman living in a world of water hovers above our world. Who is she? What is her connection to these women who spend their days gathering water for their families? Through the eyes of a woman from her world of water, an exploration into the lives of six different women on their journey to find water is taking place. Each of these women has encountered uniquely different life experiences from their explorations, gatherings and surroundings. It is through her eyes that we see stories of love in its many infinite forms and the sacrifices that we must make in our determination to survive. The beautiful discovery of realizing one’s individuality gives way to the daily 9 to 5 grid of systematic existence. Some will follow their dreams, while others will choose to forego their dreams to the realities of their life. At the end, what will your memories hold for you? Through her eyes, we experience their lives. Through her eyes, we experience our lives. Through her eyes, we are all connected. EVENT INFORMATION ----------------- Date: Wednesday, June 10 Time: 7:30 p.m. (local time) Run Time: 1 hours 30 minutes (approximate) GET YOUR TICKETS HERE: < http://www.fathomevents.com/event/one-night-for-one-drop > SEE A PREVIEW HERE: < https://youtu.be/y2HKsDm4n6M > { SOURCE: Fathom Events } “For the Record: BAZ” Coming to LIGHT this Summer {May.22.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- A new musical spectacular featuring Baz Luhrmann’s greatest works will be joining Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey on the Vegas strip. Cirque du Soleil Theatrical and For The Record have teamed up for a Mandalay Bay residency to present a unique tribute to the Oscar-nominated director, Vegas style. For The Record: BAZ will blend moments from Moulin Rouge, The Great Gatsby and Romeo + Juliet along with choreography by Emmy- nominated Spencer Liff (So You Think You Can Dance). The modern cabaret highlighting Luhrmann’s memorable films will be the newest addition to the Strip as an extension of LIGHT at Mandalay Bay – a nightclub that regularly features Cirque du Soleil performers. “When we discovered For The Record we instantly knew that their vision of turning popular cinema into immersive entertainment would be a perfect match for Las Vegas,” said Scott Zeiger, president of Cirque du Soleil Theatrical. “We are excited about this unique partnership and thrilled to bring BAZ to LIGHT at Mandalay Bay in this uniquely staged residency.” Rumer Willis and Evan Rachel Wood have participated as part of For The Record’s rotating cast that blends music and cinema by showcasing the works of Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, John Hughes and Robert Zemeckis. The spectacular, created by Shane Scheel, Christopher Lloyd Bratten and Anderson Davis, will give audiences the feeling of being at a rock concert, musical and nightclub at the same time. Preview Performances begin June 19th. Opening Night: June 26th. CHECK OUT BAZ AT LIGHT HERE: < http://thelightvegas.com/baz/ > { SOURCE: Billboard | http://goo.gl/3NHd7g } Laliberté eyes Île Ste-Hélène for Pangéa project {May.27.2015} ----------------------------------------------------- Reports of Cirque du Soleil co-founder Guy Laliberté eyeing part of Île Ste-Hélène for his special Pangéa project were met with some hesitation on Tuesday. According to Le Devoir, Laliberté is coveting a 130,000-square- metre part of the island that would be transformed into a mix of public gathering spaces and walking trails. Laliberté’s Pangéa project is reportedly supposed to be a new way of commemorating the dead in a more interactive way than usual funeral ceremonies. The site itself would look to include room for private funerals, a museum, a restaurant and a cemetery for pets. In a news conference Tuesday, Mayor Denis Coderre said it was too early to comment on the project or any negotiations that have happened between the city and Laliberté. He added that he loves Laliberté’s vision, however, and that he wants there to be a relationship between the city and the businessman. Laliberté reportedly wants the project to be completed in time for Montreal’s 375th anniversary in 2017. Parts of Île Ste-Hélène were deemed heritage sites in 2007 by the city of Montreal. Dinu Bumbaru, of Héritage Montréal, said the project shouldn’t even be considered on the island. He agreed the island is underused and underappreciated, but cautioned the consequences of selling off public land. “It’s Montreal’s first park. If we let this one go, what’s next” he asked. He said the fact that the project is being discussed openly shows the dire need for the city to establish a clear plan for Parc Jean Drapeau on a whole. “Just look at Place des Nations,” he said. “It was a sign of Montreal’s coming of age as a world-class metropolis and now it’s used to store picnic tables.” Bumbaru said he feels the idea of selling off a public park, and losing many of the trees along with it, would never be considered if it wasn’t Île Ste-Hélène. “Maybe it’s too far from the heart of the city for people to care,” he said. “I think it’s an interesting idea, but this just isn’t the right place to do it. Period.” { SOURCE: Montreal Gazette | http://goo.gl/ujE8fX } ======================================================================= ITINÉRAIRE -- TOUR/SHOW INFORMATION ======================================================================= o) BIGTOP - Under the Grand Chapiteau {Amaluna, Corteo, Koozå, OVO, Totem & KURIOS} o) ARENA - In Stadium-like venues {Quidam, Varekai & TORUK} o) RESIDENT - Performed en Le Théâtre {Mystère, "O", La Nouba, Zumanity, KÀ, LOVE, Believe, ZarKÀna, MJ ONE & JOYÀ} NOTE: .) While we make every effort to provide complete and accurate touring dates and locations available, the information in this section is subject to change without notice. As such, the Fascination! Newsletter does not accept responsibility for the accuracy of these listings. For current, up-to-the-moment information on Cirque's whereabouts, please visit Cirque's website: < http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/ >. ------------------------------------ BIGTOP - Under the Grand Chapiteau ------------------------------------ Amaluna: Madrid, ES -- May 6, 2015 to Jun 21, 2015 PortAventura, ES -- July 3, 2015 to Aug 23, 2015 Brussels, BE -- Sep 11, 2015 to Oct 11, 2015 Paris, FR -- Nov 5, 2015 to Dec 13, 2015 London, UK -- Jan 16, 2016 to Feb 14, 2016 Corteo: Mérida, MX -- Jun 25, 2015 to Jul 12, 2015 Guadalajara, MX -- Jul 30, 2015 to Aug 16, 2015 Mexico City, MX -- Sep 3, 2015 to Nov 22, 2015 ** CORTEO TO CLOSE IN MEXICO CITY ** Koozå: Columbus, OH -- Jun 4, 2015 to Jul 5, 2015 Virginia Beach, VA -- Jul 16, 2015 to Aug 16, 2015 Austin, TX -- Sep 3, 2015 to Sep 27, 2015 Vancouver, BC -- Oct 29, 2015 to Dec 13, 2015 Kurios: Denver, CO -- Jun 11, 2015 to Jul 26, 2015 Chicago, IL -- Aug 6, 2015 to Sep 20, 2015 Costa Mesa, CA -- Oct 15, 2015 to Nov 29, 2015 Los Angeles, CA -- Dec 10, 2015 to Feb 7, 2016 Atlanta, GA -- Mar 3, 2016 to May 8, 2016 (**) Ovo: Sendai, JP -- Apr 23, 2015 to Jun 7, 2015 Totem: Adelaide, AU -- Jun 11, 2015 to Jul 12, 2015 Perth, AU -- Jul 31, 2015 to Sep 20, 2015 ------------------------------------ ARENA - In Stadium-Like Venues ------------------------------------ Quidam: Stockholm, SE -- Jun 3, 2015 to Jun 6, 2015 Krakow, PL -- Jun 12, 2015 to Jun 14, 2015 Gdansk, PL -- Jun 18, 2015 to Jun 21, 2015 Tel Aviv, IL -- Jul 2, 2015 to Jul 16, 2015 Bangkok, TH -- Jul 29, 2015 to Aug 3, 2015 Varekai: Edmonton, AB -- Jun 18, 2015 to Jun 21, 2015 Winnipeg, MB -- Jun 24, 2015 to Jun 28, 2015 Ottawa, ON -- Jul 2, 2015 to Jul 5, 2015 Baltimore, MD -- Jul 8, 2015 to Jul 12, 2015 Boston, MA -- Jul 15, 2015 to Jul 19, 2015 Fairfax, VA -- Jul 22, 2015 to Jul 26, 2015 Duluth, GA -- Jul 29, 2015 to Aug 2, 2015 Tampa, FL -- Aug 5, 2015 to Aug 9, 2015 Sunrise, FL -- Aug 12, 2015 to Aug 23, 2015 Nashville, FL -- Aug 26, 2015 to Aug 30, 2015 Toronto, ON -- Sep 2, 2015 to Sep 6, 2015 Berlin, DE -- Oct 8, 2015 to Oct 11, 2015 Leipzig, DE -- Oct 14, 2015 to Oct 18, 2015 Stuttgart, DE -- Oct 21, 2015 to Oct 25, 2015 Mannheim, DE -- Oct 28, 2015 to Nov 1, 2015 Vienna, AT -- Nov 4, 2015 to Nov 8, 2015 Dortmund, DE -- Nov 11, 2015 to Nov 15, 2015 Cologne, DE -- Nov 18, 2015 to Nov 22, 2015 Innsbruck, AT -- Nov 25, 2015 to Nov 29, 2015 Munich, DE -- Dec 2, 2015 to Dec 6, 2015 Vitoria-Gasteiz, ES -- Jan 27, 2016 to Jan 31, 2016 Lyon, FR -- Feb 3, 2016 to Feb 7, 2016 Hamburg, DE -- Feb 10, 2016 to Feb 14, 2016 Luxembourg, LU -- Feb 17, 2016 to Feb 21, 2016 Hanover, DE -- Feb 24, 2016 to Feb 28, 2016 Montpellier, FR -- Mar 17, 2016 to Mar 20, 2016 Nice, FR -- Mar 23, 2016 to Mar 27, 2016 Nantes, FR -- Nov 16, 2016 to Nov 20, 2016 Toulouse, FR -- Nov 23, 2016 to Nov 27, 2016 Strasbourg, FR -- Nov 30, 2016 to Dec 4, 2016 TORUK - The First Flight: Lafayette, LA -- Nov 20, 2015 to Nov 22, 2015 Montreal, QC -- Dec 26, 2015 to Jan 3, 2016 Auburn Hills, MI -- Jan 22, 2016 to Jan 24, 2016 North Little Rock, AR -- Feb 19, 2016 to Feb 21, 2016 North Charleston, SC -- Feb 26, 2016 to Feb 28, 2016 Tulsa, OK -- Mar 25, 2016 to Mar 27, 2016 Kansas City, MO -- Apr 1, 2016 to Apr 3, 2016 Louisville, KY -- Apr 29, 2016 to May 1, 2016 Cincinnati, OH -- May 5, 2016 to May 8, 2016 Hamilton, ON -- May 20, 2016 to May 22, 2016 London, ON -- May 27, 2016 to May 29, 2016 Providence, RI -- Jun 3, 2016 to Jun 5, 2016 Raleigh, NC -- Jun 24, 2016 to Jun 26, 2016 --------------------------------- RESIDENT - en Le Théâtre --------------------------------- Mystère: Location: Treasure Island, Las Vegas (USA) Performs: Saturday through Wednesday, Dark: Thursday/Friday Two shows Nightly - 7:00pm & 9:30pm 2015 Dark Dates: o July 15 o September 10 - 18 o November 11 Added performances in 2015: o April 2 o December 31 (only 7 pm performance) "O": Location: Bellagio, Las Vegas (USA) Performs: Wednesday through Sunday, Dark: Monday/Tuesday Two shows Nightly - 7:30pm and 10:00pm 2015 Dark Dates: o June 14 o August 3 - 11 o October 11 o November 30 - December 15 Added performances in 2015: o March 17 and 31 o December 29 La Nouba: Location: Walt Disney World, Orlando (USA) Performs: Tuesday through Saturday, Dark: Sunday/Monday Two shows Nightly - 6:00pm and 9:00pm 2014 Dark Dates: o November 2 - 5 o December 7 - 9 Zumanity: Location: New York-New York, Las Vegas (USA) Performs: Tuesday through Saturday, Dark Sunday/Monday Two Shows Nightly - 7:00pm and 9:30pm (Only 7:00pm on the following days in 2015: January 20, May 8, May 15, May 19, May 20, and December 31) 2015 Dark Dates: o June 16 o August 16 - 31 o October 31 o December 6 - 14 Added performance in 2015: o December 27 KÀ: Location: MGM Grand, Las Vegas (USA) Performs: Saturday through Wednesday, Dark Thursday/Friday Two Shows Nightly - 7:00pm and 9:30pm (Only 7 pm performances on May 9, 16 and June 21) 2015 Dark Dates: o May 30 - June 5 o August 5 o September17 - 25 o November 18 Added performances in 2015: o January 1 - 2 o April 3 LOVE: Location: Mirage, Las Vegas (USA) Performs: Thursday through Monday, Dark: Tuesday/Wednesday Two Shows Nightly - 7:00pm and 9:30pm (Only 7:00p.m. performances on May 15-16, June 19-21, December 31) (Only 4:30p.m. & 7:00p.m. performances on July 4) 2015 Dark Dates: o July 28 – August 5 o September 15 – 17 o October 20 – 22 o December 1 – 16 Added performances in 2014: o June 9 o December 30 CRISS ANGEL BELIEVE: Location: Luxor, Las Vegas (USA) Performs: Wednesday through Sunday, Dark: Monday/Tuesday Two Shows Nightly - 7:00pm and 9:30pm 2015 Show Schedule: o Wednesday: 7:00pm & 9:30pm (only 7:00pm on January 7, February 4 - 25, September 30) o Thursday: 7:00pm & 9:30pm (only 7:00pm on January 8-29, December 31) o Friday: 7:00pm & 9:30pm (only 7:00pm on January 9–30, February 6, February 20 – 27, March 6 – 13, May 1 – 22, June 5, June 19, September 11–25, October 2–9, October 23–30, December 4 11, December 25) o Saturday: 7:00pm & 9:30pm (only 7:00pm on May 2–16, June 20, July 4, October 31) o Sunday: 7:00pm & 9:30pm (only 7:00pm on February 8–22, March 1–15, April 26, May 24, June 7, June 21, September 13–27, October 4–25, November 1–8, November 22–29, December 6–13) 2015 Dark Dates: o May 25 – June 2 o June 22 – 30 o August 31 – September 8 o November 9 – 17 o December 14 – 22 Added Performances in 2015: o December 29 ZARKÀNA: Location: Aria, Las Vegas (USA) Performs: Friday through Tuesday, Dark: Wednesday/Thursday Two Shows Nightly - 7:00pm and 9:30pm 2015 Dark Dates: o July 14 o September 6 - 14 o November 10 Added Performances in 2015: o December 28 MICHAEL JACKSON ONE: Location: Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas (USA) Performs: Two Shows Nightly - Dark: Wednesday/Thursday Schedule: 7:00pm & 9:30pm on Friday, Saturday, Monday & Tuesday 4:30pm & 7:00pm on Sunday (Only 7:00pm on January 12, 19, & 26, February 9, 16, & 23) (Only 4:30pm & 7:00pm performances on July 4) 2015 Dark Dates: o June 3 – 18 o August 11 o October 14 – 22 o December 15 Added performances in 2015: o August 19 o November 25 o December 30 JOYÀ: Location: Riviera Maya, Mexico Performs: Tuesday through Saturday, Dark: Sunday/Monday One/Two Shows Nightly: 9:00pm (Weekdays) 7:00pm & 10:15pm (Fri, Sat & Holidays) Prices: o) VIP Show Dinner & Champagne [RED] — $MXN 2,970.00 o) Show Dinner and Champagne [BLUE] — $MXN 2,178.00 o) Show and Champagne [GREEN] — $MXN 1,452.00 o) Show Only [ORANGE] — $MXN $1,056 o) High Stools (Show Only) [PURPLE] — $MXN 858.000 ======================================================================= OUTREACH - UPDATES FROM CIRQUE's SOCIAL WIDGETS ======================================================================= o) Networking -- Posts on Facebook, YouTube & Twitter o) Special -- Notes From The Trapeze... --------------------------------------------------- NETWORKING: Cirque on Facebook, YouTube & Twitter --------------------------------------------------- {Compiled by Keith Johnson} ---[ AMALUNA ]--- {May.06} This is what the Amaluna artists see before they go on stage. LINK /// < https://goo.gl/SxakHd > {May.07} Our Big Top is almost ready to welcome you. Are you ready to enter the mysterious world of Amaluna? LINK /// < https://goo.gl/OUjbxF > ---[ CORTEO ]--- {May.03} Today is our last show in Bogotá. Thank you for giving us such amazing energy. LINK /// < https://goo.gl/9Sg34x > {May.07} This is the first time that Cirque du Soleil will visit Merida. Out team is working hard to make it reality. LINK /// < https://goo.gl/C0XpAA > {May.10} Happy Mother’s Day! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/1LCEdc > {May.12} Come on, I am ready to catch you! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/j61yHj > {May.21} The biggest shoes are for our clown giant, and the smallest shows are for Valentyna! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/GVHWD5 > {May.26} Flying like a bird during teeterboard training. LINK /// < https://goo.gl/rAb4RA > {May.29} Colorful makeup. LINK /// < https://goo.gl/SklOiC > ---[ CRISS ANGEL BELIEVE ]--- {May.18} Seeing is believing! Witness the most spectacular illusions from the magician of the century. LINK /// < https://goo.gl/sqgP5H > ---[ KOOZA ]--- {May.21} The KOOZA cast and crew are on their way to Columbus!! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/VdpS18 > ---[ KURIOS ]--- {May.12} Great morning on site with CTV Calgary. We are here for only 2 more weeks, don't miss the chance to come see us before we head to Denver, CO. LINK /// < https://goo.gl/rkAb6q > {May.14} Lovin' this drawing done yesterday for a preview of the Denver Chalk Art Festival. Can’t wait to see all the artists do their KURIOS inspired art June 6th and 7th! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/mss8GU > {May.20} Hey Denver! We're coming your way very soon! We hope we spark your KURIOS-ity… LINK /// < https://goo.gl/ich6t9 > {May.21} You've been amazing, Calgary! LINK /// < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyiprTCf0TE > {May.29} Come and see us at CicLAvia in Pasadena to experience our exclusive KURIOS zone! LINK /// < http://www.ciclavia.org/ciclavia_pasadena > {May.31} This bike experience tests if reality is relative at CicLAvia today in Pasadena! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/LirXoI1/ > {May.31} Thanks Pasadena and Bidlane.com for an awesome LicLAvia event today! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/HjyIff > ---[ OVO ]--- {May.07} Congratulations on OVO 50,000 spectators in Sendai!! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/czCj6h > {May.23} Ant rehearsal. LINK /// < https://goo.gl/r6elyv > {May.25} OVO Sendai performances were seen by 100,000 people! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/CVUCw7 > ---[ QUIDAM ]--- {May.04} After a very successful run, this is how we feel leaving Russia. LINK /// < https://goo.gl/S359tW > {May.09} A colorful group of Quidams were part of The Color Run in Linkoping today and by the look on their [gold!] faces we can say it was the happiest 5K on the Planet!!! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/nRbtR4 > {May.14} People in Goteborg were just walking by on the street, relaxing in the park on sunny holiday off and then BAM! there was the Quidam Street Team. What would YOU do if you stumbled across these characters!? LINK /// < https://goo.gl/d6j1Oq > LINK /// < https://goo.gl/vkORQ0 > {May.16} Gothenburg Street Team Papasketball! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/NOvww4 > ---[ TOTEM ]--- {May.19} Our bandleader Josh Geisler in action during Rings Trio! Did you know, the live band is following and reacting to the action on stage in real time? Josh listens to the General Stage Manager, watches the acts carefully, plays guitar, triggers electronic musical cues and directs the 5 other musicians and two singers! That's multitasking! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/ChdGQ4 > {May.21} As we travel around the world, our cast & crew members get to fully experience different cities and feel like locals...even miles away from their hometown! Visit Brisbane asked some of our artists to list their favorite Queensland activities! Take notes of these good addresses. Guilhem Cauchois, Trapeze: http://cirk.me/brisbane1 Jonathan Buese, High Bars: http://cirk.me/brisbane2 Annette Bauer, Musician: http://cirk.me/brisbane3 {May.24} The 5:00pm show ended less than an hour ago and we are already tearing down the stage! Thank you Brisbane, you have been an amazing cheerful audience! Watch out Adelaide, you are next and we are coming from Brisbane with loads of energy - it must be the Queensland sun!! LINK /// < https://goo.gl/4ITK8D > {May.29} As we are getting ready for Adelaide, enjoy this making-of video of our Brisbane Street Art murals! Mat Stewart Creative spent 8 days painting 4 pylons of Coronation Highway with designs inspired by TOTEM characters! LINK /// < https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=20&v=BhOcwSqZXBc > ---[ VAREKAI ]--- {May.02} A very special THANKS/ MERCI to the students of Pen High for their amazing artwork inspired by Varekai! We hope you enjoy the show! LINK /// < http://goo.gl/YT8xwx > {May.06} Check it out! Our artists had the opportunity to collaborate with the students from The Art Institute of Portland in the creation of this art-inspired kaleidoscopic video of the story of Icarus coming to life on the streets of Portland. LINK /// < https://goo.gl/8Eno9P > {May.07} Portland! If you are hesitant about coming out to see Varekai at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, check out this review from The Orgonian! LINK /// < http://goo.gl/qAbQR1 > {May.10} One special fan got the chance to wish her mom a Happy Mother's Day from some characters of her mom's favorite Cirque show! And that show just so happened to be Varekai. For all the moms out there... Happy Mother's Day from Varekai!! ? LINK /// < https://goo.gl/iWgtQj > {May.13} Check out the inspirational stories of 4 of our amazing and talented women who perform on the Varekai stage night after night. --------------------------------------- SPECIAL: Notes From The Trapeze... --------------------------------------- Notes from the Trapeze: Little Lights in the Varekai Forest By Kerren McKeeman As little girls, we felt joy. We felt wonder, we felt awe. A falling leaf mesmerized us; a playing cat stopped us in our tracks; the wind in the trees enveloped us in a state of utter adoration and complete reverie. What is it that is so beautiful about a little girl who stands captivated— every ounce of her body, gripped and focused? She is in rapture, fear erased by a pure, pure love. The light in her eyes is insuppressible and could illuminate the darkest of skies. Three-year old Arisa stood transfixed; her sisters were throwing the shiny, silver batons around in her living room and she couldn’t take her eyes off the flashy movement. Her fascination was so pure and strong it grew; by the time Arisa was an adult her love of baton had brought her to win six world championships. After she learned her coach’s moves she went on to create her own. Arisa realized that with the baton she could shatter limits; by herself she could touch only what was in arm’s reach, but with the baton, her world became as high or as far as she could throw it. Her favorite time to practice was outside at night, because when she threw the baton she realized she could touch the stars. It was an early morning on her eighth birthday; Alona was upside down balanced on two hands— she breathed in, engaged every muscle in her body, shifted weight onto her right hand and... lifted her left arm. She held it! For five seconds she kept the balance, and everything stopped. Alona was hypnotized by the stillness. At age four, Alona began her handstand training on the road with her parents, as they performed with traveling circuses in Europe. Training was grueling, but Alona had found a peacefulness on her hands unlike anywhere else. As she grew up, she saw many male handbalancers making sharp, angular shapes and many female balancers performing contortion— over the years she combined what she liked of the two to form her own unique shapes. Now, every time she finds that perfect balance, she is brought back to the first time she realized she could place herself and the world in perfect equilibrium. Only five years old, Isabelle stood onstage; she looked her sister in the eye, they breathed in...what followed was a beautiful song, flowing through the two sisters like breeze running through a field of tall grass. Only eighteen months apart, the girls were classically trained in voice by their mother. Although very young, Isabelle was enraptured by what song taught her about life; no matter what happened, she could root her feet to the ground, lift her chest to the sky, and simply take another breath. As life presented challenges, Isabelle knew there would be an answer because she remembered the little girl inside who discovered the secret: take a deep breath and the solution will come. For one triumphant moment, I stood on the floor looking up at my crib in pure delight; I had climbed out of it. At eighteen months, I had found that there was so much adventure in climbing, going up; there was a certain peace up there, a new perspective from above. At age twelve, when I found trapeze, I felt that no matter what my reality was on the ground, I could rise above it the when I flew into the air. There was such freedom in flight! And in that moment of suspension, gravity is defied and my breath is swept away— the air caresses my face and pulls at my hair— in that moment everything takes off... and anything and everything feels possible. Years later we are brought together as adults into the Varekai forest. We are women but that little girl still lives inside, she comes to life onstage: Arisa holds the whole world in her fingertips; Alona can make the world stand still; Isabelle can find a solution to anything with one deep breath; and when I lift off the ground, I feel that anything is possible. So when we step onto the stage every night, it is perhaps more than a memory that we feel, it might just be that little girl in us— with a light in her eyes— who is bravely leading the way. ======================================================================= FASCINATION! FEATURES ======================================================================= o) "Exploring The World of Pandora" Edited By: Ricky Russo - Atlanta, Georgia (USA) o) "KURIOS and VAREKAI: Where Less is... about the Same" By: Keith Johnson - Seattle, Washington (USA) o) SPECIAL /// "Life and Death at Cirque du Soleil" By: Michael Joseph Gross, via Vanity Fair ------------------------------------------------------------ "Exploring The World of Pandora" Edited By: Ricky Russo - Atlanta, Georgia (USA) ------------------------------------------------------------ Earlier in the month Cirque du Soleil invited us to explore the distant planet of Pandora (in similar vain to Google’s Sensory Chrome Experiment: “Movi Kanti Revo”) to unearth artifacts to piece together the identities of five ancient clans. The more artifacts you found, the more information you unlocked, and the closer you got to winning a one-of-a-kind experience with three of your closest friends. In order to unlock the sweepstakes you had to collect at least 12 of these artifacts (but they were easy to spot), but we didn't stop exploring once we did so. There were 25 total artifacts to find in the jungles of Pandora, five for each clan, and in doing so we learned quite a bit about those clans, and what possibly to expect from "TORUK - The First Flight" itself! So, here's what we've learned: CLAN OMATICAYA -------------- OMATICAYA SYMBOL -- Deep in the heart of the jungle, in the alcoves and hollows of a soaring Hometree, is the habitat of the highly spiritual Omaticaya clan. The Hometree is an individual tree that grows as a mighty structure. For the Omaticaya clan, their home is an ever-present symbol of the strength in community. The Omaticaya are also renowned for their stunning textiles and weaving capabilities. Their intricate patterns create some of the most sophisticated fabrics and structures in all the land. The unbreakable focus and dexterity of the Omaticaya at the loom makes this one of the most mesmerizing sights to be seen on Pandora. MOTHER LOOM -- Perhaps the most significant piece of Omaticaya culture is the Mother Loom. It stands in a place of honor inside the Omaticaya home, appropriately called the Hometree. For the Omaticaya, time at the loom is just as much about the practice of craft as it is about producing selfless joy. Each textile is the output of pure enjoyment and happiness. This energy is weaved into each brilliant piece and can create a serene force field of euphoria-like energy. CEREMONIAL BOW -- There are many bows a Na’vi of any clan may fashion or acquire. from a young child to a sage elder. The most basic is a child’s bow often adorned by hand with twine and other decorative elements. While a children’s bow is nothing particularly inventive in terms of design, it can still be lethal if an arrow is shot with cunning accuracy. When a Na’vi youth reaches a certain point in adolescence, they carve a bow from the Hometree. This represents a coming-of-age ritual. At this point, the bow is called “The Hunting Bow”, appropriately named for the task it often carries out. One of the most prestigious bows is the Ceremonial Bow, often used by clan elders for various ceremonies. One’s path to earning a Ceremonial Bow requires patience as it is traditionally passed down through generations. A Ceremonial Bow is carved from the Hometree and is a beautiful representation of the peak of Na’vi design. Its curved shape honours the Direhorse, a six-legged creature native to Pandora, known to help the Na’vi during hunt or battle. LOINCLOTH -- The Omaticaya take a more simplified approach to dress than other clans and typically bare more skin. This giving of flesh symbolizes their open, pure, and giving spirit towards Eywa. A main piece of dress is the tweng (loincloth). It helps distinguish the various families within the greater Omaticaya clan. Members of the same kin wear specific color combinations, woven patterns, and decorative accents with pride, some of which can be traced back to ancient ancestors. LEONOPTERYX TALISMAN -- This beautiful Omaticayan toy is crafted from flexible sticks and decorated with twigs and reeds to resemble the Great Leonopteryx. The Leonopteryx is also known in Na’vi as the Toruk, which roughly translates as “the last shadow”. When stalking a prey, the Toruk casts a massive shadow that blankets the landscape. The leonopteryx shadow may well be the last shadow you will ever see. See these artifacts here: LINK /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5922 > CLAN TIPANI ----------- TIPANI SYMBOL --- Fierce warriors. Virtuous fighters. Naturally skilled hunters. The Tipani rely heavily on their keen senses and predatory instincts for survival. During their adolescent years, strict focus is set on developing both the mind and body for battle under the guidance of the clan elders. The Tipani are the only Na’vi clan known to wear armour. Their statuesque presence, brute strength, astute sense of hearing, and sharp eyesight enable the Tipani to walk the land without fear. Sure and light-footed, a Tipani goes easily undetected. The most experienced Tipani warrior can stock their prey with such precision that the hunted scarcely realizes its danger until only moments before its unfortunate demise. BOLA --- The bola is mainly a hunting weapon that requires a bit of choreography. One must twirl the bola high in the air, then with great might, fling the weighted rope with exact accuracy. When the target is hit, the strands are wrapped around the animal and used as a method of restraint. There is no intent to make the animal suffer with the bola. It is a non-harmful form of hunting to respect Eywa’s creatures. Moments before taking the animal’s life, the hunter kneels beside the creature to place a calming hand on its chest. A transfer of spiritual energy occurs between hunter and prey, ensuring a tranquil passing into the afterlife. HELMET --- Many Tipani apprentices wear a special helmet, which is essentially a long strand of leather wrapped around animal or insect shells to hold them in place. These protective bonnets are used during preliminary training apprentices must face without the aid on an elder. While the Na’vi do not fear, wise elder ask the young to wear helmet when attempting difficult manoeuvres. Most obviously, their function is a form of protection, but the helmet also trains clarity and confidence of mind. The spirits of long-lost animals whisper through the shell into the psyche of the warrior in training to empower moves while creating an inner sense of calm. ARMOR --- Many clans have a hand in fashioning armor but the Tipani are the only ones to wear these protective pieces regularly. In fact, there is a wardrobe of various armors for specific purposes such as hunting, training and battle, and less aggressively, singing and dancing. The armor is mostly made of bones, shells, plants, insects and even claws of deceased animals. The Tipani believe the animals’ predatory and survival instincts are transferred to the warrior who wears the armor. WOODEN SPEAR --- The wooden spear is one of the earliest examples of weaponry ever recorded on Pandora. All clans use wooden spears, but the Tipani are masters of its deadly purpose. It is not within the Tipani to engage in senseless combat. When they must fight, they are very mindful of their choice of weapon. Preference for the spear is based on versatility. A knife is a magnificent close quarters weapon and a bow is unmatched in its range advantages. A spear’s short-range and long-range proficiency affords dominance on the battleground regardless of enemy. Historically speaking, the wooden spear is the first weapon a young Tipani hunter trains with. A centuries-old tradition sees clan elders accompany groups of warrior apprentices into the woods where athleticism and tranquility are put to the test. Success is not measured by the ability to slay a creature, for many come home empty-handed. It is measured by the ability to stalk prey without making one’s presence known. A master warrior must first acquire the art of light-footedness before training in the art of the kill. As the young Tipani develop into expert warriors, they learn to master many different weapons. The bond they form with their first spear is carried throughout life. See these artifacts here: LINK /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5938 > CLAN ANURAI ----------- ANURAI SYMBOL --- Meticulous artisans who spare no detail in their craft, the Anurai are a highly resourceful clan of creators who draw on the materials around them. A masterful balance of spirit and ingenuity has set them apart as the finest craftsmen among the Pandoran clans. Wild imagination and visionary prowess guide them to scavenge the vast, bone-littered land in which they live. Both playful and musical, they specialize in fashioning instruments from the ancient bones of animals long laid to rest; skeletal remains of a Thanator, Pandora’s deadliest creature, are the most coveted. Using these and whatever other materials they may find, the Anurai continuously invent and create beautiful objects. MUSICAL BONE --- In addition to sculpture, music is another art form the Anurai explore with animal bones. The animal’s spirit infiltrates the clan members’ body like a forceful muse to guide every cut of the blade. During this process, the artists’ movements are almost instinctual. The animal’s spirit takes over and vanishes in an instant when the instrument is complete. This is a very exciting moment when the Anurai discover the instrument’s sound for the first time. The sound is said to be an expression of gratitude from the animal to the creator. It is an expression of thanks for creating a piece of art that allows their voice to live on. Little is known about this particular flute, but it is said a Na’vi could use this particular musical bone to call upon the Great Leonopteryx. BONE SCULPTURE --- This bone sculpture is a prime example of Anurai artistry and painstaking attention to craft. As an artistic medium, bones are both practical and metaphorical. The Anurai live in a sanctuary littered with bones of ancient animals. This environment fosters an attitude of genuine respect for all life, even after death. Since the dawn of time, the Anurai have carried this belief. Value of life, even in passing, is the main motivation to transform symbols of loss into beautiful works of art. It is believed that this ritual was first inspired by a call from Eywa. The deity led young clan members across a bone-littered desert. Sorrow grew with each repetitive step, passing bone after bone. As they marched into nightfall, at peak of Pandora’s bioluminescence, the clan members were suddenly one with the long-lost creatures. In this moment, these passed spirits felt incredibly alive. The need to celebrate these spirits consumed the clan to the point of epiphany. The Anurai continue to craft impeccable art with the purpose of transforming lost life into eternal treasure. ANURAI NECKLACE --- A symbol of true friendship, this fkxile (bib necklace) is hand woven as tightly as the bond of platonic adoration it represents. The necklace maker is also the gift giver. Each necklace begins its journey around the neck of the friend who made it. Giving the necklace to another is a ritual of devotion whereby two members stand face-to-face with their foreheads pressed together. The necklace is then slid up over one’s head and carefully transferred around the neck of its new owner. The necklace may be passed on from one member to the next, representing an endless line of interconnectivity within the clan. THANATOR TOTEM --- Constructing a Thanator Totem is a balance-testing ritual that relies on the complete sync of two or more clan mates. This harmony is something only true teamwork can provide. Bones are strategically stacked as a fellow clan mate maintains footing. It is impossible to create this totem alone. A single misstep can send bones cascading with great force. The totem honors the mighty Thanator, Pandora’s deadliest creature, to teach the importance of unity, trust, and team work. It reminds the Anurai to react to each other’s actions with empathy and purpose. With a spirit of togetherness, there is hope to champion all of life’s dangers. See these artifacts here: LINK /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5951 > CLAN KEKUNAN ------------ KEKUNAN SYMBOL --- The Kekunan clan are the most skilled mountain banshee (aka ‘ikran’) riders of all the clans. Lightning fast reflexes, cool composure and a courageous heart help them command the magnificent aerial predators. The Kekunan dress in bright, boisterous colors, a symbol of their unbreakable confidence and a tribute to the creatures that surround and sustain them. KEKUNAN BATTLE BAND --- Vibrant and copper-colored. Durable yet soft to the touch. Woven with flecks of gold string to reflect the sun. This aesthetically intricate piece of dress is reserved for riding a Banshee in a great battle or special ceremony. The beauty of this piece represents members’ sense of pride in their ability to confidently ride a Banshee, particularly in battle. Do not mistake this unabashed confidence for ego. It is a result of achievement, training through insurmountable pain, and fierce determination where anything is possible. This sentiment is expressed through an ancient Na’vi saying, handed down throughout generations: “Nurture physically and spiritually with a forever hunger that may one day feed the greater good of all. Eywa believes in us and with Eywa there is unbreakable belief is oneself.” It is believed that Eywa will watch over the Kekunan who wear the band as they soar through the sky. RIDER’S MASK --- Worn by the brave Mountain Banshee riders of the Kekunan clan, this protective mask shields their eyes from vicious winds. A Mountain Banshee can reach incredible speeds, particularly while diving towards a target. The lens is made from a Plexiglas-like material, naturally created by a neighbouring clan of chemists, the Tawkami. The material is carefully cut and shaped by clan elders who custom-fit each rider. No two masks are alike. Young clan members spend a consistent sixteen hours polishing the lens to translucent perfection. It is a laborious task and a lesson in patience and focus. Once finished, the mask is awarded the riders who successfully complete a rite of passage. BANSHEE CATCHER --- A tool of great significance that is essentially a type of lasso. It is fashioned from the highly durable leaves of the Razor Palm Tree and weighted at one end by stones. Mastering the art of the banshee catcher has become an indispensable skill. The banshee catcher is also an integral piece of a highly dangerous rite of passage where a life-long bond is formed with a Mountain Banshee. This creature is an airborne predator that lives in Pandora’s mountainous territory. The banshee catcher was invented by Taronyu, an Kekunan clan legend. He was the first to successfully form a bond with a wild Mountain Banshee he named Rotalyu. Each day, Taronyu would look to the sky to admire the soaring beasts. A deep desire to someday fly among them stewed inside him. With each tremendous flap of the wing, Taronyu was drawn to the graceful creature. He believed someday the Mountain Banshee and Na’vi would move through the sky as one. And he wanted to be the first to do it. How to catch the wild creature was the challenge. Taronyu went to work. Braiding durable leaves to form a tightly wound rope, he fashioned a lasso to secure the beast’s neck. Three long strands weighted by rocks would knock the beast on its head with no long-lasting harm. Climbing high into the mountains, Taronyu relentlessly studied one specific banshee for eight days. On the eighth day, with four flicks of the lasso, the banshee catcher caught the snout and soon the beast fell calm. Taronyu triumphantly returned to his clan on the back of Rotalyu and earned the title of Ikran Makto (Banshee Rider). KEKUNAN TOY --- Ikran Makto (aka Banshee Rider) training begins at a very early age. In the eyes of a Na’vi child an ikran toy feels like a real banshee. Clan elders use the ikran toy as an education tool to demonstrate the dynamics and physics of flight. Clan youth are taught specific manoeuvres that mirror the behaviors of real mountain banshees, such as diving, gliding, and turning. This develops concentration and quick reflexes – two indispensible traits of highly skilled banshee riders. The rider cannot choose any banshee. Beast and Na’vi mutually choose each other and enter a symbiotic relation for their entire life. See these artifacts here: LINK /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5965 > CLAN TAWKAMI ------------ TAWKAMI SYMBOL --- An unrelenting curiosity, combined with a persistent quest for knowledge of the natural world, marks the Tawkami as proficient gifted. Their deep botanical knowledge allows them to create a vast array of potions and extract essences from any natural material. From a single seed, they may gain power over other creatures and manipulate the world around them with an expertise that provides great advantage over predators. A Tawkami’s mission is to sustain the sacred nature of Pandora’s beautiful ecosystem. Many clan members take shelter inside massive, bioluminescent flowers from which they draw great spiritual wisdom. HEALING ROSE --- The Healing Rose is a gigantic plant found predominantly in wooded areas. It has a similar shape and size to the poisonous and deadly Pseudocenia rosea,to the exception of the petal that looks like a hook on the latesté. Measuring nearly six meters tall, it produces nectar with various regeneration and healing powers, both spiritual and physical. This particular plant plays a large role in the lives of the Tawkami. This clan of spiritual alchemists draws higher-power wisdom from inside the Sílronzem Rosea. They climb inside the plant to practice a form of meditation that can last up to four full days. What is now considered to be a sacred Tawkami ritual was actually born from an accidental discovery. The story begins when an unfortunate pair of Tawkami crossed paths with a hungry pack of viperwolves. A viperwolf is a powerful, six-legged beast that travels swiftly over long distances in search of prey. The Tawkami clan mates fell wounded by the razor-sharp teeth of the ferocious viperwolves. They ran furiously and came upon a field of large, pitcher-shaped plants. In a moment of pure desperation, the duo climbed inside to hide. The viperwolves miraculously lost track of their scent and gave up the hunt. As the clan mates climbed out of the enormous plants, they were astonished. Their wounds were healed. From that day forth, this healing flower has been used to create various soothing potions and cures. TRANQUIL SEED --- A complex combination of various leaves, roots, and pollens are mashed into a thick syrupy substance to extract psychoactive chemicals. Over time, these chemicals bond together to form little kernels called the Tranquil Seed. The Tawkami break open these kernels to release a tranquilizing smoke that can be used to tame wild animals. The Tawkami track and store the Tranquil Seed’s precise formula in their mind with no tangible record. Where most see a beautiful landscape, the Tawkami see Pandora as an elaborate recipe. EXTRACTOR --- This device is used to harvest essential oils from flora to create various elixirs, pastes and potions. Effective use of an extractor relies on three main parts: a stone bowl, a flame and special extraction seeds. The extraction process is quite simple. First, the desired flora is placed in the stone bowl with the seeds. Water is then added and a soft flame is lit under the bowl. As the water reaches a gentle boil, the seeds release nutrients and absorb the flora’s essential oils. When all water evaporates extraction is complete. SASH --- As the Tawkami train to master the arts of botany and alchemy, srä (sash) are awarded to celebrate ongoing studies and indicate level of competence. The more colorful the srä, the more experienced the alchemist. At the start of training, all apprentices are given a basic srä to wear around their waist. The first lesson is identification. There are thousands of plants, herbs, and seeds native to Pandora. Once identification is mastered, education moves on to learning various formulas for potions. With every level reached, a different colored strip of fabric is added to the srä. See these artifacts here: LINK /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5975 > INSIDE THE CREATORS STUDIO -------------------------- And check out this inside peek into the creative side of TORUK - The First Flight! Sketch of the Direhorse – Lived-in puppet THE DIREHORSE BONDS WITH A RIDER THROUGH ONE OF ITS ANTENNAE Swift and nimble, the six-legged Direhorse is a calm, highly intelligent animal. Two puppeteers work in unison inside the structure. The first controls the front part, including neck and head; his legs become the creature’s two front legs. The second puppeteer controls the middle legs with his hands and the animal’s waist with his wrist; his legs become the animal’s hind legs. The puppeteers stand on platform shoes to better convey the creature’s impressive size. Sketch of the Turtapede – Lived-in puppet A TURTLE AND A STARFISH FOLDED INTO ONE With its large dorsal fin and long tail, the Turtapede is agile under water. The sea-dwelling creature is controlled from the inside by a puppeteer stretched out on a wheeled platform similar to a mechanic’s. The puppeteer uses his arms to move the creature’s head and arms, controlling the feet with his legs. When the Turtapede emerges from the water, mesmerizing colors start to shimmer in the translucent area on its shell. Sketch of the Viperwolf – In-view puppet BEWARE THE VIPERWOLF! With its low-slung head and snakelike jaw, the six-legged viperwolf is a swift, fiercely intelligent animal that hunts in packs. The puppeteer uses his hands to control the upper body and articulated head of the viperwolf, working each of the four front legs with his fingers. The puppeteer’s legs become the animal’s hind legs. The viperwolf puppet has green luminous eyes, is illuminated from the inside, and glows red and blue. Sketch of the Austrapede – Lived-in puppet A CROSS BETWEEN AN OSTRICH, A PINK FLAMINGO AND A DINOSAUR With its flat, broad beak and long neck and tail, the gentle Austrapede is a relatively small bird by Pandoran standards. A single puppeteer housed inside controls the neck and head with one hand, using his other hand to work the wings, which start flapping whenever the Austrapede is frightened. Perched on 30-cm-high platform shoes that give the animal its distinct hop, the puppeteer can see through the animal’s gills, which are a common feature of Pandoran fauna. Check out the sketches here: LINK /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5859 > * * * Puppet designer Patrick Martel talks about his craft SUSPENDING DISBELIEF THROUGH PUPPETRY Puppet Designer Patrick Martel conveys his passion for turning inanimate objects into living things, and talks about some of the astonishing creatures he is designing for the show. Whether he’s creating a pack of viperwolves or a great leonopteryx, his goal is always to urge the spectator to suspend disbelief for a moment – to create the illusion that these are not mere machines made of metal and cloth, but living beings from a faraway planet. View the video here: VIDEO /// < https://youtu.be/UpkRgZWubVE > # # # Inspired by James Cameron’s AVATAR, TORUK – The First Flight, a live experience by Cirque du Soleil, envisions a world beyond imagination thousands of years before the events depicted in the film. Discover what TORUK - The First Flight is all about at Cirque du Soleil's website: https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/toruk/ And you can still enter the world of Pandora here: https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/toruk/experience ------------------------------------------------------------ "KURIOS and VAREKAI: Where Less is... about the Same" By: Keith Johnson - Seattle, Washington (USA) ------------------------------------------------------------ When the “economic reset” occurred at Cirque du Soleil headquarters at the beginning of 2013 we wondered what effect it would have on current shows, as well as how it would be applied to new creations. We knew we would be getting “less” but would we notice it? Living in the great Pacific Northwest my wife and I were ready to ponder that question when two of Cirques shows came our way, Kurios Big Top and Varekai Arena. KURIOS-Cabinet of Curiosities arrived at its custom-made asphalt pad in Redmond’s Marymoor Park in late January. Scheduling (as did Amaluna before it) in the middle of winter, we could only shake our heads at such a season-ignorant touring plan. This was the first show designed from the start with new economic realities in mind. Would it “feel” like a Cirque show? The Kurios site was decorated in typical “Cirque Big Top” fashion. There is now a circular Kurios logo sculpture in the perfect place for group pictures and a nice touch. People were busy snapping pics on their phones, and since it was Saturday night, the Tapis Rouge tent was open for those with fatter wallets. Inside, the “single concession” tent (with all the “pre-show” functions under one vast canvas roof between Chapiteau doors 3 and 4) was set up differently than we had seen in the past. Gone were the interior standup ticket sales counters, banished once again to an outside portable. Instead, the area they used to occupy was taken up with a small selection of merchandise and several TV’s that displayed Facebook and Twitter feeds from those attending the performance. Some of the tent opposite the concessions area was taken up with a bar for those alcoholically-inclined. They also had a “magic photo” booth set up, as we had seen at other Chapiteau, shows where your picture could be combined with a Kurios-themed border and background. The merchandise area was about the same size we have seen at other shows. There were some interesting new items, such as journals with Cirque-inspired covers. But what I’ve noticed, and it may be a perfectly logical business decision but is disappointing in any case, is the lack of cross-promotion of other shows under the brand. An occasional ad would appear on a TV monitor, but there were no displays of the various Cirque videos or CD’s that would make people aware of other shows on offer, especially in Las Vegas. Instead, what few recordings they had of other shows were mixed among the small souvenirs ringing the cash registers, easily overlooked. It was a surprise when we were introduced to the Kurios program, which has to be one of the most creative Cirque has attempted in a long time. Instead of a large-format center-stapled book the “cover” is more like a box, representing a journal of the writings of the “Seeker” at the center of the story. Inside are a foldout poster that serves as a cast and crew and creation team roster (including five choreographers, two sets of composers, and 2 sound designers), another fold out poster with ads from the tour sponsors, and a 6” x 9” book of the Seekers drawings and observations. There are very few photographs in the booklet, instead using illustrations and comments (French first, then English) to notate the Seekers findings. It’s really a very clever way to extend the mythos of the show into the merchandising. To top it all off is a fold-out “Travelogue” of illustrations and comments from the Seekers journey. This piece is completely extra and a nice little bit of fun. Stepping inside the tent envelops you in the shows world, as does any Chapiteau. And the show itself is wonderfully creative. But the reason for this review is to consider the production in light of budget cuts. Is it noticeable or not? I would say yes. The cast is smaller in total than older shows. There are no children, so there is no need for a traveling school. I recognize several Cirque veterans, such as drummer Kit Chatham (this is his third creation experience!), and several artists from the late, lamented IRIS (such as Ekaterina Pirogovskaya, who played the Praxinoscope character). The “steampunk” design style lends itself well to a more intimate atmosphere. Even within the show there is further focus inward, such as in the finger puppetry act of the second act, where the attention is magnified down to a tabletop where the act is performed (and captured by a camera projected over the stage so all can see). For me, the show feels smaller than other Cirque productions, but because it was designed that way it doesn’t suffer from it. Most of the 44 artists play multiple characters, so it seems like there are more cast than there is. The stage seems to have more props on it more often, so the space seems filled. In all we like this show a lot, with its steampunk-inspired esthetic and an occasional new take on an old discipline. (The chair climbing act is fabulous, with the chair climber ascending to the top only to see that the scene from below is also playing out upside down from above. Including a reverse stair climber who assembles a stack of chairs - upside down mind you – and climbs down to meet the other chair climber in the middle. It is supremely impressive just because of the rigging that is required alone!) Three months after Kurios moved on, Varekai made its way to the Northwest. Skipping the Seattle/Tacoma market (a good idea with Kurios fresh in the mind) the show came to Spokane before heading to Portland and then Vancouver, BC. We hesitated on buying tickets for Spokane, as it is not as pleasurable a weekend visit as either of the other two. But we finally pulled the trigger on Spokane tickets shortly before the other cities were announced. Really, you couldn’t announce all the shows of a particular leg at the same time? We would much rather have gone to Portland. Before going further, I should declare our bias. Varekai is a show close to our hearts. We saw it in Montreal during its premiere run. I worked selling merchandise for the show when it came to Seattle. So we were very interested in the resultant product after its conversion, which we discussed with Varekai’s Artistic Director Fabrice Lemire a few issues ago (see http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=5411 ). The show played Spokane Arena, and fit into the typical “half-full” arena seating arrangement. But before we sat down we checked out the merch table. Very little on offer here, as there was little room to display it. But amongst the handful of items was the $20.00 program. It has taken its cue from Kurios and gone to an 8.5” X 10.5” “box” format. But where Kurios’ opened like a book with smaller pieces nestled in a recess in the center, Varekai’s slides out like a drawer. Instead of a center-stapled book, contained within are 20 numbered card-stock “mini-posters” each of a character or act. The “drawer” that holds these sheets has a map of the order of acts in the show, suggested to be Icarus’ “journey,” a nice touch. Cavalia used the same “poster” style for its program, only in a larger format with flimsier paper, and I dis-liked the format then as much as I do now. For Kurios I can understand it, a non-traditional style program format integrates well with the concept of the show. Just not so much here. In addition, a fold-out poster is printed on both sides with Cast/Creators/Credits/Introductions/Sponsor Ads. A saving grace of the Varekai program is how it tells the shows “story.” While roughly in the order of the show, it is Icarus’ “voice” that provides the narration. He talks about his fall, the characters he meets and what they are trying to teach him, and his feelings of love at meeting “The Promise” (caterpillar/butterfly/hand balancer). This communicates the meaning of the show much better than other Cirque programs. The pictures seem to be of the most recent cast, though Icarian Games is still included. (I note this format would allow them to update the programs content more easily and cheaply; just pull out the card with the old info and slip in a revised card!) Arenas hold no advantage over big tops other than making Cirque available to smaller markets. You are more obviously watching a show here and not being welcomed into an environment. We saw the show two times during our weekend, once from six rows back on the floor (the furthest row sold on the main floor) and again from the furthest row back up high in the center. Our experience brings us to this conclusion: if you take seats on the floor don’t sit any further back than the third row unless you are over 6’2”. The lack of raking (row elevation) means that from the fourth row on your angle of viewing is such that the average persons’ view will be impeded by taller heads. My wife (who is 5’2”) kept moving from side to side to see around a tall person sitting in front of her. Yes, we could feel the warmth of the lights, hear the characters shout, notice the stage squeaking. But we actually got a much better EXPERIENCE out of sitting further back – it gave us a better overall view of the stage action. Cirque has of late taken a more liberal policy on how a shows original intent is interpreted. Company Artistic Directors are allowed to explore more changes to their shows, sometimes to make it more exciting for the artists, sometimes to account for injury, sometimes to ease staging. There have been a lot of changes to Varekai over its lifetime, and more were made to birth it into this new life. Some acts that were a part of the show are now gone, such as the three blue ladies formerly of the Triple Trapeze, replaced by a solo trapeze act. Their appearance in the show is now more of a mystery without an act to feature them. Water Meteors fell victim to the adult-artists-only policy of Arena Shows. And the most recent, and in our opinion deepest, cut of all was the elimination of the Icarian Games act – what we considered along with Russian Swings to be Varekai’s signature acts. There were some nice moments in the new format. We saw a baton twirler act in rotation who was excellent. She used a variety of batons, had some interesting variation of tricks with them, and was quite refreshing. The male clowns’ moment with the spotlight singing, “Ne Me Quitte Pas” was more fun as he had more distance to cover to reach the top of the arena. But the show wasn’t the same. The first act only lasted 45 minutes; it felt rushed, like an act was missing. The replacement for Icarian Games, Synchronized Tumbling, didn’t carry the “WOW” the prior act did. (Guys doing somersaults over each other are just a variation of competitive gymnastics we can see on TV. One guy tossing another guy over and over and into the air – with his FEET – now that’s circus!) The Georgian Dancers did their dancing, but didn’t bring the energy and exhuberance to their act we have experienced before. Actions happened faster, moments didn’t linger, it all felt a bit sped-up. Though we do note that the number of the cast is the same as it was during its Chapiteau days, 50, as compared to Kurios from-the-start 42. Sometimes I have to stop myself. We have been fans for so long, seen so many of Cirque’s shows that occasionally we have to remind ourselves of the high level of daring and artistry in each and every show. And how to most other viewers these are feats to be marveled at. For us, Kurios deserves every bit of that wonder. Varekai in its newest incarnation not as much, but it is still a show I can confidently recommend as an introduction to just what Cirque du Soleil is all about. And if you bring back the large-format bound program book, so much the better. ------------------------------------------------------------ SPECIAL /// "Life and Death of Cirque du Soleil" By: Michael Joseph Gross, via Vanity Fair ------------------------------------------------------------ After a long slump and a tragic accident, the entertainment company is embarking on bold new ventures. Michael Joseph Gross lifts the curtain on Cirque du Soleil’s gravity-defying aerial choreography—and weaves his way through the investigation into how an acrobat fell to her death during a live performance. The Fall -------- The Cirque du Soleil show called Kà opened in 2005 at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, as the most expensive theatrical production in history. Much of the show’s budget of at least $165 million—more than double the cost of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the most expensive Broadway production ever mounted—was spent on technology to produce astonishing visual effects. In the show’s climactic battle scene, two groups of warriors—the Forest People (good guys) and the Spearmen (bad guys)—face off on a stage that slowly tilts from horizontal to almost vertical, which allows the audience to see the fight as if from above. Each warrior is played by an acrobat who wears a harness attached to a wire rope. The wire runs up to a complex configuration of equipment that enables the performer to leap, twist, flip, and fly while chasing others back and forth—that is, up and down the length of the vertical stage. The fight ends when the Forest People, at the bottom of the stage, hurl the Spearmen, at the top of the stage, off the battlefield. As one, the Spearmen, all of them, fall upward. For the audience, it is a wonder, as if the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had come to life before their eyes. For the performers, it is a job, and they do it like troupers, twice a night, five nights a week. On the evening of June 29, 2013, when Sarah Guillot-Guyard, 31, an acrobat who was playing one of the Spearmen, fell upward at the end of the battle, several things went wrong. It would take a long time before anyone began to assemble a full picture of what those several things were. But as she was making her exit, at 10:59 P.M., the wire rope that kept her safe was severed. In the next couple of seconds, Sarah Guillot-Guyard—who was born in Paris and was a graduate of the Fratellini Academy, a circus-arts school in Saint-Denis; who had been married to another Kà acrobat, named Mathieu Guyard, and with him had a daughter and a son; who, in her off-hours, taught circus acrobatics to children in a Vegas strip mall; and who, being French, would sneak cigarettes outside the stage door sometimes, and mistranslate English phrases sometimes (“little by little,” to her, was “small by small”)—in those few seconds, Guillot- Guyard fell to her death from a height of 94 feet. She fell face downward, in full sight of several fellow performers, who were stranded in midair, hanging by their wires, and in full sight of the audience, some of whom had no idea, at first, that they were witnessing an actual accident—because it is the nature of a Cirque du Soleil spectacle to make audiences believe that anything is possible. Even the laws of gravity can seem to have no meaning. The performers were sheltered by no such illusions. One of them lunged toward Guillot-Guyard, reaching out his hands to try to catch her. But she was too far away, and falling too fast. “We Lost Somebody” ------------------ That same night, two blocks south of Kà’s stage, Cirque opened its eighth and newest show on the Strip, at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Michael Jackson One, a clamorous, laser- and video-laced tribute to the King of Pop featuring street dancers from seven nations, played to a premiere audience packed with celebrities ranging from Justin Bieber to Spike Lee. The audience gave the show a standing ovation. Cirque’s founder, Guy Laliberté—once a busker, now the billionaire head of the world’s largest theatrical-production company— was elated and relieved. It had been a tough couple of years. Dwindling ticket sales and attenuated performance schedules following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami had forced the company to close its Tokyo Disney show, Zed, on the last day of 2011. Another show, Zaia, in Macau, closed less than two months later. The next show to go dark was in Cirque’s Las Vegas stronghold that August: Viva Elvis, a tribute to the King at the Aria Resort & Casino, made so little money that the hotel’s owner asked Cirque to pull the plug. Then Worlds Away, Cirque’s first feature film, opened to lackluster reviews and a paltry domestic box office, just a month before another show got axed—Iris, in Los Angeles. The most demoralizing episode of all: a re-structuring known to employees as “the revamp” that involved laying off some 400 of Cirque’s 5,000 personnel. Five months later, with all this barely behind him, Laliberté walked into the after-party for Michael Jackson One in very good spirits. Cirque was getting its game back, just in time for the company’s 30th anniversary, which it would celebrate in 2014. No sooner had he arrived than Cirque’s longtime head of public relations, Renée-Claude Ménard, discreetly pulled him aside and told him what had happened down the street. Laliberté turned to an old friend who was with him that night—Nicky Dewhurst, a veteran Cirque performer who was a tightrope artist until age 30, when he became a clown—and gave him the terrible news. “We lost somebody,” said Laliberté, barely getting out the words. “We lost somebody at Kà.” The circus is a risky business. Injuries come with the territory. Cirque has an outstanding reputation for safety, even though the cast and crew of its shows are so frequently hurt while training, rehearsing, or performing that compensation is a topic of black humor. “The bad part is, you break your legs,” one performer told me. “The good part is, you get a Mercedes.” In 2012, in Las Vegas alone, 53 performers in Cirque shows were injured, causing a total of 918 missed workdays. (Many more minor injuries are not required to be reported to the government.) Just a few days before the official opening of Michael Jackson One, an aerialist slipped through a slack rope during a preview performance and fell headfirst onto the stage, causing him to suffer what a company official described as a “mild concussion.” A few years earlier, offstage, there had even been a death: in 2009, the acrobat Oleksandr Zhurov died after he fell off a trampoline while training in Montreal. The accident at Kà was the first onstage fatality in Cirque history. Grief for Guillot-Guyard spread through the Cirque subculture in Las Vegas and beyond. Kà halted performances for two weeks and then resumed without the battle scene, for the moment. Cirque executives and company managers visited Cirque shows around the world for cast meetings, to provide basic information about the accident. But there was little they could say: most of the story remained under wraps until November 2013, when the state of Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) completed its investigation of the death. Right away, though, in Washington State, a thousand miles from the scene of the tragedy, a man named James Heath, a former rigger for Cirque, feared he knew what had happened. In 2006, while working on another Cirque show, Heath had discovered that Kà was using a certain kind of wire rope to lift people—despite the fact that several manufacturers explicitly warned against using it for such a purpose. This knowledge tortured Heath. He had spent years waging a lonely battle to persuade Cirque, without success, to use a different rope. He finally gave up and left the company. It all came rushing back when Heath heard about the death at Kà. “Ninety feet and it’s done,” he said when I visited him at his home in Seattle. “The story is over by the time that happened. The decisions were made. The story is: How did we get here?” The Magic Tools --------------- The story, like so many circus stories, starts with a runaway. In the early 1970s, in Saint-Bruno, a suburb of Montreal, a troubled boy, 14 years old, left home and wound up sleeping under a bridge. On one occasion, some thug stuck a gun in the kid’s face. Drugs—he did a lot of them. Did he sell drugs, too? In his office at Cirque du Soleil’s international headquarters, in Montreal, the man who was that boy, Guy Laliberté, stuck out his sinewy neck, squinted through jumpy eyes, and let a sly smirk curl his thin lips. “Streets are streets, O.K.?” he said in a thick French-Canadian accent. “So whatever happen in those place, I went through it, you know?” Laliberté had settled himself behind a giant desk and had lit a cigarette. Containers of toxin-scrubbing elixirs (“Liquid Liver Cleanse,” “Cardio Cleanse”) stood patiently atop the desk as if waiting for a chance to infiltrate the Gauloises-occupied territory of his body. All the details of Laliberté’s early life are in his autobiography, which we will not soon be reading. The book is written but unpublished and unpublishable, because “my lawyer wanted to change so many things, and I said I’m not releasing it.” What Laliberté called his “true book,” the candid story of personal darkness from which emerged Cirque du Soleil’s bright light, is locked in a safe. Like many stories that are not “family-friendly,” this, he said, is just for family—“for my kids”: his five children, born to two mothers. For now, curious readers must content themselves with an unauthorized biography, Guy Laliberté: The Fabulous Story of the Creator of Cirque du Soleil, a fire-hose blast of decadence, with hookers, orgies, benders, or betrayals on almost every page. When the book was published, in 2009, Laliberté threatened to sue, but then he didn’t. On the matter of his memoirs, as in many aspects of his life, Laliberté’s boldness is more than matched by his pragmatism. His comfort with uncertainty and his fierce survival instinct were honed while drifting as a teenager through Britain and France, where he learned to breathe fire as a street performer. By age 20 he was back in Canada, in the artists’ colony of Baie-Saint-Paul, on the St. Lawrence River. There he formed the first of several small groups of performers that led to Cirque du Soleil’s founding, as a nonprofit organization, in 1984. Cirque’s genesis involved sporadic tension among its leaders—besides Laliberté, they included his high-school friend Daniel Gauthier and the stilt-walker Gilles Ste-Croix—over whether the company should be guided more by artistic or commercial goals. Laliberté’s brand of artistry is inflected by his essential nature as a “wheeler-dealer,” and as he consolidated his power in the company, he burnished a sturdy creation myth that every Cirque employee knows. As Athena sprang from Zeus’s forehead, Le Cirque du Soleil—the circus of the sun—leapt from Laliberté’s mind while he was on a beach in Hawaii. The Ringling Brothers’ circus aesthetic had “gotten dusty,” as Laliberté explained to me. His freshening up of the tradition may have borrowed heavily from the cirque nouveau movement, which had originated in France in the 1970s, but Cirque struck the general public in North America with the force of a revelation. Its breakthrough show and first performance outside Canada, at the Los Angeles Festival, was the hottest ticket in Hollywood in 1987—the year that Cirque also became a for-profit company. Cirque stripped away traditional American circus clichés and replaced them with a new formula. Instead of three rings, Cirque had one. No more brass bands or calliopes; Cirque struck up the synthesizers and cued a twilit realm of rainbows, backlighting, and fog. Cirque banished animals, too—except for Homo sapiens. The human bodies at Cirque—beautiful, strong, exotically skilled—were different from those seen at other circuses in one crucial respect: they came with no names, as far as any audience member knew. Banishing fame was Cirque’s most fateful innovation. The average Cirque performer is an extraordinary physical specimen performing extraordinary feats, but someone who works behind a veil of anonymity—which tends to make all the performers, in the eyes of the audience, a little more than human, but a little less than people. For the next few years, Cirque refined its formula in several touring shows. The company’s first permanent theatrical production, in Las Vegas, was Mystère, at Treasure Island, in 1993. But Cirque did not become a household name until 1998, when it colonized two American entertainment empires almost simultaneously. First, the spectacular O, staged in and around a 1.5-million-gallon water tank, premiered to critical acclaim, at the opening of the Bellagio, which was then the most expensive hotel in the world. Two months later, the Cirque show La Nouba premiered near Walt Disney World, in Orlando, Florida. Both of these productions, as well as Mystère, have been printing money ever since. “After that, the management of the success, it becomes different than just managing the artistic success. It becomes the management of the economic success,” Gilles Ste-Croix told me in Montreal in December 2013. Ste-Croix retired in June 2014 with the company title “creative guide and grand saltimbanque,” and for many years he functioned as the in-house Wise Old Man. (Cirque’s publicists described the company as a “family” headed by “Papa Guy” and “Grandpapa Gilles.”) When Ste-Croix added, “You start to talk in meetings about EBITDA,” it raised the question of how many stilt-walkers, of all the stilt-walkers who have ever lived, have had occasion to deploy the acronym for “earning before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.” As Cirque got rich, Ste-Croix went on to say, “we invented, as we went along, better tools”—that is, better technology to create more outlandish theatrical effects. In O’s huge aquatic tank, submerged machinery, invisible to the audience, performs a feat akin to what Moses did at the Red Sea—so that clowns can do what Jesus did at the Sea of Galilee. The machinery achieves what is basically a parting of the waters—adjusting the pool’s depth from 24 feet to a few inches in a matter of seconds. The audience has no idea that this has happened until a pair of clowns go skipping across the surface at the very spot where, a moment earlier, a high diver had plunged into the depths. Starting with O, Cirque became as well known for incredible effects as it was for its performers’ physical prowess. Gilles Ste-Croix’s pale eyes warmed noticeably as he recalled the transformation: “Once you touch the magic tools, you cannot do without. You know, suddenly—the wizard who discovered le Graal, almost! And that’s what I think O did to us. It became, like, everything was possible.” Fly by Wire ----------- Backstage at O, on a Wednesday afternoon in January of 2002, an electrician on the show’s crew was working on some wiring when he seemed to hear a shotgun go off right by his head. Weeks later, when he regained full consciousness, Mark Brown could not move, could not speak, and could barely see or hear. O’s elaborate props included one that resembled an alligator’s head. It weighed a thousand pounds and it was hung in the backstage fly space on a wire rope. Mark Brown had been sitting on a bench beneath the alligator head when it came loose. The falling prop shaved off one quarter of his skull and crushed his lower trunk, pushing his pancreas and most of his intestines temporarily up into his chest. The accident left him permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Sudden, unexpected, tragic turns of fate like Brown’s cast long shadows in small communities. At the time, the Cirque subculture in Las Vegas was basically a frontier village. It was a tight-knit group of almost 300 who had left behind their friends and families in faraway countries and come to the desert for the chance to practice the exotic skills they loved. For the whole company, Brown’s injury was an unsettling reminder of how fragile fate can be. Five months after the accident at O, Cirque joined the corporate big leagues by signing a contract with the publicly traded entertainment company MGM Mirage (now MGM Resorts International), for whom it has been the “preferred entertainment content provider” ever since. In Laliberté’s version of the history, Cirque had been a company run by “old friends.” Now it would be “entrepreneurial,” a proliferating bureaucracy developing a roster of touring shows from its gleaming glass-and-steel headquarters. The deal with MGM produced the immensely ambitious Kà, whose avant- garde director, Robert Lepage, once described the project as his effort to realize a dream of “blending the ‘live’ world” with “the ‘taped’ world” to create a “theatrical-cinematographical experience.” That experience would take place in a 1,950-seat theater designed, LePage said at the time, “like a cathedral” in order to make people feel “they are coming into something which is slightly religious.” What was being worshiped? Lepage didn’t say, but one answer could be inferred from the raptures of Kà’s choreographer Jacques Heim, who exclaimed before the show opened: “There’s so much technology, there’s so much rigging, there’s so much complexity of things. It’s so huge. So huge!” The shiniest of Kà’s new toys was the “Sand Cliff Deck,” the hydraulic-powered stage weighing 100,000 pounds that tilts to nearly 90 degrees for the battle scene. For other scenes, the deck can tilt and twirl 360 degrees in a radial space that Lepage likes to call “the void.” Above the void, higher than catwalk height, is “the grid,” the metal support structure for the winches, pulleys, and dozens of people required to fly the performers. Kà also had the kind of computerized rigging system that altered duties for Cirque performers and stage techs in something like the same way fly-by-wire technology had changed the job of being a jet pilot. In Cirque’s earliest Vegas shows, acrobatic and aerial performers who wore wires would set their own rigging, following longtime circus tradition. During performances, technicians—or other performers, on their backstage breaks—would adjust the lines and mechanisms in concert with acrobatic moves as they occurred. The give-and-take of rigger and performer had always been part dance and part puppetry, involving constant mutual awareness. By the time of Kà, aerial cues were increasingly controlled by computer-automated systems. And performers themselves would take over some duties that specialized riggers used to perform—as in Kà’s battle scene, where performers manipulate joysticks on their harnesses to help control the speed of their own ascents and descents. As Cirque’s stage technology grew more sophisticated, its safety protocols grew more formal. Matthew Whelan, Cirque’s technical director, told me that the elaborate safety checks involved in O’s use of scuba divers as underwater stagehands, underwater carpenters, and underwater electricians helped Cirque refine a system of risk analysis applied to each act in every show. Performers sometimes complain about the intrusiveness of Cirque’s safety systems, which several described to me as “annoying.” But no system can eradicate the element of risk from aerial performance, and most acrobats would not eliminate it even if they could. As Kati Renaud, a former Cirque dancer who now serves as Cirque’s senior director of show quality and integrity, explained it, a Cirque du Soleil show is “a risky environment.” Renaud said that acrobats in particular “love adrenaline—they love adrenaline—and we hire them based on their love for adrenaline . . .” The sentence trailed off, and Renaud shook her head, laughing mock-hysterically at the adrenaline-feedback loop she had just described. In 2005, when Cirque settled Mark Brown’s personal-injury lawsuit for an undisclosed sum—just moments before a jury was reportedly set to award him more than $40 million—the population of Cirque’s Vegas subculture was close to double what it had been when his accident occurred. The frontier village was now an industrial boomtown, becoming the kind of place where no one person could know the names and faces of every other. Cirque was growing into such a large institution that many people now being hired would never have reason to learn Mark Brown’s name at all—unless, for some unforeseeable motivation, they felt driven to search for it. Breaking Strength ----------------- James Heath was one of those people. In the summer of 2006, Matthew Whelan hired Heath to be the rigging project manager for a show being developed at Cirque’s Montreal headquarters. Years earlier, Heath had worked as a rigger on two Cirque touring shows. He left in 1996 to start a family and get an education. After the marriage fell apart and he left law school, Heath rejoined the circus. Now back at Cirque, Heath focused on a show called Zaia, which was to establish a permanent presence in China’s lucrative market. Zaia would feature a lot of aerial acrobatics—a phrase that, to most people, connotes backflips. To a rigger, “a lot of aerial acrobatics” could connote much more: people wearing harnesses, with small fittings called swivels, which are points of attachment for the wire ropes that run up across pulleys before being threaded down through smaller pulleys, called diverters, onto the cylinder-shaped drums of motorized winches. Part of Heath’s job was to choose the wire rope to use with Zaia’s winches. The winches themselves had been chosen, based on specifications given by Cirque, by a subcontractor that Cirque often hires, a theatrical manufacturing company called Stage Technologies. Since the winches came from the same company that provided winches for a number of Cirque’s Vegas shows, including Kà, Heath asked Whelan what kind of rope Kà used, thinking the answer might save him some time. But the answer Whelan gave was troubling to Heath. As it turned out, Kà and other Cirque shows were relying on a kind of wire rope that some manufacturers recommended against using if a swivel was attached. And aerial acrobats, more or less always, use swivels. Wire rope is wound like a helix—up close, or under a microscope, it looks like a spiral—so when you put a load on the end of it, the wire naturally tries to straighten out. Kà used a wire rope that’s known as “19x7” because it consists of 19 strands of seven wires each. The strands are laid in two layers of slightly unequal size. The outside layer of the rope consists of 12 strands and the inside layer of 6. One last strand forms the core, around which the rest of them are wound. Because the layers are put down in opposite directions—strands spiraling to the right in one layer and to the left in the next—they counteract each other as the rope unlays, which makes the rope “rotation-resistant.” When 19x7 is attached to a swivel, nothing inhibits the rotation of the rope except its own internal structure. However, the use of a swivel also makes the rope more susceptible to internal wear and deformation. With the torque unevenly distributed, the smaller inner layer absorbs the rotation from the larger outer one—and, overall, the rope loses some portion of its strength. The rope is very strong: the 19x7 that was used at Kà can hold a static load of 3,300 pounds, which is the weight of a Corvette or a black rhinoceros. But as it was used at Kà, on a swivel with a winch, it’s weaker, though opinions vary as to its exact strength. Cirque du Soleil’s outstanding reputation for safety is based in good part on design standards that can seem, to an outsider, absurdly conservative. In rigging design, Cirque says it observes an unwritten but sacrosanct standard that a wire rope, when connected to a winch, should have a breaking strength that is 10 times greater than the weight of the load on the wire. At Cirque, in most circumstances, the actual load is simply the weight of the performer hanging from the wire. In some circumstances—for instance, if the wire were to become caught—the load becomes the pulling power of the winch at the other end, which can be many times the weight of the performer. Cirque maintains that the calculations of its 10:1 design factor “include the most extreme condition we can anticipate such as a hard stop or total loss of power, which would exert more forces than just the body weight of the performer.” At the end of the day, a 10:1 design factor is a somewhat arbitrary number, meant more as a lavish expression of fealty to safety than as a precisely engineered solution to the problem of how to keep a person safe. (In old-school theatrical rigging, a standard of 8:1 was considered fine.) Heath was concerned that 19x7 wire as used on winches to lift performers wearing swivels fell short of the 10:1 ratio. Looking for a more conservative option for use in Zaia, he found a rope designed specifically to lift people who were wearing harnesses with swivels. The rope, called XLT4—“XLT” because it has extremely low torque, and “4” because it’s made of four strands—was made for helicopter rescues. With swivels, XLT4 is stronger than equivalent-size 19x7. When Heath found XLT4, he was so excited that he started telling his fellow rigging designers, imagining that every Cirque du Soleil show might switch to this stronger wire rope. That’s when his problems started. Heath described to me a saga of intimidation, sideswiping, and sandbagging by his bosses—and a lot of simply being ignored, as if the supervisors just didn’t want to hear what he was saying—as he tried to get XLT4 tested and approved for use at Cirque. To Heath, none of these reactions added up. He thought his bosses would be happy that he’d found a potential problem and headed it off. Instead, he recalled, “they totally cut my legs off.” He became increasingly preoccupied and discouraged. Eventually, he concluded that “Cirque, through its staff,” had chosen, for reasons he could not fathom, “to suppress the new product and accept the liability that results from using an inferior product when a safer product is known to be available.” That’s what he wrote in a long e- mail that he sent to Zaia’s production manager in June of 2007, around the time he resigned from his job. While declining to comment on “Mr. Heath’s personal interpretations,” Cirque takes issue with many elements of his account. The company maintains that “Cirque is committed 100% to the safety of its employees, and as such, when Mr. Heath presented his finding on XLT4, studies were done as to its feasibility for use in a human acrobatic rigging system.” The XLT4 wire “did not at that time meet all of the design criteria,” according to Cirque, but eventually XLT4 was certified for use. It is today employed in several Cirque shows, in Las Vegas, and on tour. The company also maintains that the wire cables it uses meet the safety requirement for its 10:1 design factor— “our company standard”—and have been “validated with designers, manufacturers, and engineers prior to use of the system for human acrobatics.” Back in Vegas, the industrial boomtown had morphed into an enclave of the world’s most limber soccer moms. For tumblers in Rio and contortionists in Ulaanbaatar who dreamed of white-picket-fence domesticity, Cirque had made Las Vegas the promised land—a place where you could live the kind of year-round, rooted, conventional existence that had always been beyond the reach of circus folk. “It’s a very normal life, which is unheard of for what we do,” Nicky Dewhurst told me. As in any group that quickly transforms from bohemian to bourgeois, some of Cirque’s desert dwellers were unsettled by the compromises that the transition entailed. But most viewed the trade- offs with brisker pragmatism. When I asked one dancer if he had any ambivalence about Cirque’s evolution from artistic pioneer to global brand leader, the man shot back in withering deadpan, “No—I bought a house.” The financial crisis of 2008, which showed the world that mortgages aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be, hit Cirque hard. When the credit markets seized up, and even rich people started thinking twice about dropping $100 to see a show, Cirque had too many active productions in too many places around the world—18, on four continents. Laliberté was then Cirque’s sole owner, and in search of strategic partners, so he sold 20 percent of the company to two subsidiaries of Dubai World. Then he flew into space. It was around this time, as Gilles Ste-Croix and others recalled, that Laliberté unplugged from Cirque’s day-to-day operations. Many pointed to Laliberté’s purchase of a reported $35 million ticket to board a Russian Soyuz capsule, which he rode to the International Space Station, where he spent more than a week in 2009. “That’s normally what you would say metaphorically: you would say he got all this money, and he went off to space,” said one Cirque employee. “But Guy literally did that.” Daniel Lamarre, Cirque’s president and C.E.O., made a point of telling me that Laliberté did call from orbit to check in. The Revamp ---------- James Heath had quit Zaia, but he couldn’t quit Cirque. After turning in his resignation, Heath had hit the road with a touring show called Saltimbanco, which had no winches or swivels and gave him a break from worrying so much about wire rope. That job had led him back to Montreal, in 2008, ultimately for a desk job at Cirque, where a chance encounter with the head rigger on another touring show, Corteo, resulted in Corteo’s adopting XLT4. Heath, who like many technicians is rightly given to calling himself “obsessive,” took little satisfaction from Corteo’s conversion. Now that at least one Cirque show was using the stronger wire rope, it only intensified his worries that, if there were an accident at Kà or some other show that still used 19x7, Cirque could be exposed for using the weaker one. In a letter addressed to a supervisor and upper management in December 2008, Heath wrote, “In case of an accident a plaintiff could prove that we have knowingly been using inferior rope even though a much safer, approved product has been available for two years…. I am giving you the information to do with as you see fit: to bury it, or to take it to the top, as you prefer.” As he searched the Web for anything that could help him make sense of the situation, Heath came across news stories about the Mark Brown case, which he had known nothing about. Piecing together the chronology, Heath came to believe that the issue of wire-rope rotation had been highly charged for Cirque du Soleil not long before he began promoting XLT4. Cirque’s defense in the Mark Brown trial had centered on the rope used to hang the prop, according to the Associated Press. The AP’s report on the lawsuit’s settlement explained that “Lawyers for Cirque blamed the Bellagio for the accident, saying the prop was hung from the ceiling with the wrong type of cable, causing the rigging to unscrew.” In quiet moments, Heath sometimes knew that his fixation wasn’t completely rational—he knew that in the long-term Cirque had more to gain by making the safest choice. And some colleagues did listen to him. Moving from show to show, Heath directly or indirectly converted more productions to using XLT4—Zed in 2008, Alegrìa in 2009, Dralion in 2010, and Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour in 2011. Even a rigging designer who replaced Heath on Zaia, in Macau, converted to the new wire rope. The resistance to using it in Las Vegas, though, seemed to Heath impossible to overcome. In the spring of 2012, Heath finally left Cirque for good. Six months earlier, he had carpet-bombed the tech side of the company with a Jerry Maguire memo, copying more than a dozen Cirque riggers, accusing some company employees of “malfeasance” by holding on to 19x7 when a stronger rope was available. Cirque’s late-empire devolution into bloated fiefdoms had meanwhile reached a danger point. Laliberté himself told me, “When you’re focused just to growth and forget about the basic—little castle are being built in the big castle! And eventually get chubby!” Gilles Ste- Croix eventually took his boss in hand, and Laliberté began the long series of tough choices that led to Cirque’s drastic revamp— restructuring and eliminating hundreds of jobs. The revamp was a rude awakening. After the cutbacks, those who have gone on living the very normal life that Cirque affords its Vegas employees have done so in the knowledge that, even in this circus “family,” everyone is fungible. They know, too, that Cirque reserves the right to act according to a set of values that are indistinguishable from those of any other big corporation. With bemused embarrassment, Cirque’s Daniel Lamarre said that, as Cirque struggled through the revamp, his peers “from Disney and MGM and all the others, they were looking at us, saying, ‘What’s your issue?’ For them, it’s business as usual that you do layoffs and you do cost-cutting. For them, that was nothing to talk about, you know? But for us, it was almost a drama, because we were not used to that.” Yet Cirque, as a corporate enterprise, is very different from Disney or MGM. Because it is a circus, the viability of its business is rooted in the willingness of a core group of performers to risk their lives on a daily basis. At the opera, the ballet, or the theater, the audience rarely wonders if performers will live to see the final curtain. At the circus, the audience always wonders. The OSHA Files -------------- In the mind of Guy Laliberté, the premiere of Michael Jackson One marked the end of the company’s troubled period. The show’s success, he told me, “was so important for the pride and the reboot and the reboost” of the company. For him, the death at Kà was a “devastating moment” that halted “all this night of hype.” As he said, “At the end, you know, those extreme moment within the same day just make you realize how privileged and how fragile life is. And you know, you go through pain, mourning moment, but on the other side—the cycle in life.” For other people, the death at Kà raised a new set of questions—about safety in general, and about what had happened on the night of June 29. Cirque employees were asked not to publicly discuss what had happened to Sarah Guillot-Guyard until the results of OSHA’s investigation were complete. After that, Calum Pearson, vice president of Cirque’s Resident Shows Worldwide, spoke to me at length. As Pearson told the story, Guillot-Guyard’s death was a “million-to-one” freak accident involving human errors, mostly on the part of both the acrobat and her rigger. Hundreds of pages of background documents from the state agency, including verbatim accounts of witnesses to the tragedy, tell a more detailed and more ambiguous story. They certainly do offer a vivid and unsettling description of the human errors that Cirque described. To read through the OSHA files is to encounter a sad and tangled catalogue of missteps and what-ifs. Although Guillot-Guyard had been performing various roles in Kà since 2006, on the night she died she was playing a part that she had never played before. (She had received training for the role beginning at least a month earlier.) On June 29, during the first of Kà’s two evening performances, Guillot-Guyard was “slower than anyone else and had to be helped up and over the rail,” according to Pearson, which seemed to upset her. Pearson said that Guillot-Guyard’s long experience in similar roles requiring similar skills ensured that she was adequately prepared to play this new one, despite what may appear to an outsider to be scant preparation. “Sarah was never shy about saying if she was uncomfortable with something,” Pearson explained to me. “She would be very vocal about ‘I’m not ready for this. I need more training.’?” Accident reports found in the OSHA files depict her differently. On the night of Guillot-Guyard’s death, some of Kà’s riggers noticed—and told one another—that the acrobat was obviously struggling to do her job correctly. When Guillot-Guyard stopped “really low” on her fly out during the first show, a nearby crew member noticed that “she was choppy and sloppy. I looked at the rigger and just shook my head like ‘Oh my God,’ because of how rough it was.” Another rigger recalled playing a game of Ping-Pong between shows with Guillot-Guyard’s rigger, who “told me that during the first show, the artist on his line was ‘a mess’ coming out of the battle scene. He said she was really slow and jerky.” In his own recollection, Guillot- Guyard’s rigger testified, “I talked about how I thought [she] needed more work on the fly outs. I didn’t think she was ready.” According to the OSHA files, there had been earlier concerns about Guillot-Guyard. “[She] has historically had trouble with things like unhooking carabieeners [sic],” one rigger testified in his account. “She seemed very nervous about things, and was stubborn about things,” he added. That night, even Guillot-Guyard seemed frustrated with her performance. During the break between shows, this same crew member recalled, the acrobat said, “‘I just don’t know what I’m doing, I guess, but I never do,’ in a dig on herself.” According to OSHA testimony, “She didn’t come off as nervous or scared, just slightly insecure about herself in the battle scene.” Almost two hours later, near the end of the second show, the moment in the battle scene arrived when six of the Spearmen were to “fly up and off the top of the Sand Cliff Deck backwards to an overhead Forest Grid catwalk,” according to OSHA. Seeing them line up, the rigger on No. 15—Guillot-Guyard’s line—moved to tie off to a “self-retracting lifeline,” or S.R.L. He needed to strap in so he could stand on the railing and lean forward, in order to “breast out” the wire rope on which Guillot-Guyard was hanging—that is, to push the line outward, so the acrobat wouldn’t hit the grid. On this particular night, Guillot-Guyard’s rigger “had some trouble hooking into [his] S.R.L.,” he testified to OSHA, and while he was getting secure there was a very loud bang—something heavy, crashing into the grid from below. He immediately “turned around and grabbed the line,” to push Guillot-Guyard away from the grid, but by then her whole lower half—from the back of her legs to her waist—had already struck the bottom of the structure. According to OSHA, it seemed as if she “flew up at a higher rate of speed than normal toward the grid without tucking in her feet or legs.” The impact of this collision then caused a series of system shocks, ultimately severing the wire rope. Later that night, according to the OSHA files, Kà’s assistant head rigger found the rigger who had been on Guillot-Guyard’s line curled in a ball and crying. He was saying, “I felt the rope go through my hand.” There may have been nothing he could have done. Ascending with her legs extended, instead of in a tuck—as witnesses testified—Guillot- Guyard collided with the grid. According to the OSHA report, “This collision caused a shock load to the winch; the wire rope came out of the sheave/pulley and scraped against a shear point cutting numerous wires in the wire rope. The wire rope broke apart.” Or as Pearson explained, “The cable jumped out of the pulley wheel and was exposed to the sharp edges of the mounting frame. This happened in a split second, almost instantaneously with the moment of impact. [The] cable got slammed against the edge of the wheel and into the sharp edge of the plate that was behind it, and that cut the cable.” Both OSHA and Cirque agree that speed was somehow a factor. Pearson stated, though, that Guillot-Guyard “wasn’t traveling overspeed” at the moment of impact and that her speed was always within the allowable limits—limits that have since been reduced for the exit of the act. He acknowledged that “some people have said she was going faster than normal. But there were two Spearmen above her at the time of the accident. That would indicate that she wasn’t going at full speed.” But Pearson also added that “this is nothing we can 100 percent validate, because it’s impossible to know the exact speed she was going.” OSHA’S report deemed “the rapid ascent of the performer” to have been a critical factor and quoted numerous witnesses as observing that Guillot-Guyard seemed to be ascending at an unusually rapid rate. OSHA also summarized the testimony of several witnesses that the acrobat “did not attempt to stop, slow down, or tuck her feet and legs close to her body” as she approached the grid. (“She struck the bottom of the Forest Grid from her waist down. It wasn’t just her feet,” one rigger testified.) The simplest, most commonsense explanation of the posture in which she struck the grid is that Guillot-Guyard did not know how high she was, “almost as if she was disoriented or lost track of her positioning,” according to OSHA testimony. Pearson added that she was “facing down, so probably wouldn’t have even known her proximity to the grid.” (Twice before, Cirque’s performance-medicine department had received reports of Spearmen colliding with the grid, causing a bruised coccyx in one case, and a bruised lower back in the other.) Regarding her ascent, Pearson said that “she was pressing and holding” her joystick “all the way to the end, or else she double- clicked it to go to the highest speed. Can’t say for certain.” In October 2013, the Nevada investigators initially concluded that Guillot-Guyard “had not been properly trained” in “using the hand-held controller” and “how to exit the scene safely.” Cirque appealed that citation, and the following month it was withdrawn. In the sequence of events that led to Guillot-Guyard’s death, the final, decisive occurrence was the failure of the wire. Was this accident the terrible event that Heath had been warning about? In OSHA’s view of the accident, the key event was the wire escaping the pulley groove—whatever the reason—and finding itself against a sharp edge that instantly served as a knife. In this view, the operative word would be “cut” rather than “snap,” and could well have proved catastrophic regardless of the relative breaking strength of various types of wire. For his part, Heath is not persuaded by the “shock load to the winch” theory. That aside, and acknowledging that the sharp edge played an instrumental role, he argues that the powerful pull of the winch on a damaged wire could just as well have been the decisive factor. A stronger rope, in his view, might have stalled the winch. Pearson dismissed concern about the rope—the 19x7 steel wire product, attached to a swivel—as a red herring, asserting that wire-rope manufacturers “don’t have a position anymore on the use of swivels” with 19x7. A spokesman for Loos & Co., which makes the 19x7 wire used by Cirque, stated that, “Our official position is that we don’t have a position because we’re unfamiliar with the design and technical situation of personnel lifts. We’ve never spoken to Cirque.” He added, “We have no idea of the particulars of this particular incident.” That said, some major American wire-rope manufacturers do still explicitly warn against the use of 19x7 with swivels. Pearson granted that XLT4 is stronger, but asserted that it is less flexible and therefore not as well suited to the acrobatic work at Kà. As to Heath’s argument that XLT4 should be the companywide standard at Cirque for aerial acrobatics, Pearson said, “That’s a little bit like saying that every building in America should be built of steel instead of being built of wood.” In a later communication Pearson noted that Cirque had “sought the expert opinion of the cable manufacturers and the winch manufacturers” and that both had “validated the use of 19x7 in our systems.” He added that the notion that the cable choice may have contributed to the accident “has not been suggested by any investigation.” The OSHA files contain testimony from some Cirque technicians who went out of their way to state that they personally were aware of some question about the use of 19x7 on a swivel. These people also made a point of disclaiming personal responsibility for using that rope, and distancing themselves from the process by which that rope was chosen for use at Kà. “We’ve been using 19x7 since the show started,” said an assistant head rigger. “I’ve heard that’s O.K. to put a swivel on 19x7, but I’ve also heard that it’s not recommended. I think that was somebody’s opinion. I only maintain the system that is designed by somebody else.” “I didn’t specify a wire rope for use in this application,” said another technician, who was involved in Kà’s design. “The conversations about the appropriate use of rope would have been left to other people.” The words are those of Jeremy Hodgson, a technical manager of automation at Kà and other Cirque shows. In his same testimony, Hodgson referred to some concerns about “the use of 19x7 with single point swivels” raised by a “rigging project manager in Macau, James Heath.” A rigger who still works for Cirque and thinks highly of Heath’s work told me that he does not share Heath’s interest in the retrospective hypothetical of what might have happened at Kà if Guillot-Guyard had been flown on something stronger. This rigger said, “I don’t think anybody can ever say, with all the variables involved, whether the same thing would have happened if a different cable had been on that winch.” Yes, you can make a case, maybe even a strong case, that XLT4 might have provided a bit more precious time. But you can also make a case, and maybe a stronger case, that the tragedy in Las Vegas was what analysts call a “system accident.” A system accident is one that requires many things to go wrong in a cascade. Change any element of the cascade and the accident may well not occur, but every element shares the blame. What if Guillot-Guyard had been more experienced in her role? What if she had not ascended so quickly, or had been in a fetal tuck? What if the rigger on the grid hadn’t had trouble hooking into his S.R.L.? What if the wire had not jumped the pulley wheel? What if the wire had been stronger? System accidents are an inevitability when human beings interface with increasingly complex technology. The only way to minimize them is to look hard in advance at every factor and make improvements where you can. And then to look again when the next system accident occurs—as it will. “I think the best course of action,” the rigger who spoke about variables told me, “is for Cirque du Soleil to do the right thing for the interests of future performers [and] adopt this cable on all shows. A lot of Cirque shows are already using it.” Last December, the battle scene was restored to Kà. Gravity ------- Perhaps appropriately, one of the themes of Kurios, Cirque’s 30th- anniversary show, is the complicated relationship between people and their machines. At Cirque’s Montreal headquarters in December of 2013, in a room with a 75-foot ceiling, I watched a pair of gymnasts, brothers named Roman and Vitali Tomanov, rehearse an aerial number for the show. When the music started, they were Siamese twins. Then the two parts of this creature were separated, and they attached themselves to wires so they could fly free around the circus tent. The flights were so powerful and strong that it felt like being in the room with Superman. Make that two of him. When the brothers flew toward each other from opposite sides of the room in a choreographed high-speed near miss, even Cirque’s own head of public relations turned away. “I know they’re safe,” she said, covering her eyes. “I just . . . ” When a technical glitch caused delays in the rehearsal, their coach said, “As you become more sophisticated, you become more imprisoned.” Cirque’s own corporate circumstances have changed considerably. In April, the company announced that it would be selling a controlling interest to the American private-equity firm TPG, with the Chinese conglomerate Fosun and the Canadian pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, in Montreal, also acquiring a stake. Cirque’s forthcoming projects testify to undiminished ambition. A new touring arena show, Toruk, inspired by the film Avatar and developed in collaboration with director James Cameron, will have its premiere this fall. Soon afterward, Cirque will work with NBC on a live television broadcast of The Wiz, before eventually staging the show’s upcoming Broadway revival. As for Laliberté himself, he contemplates a “personal crazy project” that would apply his distinctive sense of pizzazz to a universal human experience. “I want to get in the cemetery business,” he told me, describing a venture that could possibly include the option of having one’s ashes sent aloft among fireworks. He made it clear that, for now, this is only a “very big dream.” During the Kurios rehearsal at Cirque’s headquarters, at the end, I asked the performers what it feels like to be in their bodies when they fly through the air. One of the brothers rushed to answer, leaving Descartes in the dust: “We don’t think—and then do,” he said. “You feel—energy! And you don’t think how you tired. More energy! Shaking, shaking, the energy!” His hand was in front of his chest, vibrating with energy. “And getting back!” He extended his hand, making me the audience, his hand still vibrating. “And then the audience is with us, and we—Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!” He flipped up his thumb, extended his pointer finger to make an energy gun, and Boom!’d it all over the place, from the imaginary audience to himself to the coach to the publicist to his brother, who, still catching his breath from flying, interrupted the energy-gun massacre to exclaim, “In case you didn’t know, we’re reversing the gravity!” Except when they’re not. { SOURCE: Vanity Fair | http://goo.gl/9DyDJ2 } ======================================================================= COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER ======================================================================= Fascination! Newsletter Volume 15, Number 6 (Issue #137) - June 2015 "Fascination! Newsletter" is a concept by Ricky Russo. Copyright (c) 2001-2015 Ricky Russo, published by Vortex/RGR Productions, a subsidiary of Communicore Enterprises. No portion of this newsletter can be reproduced, published in any form or forum, quoted or translated without the consent of the "Fascination! Newsletter." By sending us correspondence, you give us permission (unless otherwise noted) to use the submission as we see fit, without remuneration. All submissions become the property of the "Fascination! Newsletter." "Fascination! Newsletter" is not affiliated in any way with Cirque du Soleil. Cirque du Soleil and all its creations are Copyright (c) and are registered trademarks (TM) of Cirque du Soleil, Inc., and Créations Méandres, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No copyright infringement intended. { Jun.05.2015 } =======================================================================