Fri 15 Aug 2008
After a 15 year hiatus Cirque Du Soleil returned to Toronto. I was fortunate enough to catch the show last night at the Air Canada Centre with Neesa and her brother. This was my 3rd Cirque Du Soleil show (I saw Quidam in 2004 and Verekai in 2006, both in Sydney) and as always it was a feast for the senses!
My favourite performances were the guy doing bike tricks, the two girls way up in the air on the single trapeze/swing doing high speed movements (I couldn’t help but feel a fear of heights at some intervals), the juggling lady who juggled six or so balls between her legs and in the air as she walked down several flights of steps, and the group climbing up and down the poles (one guy climbed really high with just his arms!).
The two muscle men towards the end who were balancing each other in incredible positions with pure arm strength were also impressive, though I felt the music was really cheesy and it seemed like we were watching some bad 60’s gay porn or something.
Cameras were forbidden so I only managed to take one snap (at the top of this post) after it was all over and the cast were taking their final bows.
Read the intro to the show on the official website.
So after the show, on the street car ride home, I was curious as to how CDS came about. Thanks to trusty old Wikipedia I got my answer:
Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada located in Saint-Michel, and founded in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy Laliberté and Daniel Gauthier.
Initially named Les Échassiers, they toured Quebec in 1980 as a performing troupe and encountered financial hardship that was relieved by a government grant in 1983 as part of the 450th anniversary celebrations of Jacques Cartier’s discovery of Canada. Le Grand Tour du Cirque du Soleil was a success in 1984 and after securing a second year of funding Laliberté hired Guy Caron from the National Circus School to recreate it as a “proper circus”. No ring and no animals helped make Cirque du Soleil the modern circus (”Cirque Nouveau” / New Circus) that it is today. Each show is a synthesis of circus styles from around the world and has its own central theme and storyline which brings the audience into the performance by having no curtains, continuous live music and performers change the props. After critical and financial successes (Los Angeles Arts Festival) and failures in the late 1980s, Nouvelle Expérience was created with the direction of Franco Dragone that not only made Cirque profitable by 1990 but allowed it to create new shows.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s Cirque expanded rapidly and went from one show with 73 employees in 1984 to currently 3,500 employees from over 40 countries doing fifteen shows touring every continent and have an estimated annual revenue exceeding US$600 million.
Very cool stuff indeed.
Quidam still rates as my favourite. I think that’s because it was the first show I saw and I also related to the premise of the show i.e. that in life we wonder and interact with strangers with masks. Some of those spirits never really leave us. The music, the makeup, costumes, just everything was very surreal and I felt like I was in a dream the whole time. I loved it.
I’d love to check out O in Vegas one day, and seeing as it’s a permanent fixture in Vegas I guess I’ll have to go there to see it.
