Cirque du Soleil. Performances. What happened: to the origins of Cirque du Soleil Cirque du Soleil program

An entertainment company that defines its activities as "the artistic combination of circus arts and street performances." It was founded in 1984 by Guy Laliberte and Gilles Sainte-Croix and is based in Montreal (Canada). The circus is known for its principled refusal to use animals in performances and for its synthetic performances that combine circus skills with music, whimsical design and choreography. He is believed to have inhaled new life into circus art.

The company has more than 4,000 people working in different groups, which allows you to give presentations in different cities simultaneously. The main part of the troupe gives performances in Las Vegas, the touring part travels with various shows around the world, performing both in the arena under a temporary tent (tent) or in a permanent circus arena, and in theater stages and in concert halls. The circus's annual revenue exceeds $600 million.

Composer Rene Dupere, director Robert Lepage, and fashion designer Thierry Mugler collaborated with the circus. The circus director for many years has been Pavel Brun. Pavel Brun), choreographer - Debra Lynn Brown (eng. Debra Lynne Brown).

Productions

The titles of many performances are proper names and do not need translation.

Saltimbanco

Alegria

Alegria(Spanish - “rejoicing, joy”), 1994 is an ode to the energy, grace and strength of youth. The show reveals a whole series topics: power that weakens over time, evolution from ancient monarchy to modern democracy, old age and youth. The atmosphere is created by kings, fools, traveling artists, beggars, old aristocrats and children, as well as clowns - the only ones who have the strength to survive the passage of time and the changes it imposes.

Quidam

Ovo

Other appearances

Circus performers have performed at the 74th Academy Awards (2002), the 50th Grammy Awards and Super Bowl XLI. In 2009, circus performers opened the final music competition Eurovision in Moscow; in 2010, part of the performance was shown at the Scarlet Sails festival in St. Petersburg. Circus performers performed at the EC conference (2010) and at the opening ceremony of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Azerbaijan (2012).

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An excerpt characterizing Cirque du Soleil

“G...”az! Two! T”i!...” Denisov shouted angrily and stepped aside. Both walked along the beaten paths closer and closer, recognizing each other in the fog. Opponents had the right, converging to the barrier, to shoot whenever they wanted. Dolokhov walked slowly, without raising his pistol, peering with his bright, shining, blue eyes into the face of his opponent. His mouth, as always, had the semblance of a smile.
- So when I want, I can shoot! - said Pierre, at the word three he walked forward with quick steps, straying from the well-trodden path and walking on solid snow. Pierre held the pistol outstretched forward right hand, apparently afraid that he might kill himself with this pistol. He carefully put his left hand back, because he wanted to support his right hand with it, but he knew that this was impossible. Having walked six steps and strayed off the path into the snow, Pierre looked back at his feet, again quickly looked at Dolokhov, and, pulling his finger, as he had been taught, fired. Not expecting such a strong sound, Pierre flinched from his shot, then smiled at his own impression and stopped. The smoke, especially thick from the fog, prevented him from seeing at first; but the other shot he was waiting for did not come. Only Dolokhov’s hurried steps were heard, and his figure appeared from behind the smoke. With one hand he held his left side, with the other he clutched the lowered pistol. His face was pale. Rostov ran up and said something to him.
“No...e...t,” Dolokhov said through his teeth, “no, it’s not over,” and taking a few more falling, hobbling steps right up to the saber, he fell on the snow next to it. Left hand he was covered in blood, he wiped it on his coat and leaned on it. His face was pale, frowning and trembling.
“Please…” Dolokhov began, but couldn’t say right away... “Please,” he finished with an effort. Pierre, barely holding back his sobs, ran to Dolokhov, and was about to cross the space separating the barriers when Dolokhov shouted: “to the barrier!” - and Pierre, realizing what was happening, stopped at his saber. Only 10 steps separated them. Dolokhov lowered his head to the snow, greedily bit the snow, raised his head again, corrected himself, tucked his legs and sat down, looking for a strong center of gravity. He swallowed cold snow and sucked it; his lips trembled, but still smiling; the eyes sparkled with the effort and malice of the last collected strength. He raised the pistol and began to take aim.
“Sideways, cover yourself with a pistol,” said Nesvitsky.
“Watch yourself!” even Denisov, unable to bear it, shouted to his opponent.
Pierre, with a meek smile of regret and repentance, helplessly spreading his legs and arms, stood straight in front of Dolokhov with his broad chest and looked at him sadly. Denisov, Rostov and Nesvitsky closed their eyes. At the same time, they heard a shot and Dolokhov’s angry cry.
- Past! - Dolokhov shouted and lay helplessly face down on the snow. Pierre grabbed his head and, turning back, went into the forest, walking entirely in the snow and saying out loud incomprehensible words:
- Stupid... stupid! Death... lies... - he repeated, wincing. Nesvitsky stopped him and took him home.
Rostov and Denisov took the wounded Dolokhov.
Dolokhov lay silently, with his eyes closed, in the sleigh and did not answer a word to the questions put to him; but, having entered Moscow, he suddenly woke up and, with difficulty raising his head, took Rostov, who was sitting next to him, by the hand. Rostov was struck by the completely changed and unexpectedly enthusiastically tender expression on Dolokhov’s face.
- Well? How are you feeling? - asked Rostov.
- Bad! but that's not the point. My friend,” said Dolokhov in a broken voice, “where are we?” We are in Moscow, I know. I’m okay, but I killed her, killed her... She won’t stand it. She won't bear it...
- Who? - asked Rostov.
- My mother. My mother, my angel, my adored angel, mother,” and Dolokhov began to cry, squeezing Rostov’s hand. When he calmed down somewhat, he explained to Rostov that he lived with his mother, and that if his mother saw him dying, she would not bear it. He begged Rostov to go to her and prepare her.
Rostov went ahead to carry out the assignment, and to his great surprise he learned that Dolokhov, this brawler, the brute Dolokhov lived in Moscow with his old mother and hunchbacked sister, and was the most tender son and brother.

Pierre in lately I rarely saw my wife face to face. Both in St. Petersburg and Moscow, their house was constantly full of guests. The next night after the duel, he, as he often did, did not go to the bedroom, but remained in his huge, father’s office, the same one in which Count Bezukhy died.
He lay down on the sofa and wanted to fall asleep in order to forget everything that happened to him, but he could not do it. Such a storm of feelings, thoughts, memories suddenly arose in his soul that he not only could not sleep, but could not sit still and had to jump up from the sofa and walk quickly around the room. Then he imagined her at first after her marriage, with bare shoulders and a tired, passionate gaze, and immediately next to her he imagined the beautiful, insolent and firmly mocking face of Dolokhov, as it had been at dinner, and the same face of Dolokhov, pale, trembling and suffering as it was when he turned and fell into the snow.
“What happened? – he asked himself. “I killed my lover, yes, I killed my wife’s lover.” Yes, it was. Why? How did I get to this point? “Because you married her,” answered an inner voice.
“But what am I to blame for? - he asked. “The fact is that you married without loving her, that you deceived both yourself and her,” and he vividly imagined that minute after dinner at Prince Vasily’s when he said these words that never escaped him: “Je vous aime.” [I love you.] Everything from this! I felt then, he thought, I felt then that it was not that I had no right to it. And so it happened.” He remembered the honeymoon, and blushed at the memory. Particularly vivid, offensive and shameful for him was the memory of how one day, soon after his marriage, at 12 noon, in a silk robe, he came from the bedroom to the office, and in the office he found the chief manager, who bowed respectfully and looked at Pierre's face, onto his robe, and smiled slightly, as if expressing with this smile respectful sympathy for the happiness of his principal.
“And how many times have I been proud of her, proud of her majestic beauty, her social tact,” he thought; he was proud of his home, in which she welcomed all of St. Petersburg, he was proud of her inaccessibility and beauty. So this is what I was proud of?! I thought then that I didn’t understand her. How often, pondering her character, I told myself that it was my fault that I didn’t understand her, that I didn’t understand this constant calm, contentment and absence of any attachments and desires, and the whole solution was in that terrible word that she was a depraved woman: said imagine this scary word, and everything became clear!
“Anatole went to her to borrow money from her and kissed her bare shoulders. She didn't give him money, but she allowed him to kiss her. Her father, jokingly, aroused her jealousy; she said with a calm smile that she was not so stupid as to be jealous: let her do what she wants, she said about me. I asked her one day if she felt any signs of pregnancy. She laughed contemptuously and said that she was not a fool to want to have children, and that she would not have children from me.”

History of Cirque Du Soleil

The history of the Circus of the Sun goes back to 1984, when the Cirque du Soleil company was registered. However, we can safely say that it began much earlier, as soon as the idea of creating an unusual troupe arose in the bright minds of friends Guy Laliberte and Daniel Gautier.

Born in September 1959 in Quebec, a small town in the French province of Canada, Guy Laliberte showed artistic abilities from childhood. He mastered playing the accordion and learned to walk deftly on high stilts. Already at the age of 14, the young man began his career as an artist, and eventually even dropped out of college in order to be able to travel around Europe, giving street performances as a fakir and folk musician.

Returning to his homeland in 1979, Guy tried to begin serious work at a hydroelectric power station on the border between Quebec and Ontario, but fate decreed otherwise. Guy Laliberte, together with his friends Daniel Gautier and Gilles Ste-Croix, participated in organizing a summer fair in the town of Bay-Saint-Paul.

Daniel, who had graduated from business college by that time, was already the owner of a consulting firm. Together with Gilles, they ran the artists' hostel Balcon Vert. It was then that the friends decided to organize their own, unique troupe. Lacking initial capital, the comrades decided to turn to the Quebec government with a request to finance a grandiose project. In order to convince the authorities to do this, Gilles Ste-Croix walked from Bay-Saint-Paul to Quebec City on stilts, and this is no less than 90 kilometers. Either effort young man were assessed, or whether the provincial authorities saw future success in the new project, but the money was allocated, and already at the anniversary city celebration, the new troupe of 70 people gave their first performance.

On the plot of land allocated to them, the rent of which was a symbolic $1 per year, the artists set up a circus tent with a capacity of 800 spectators. From the very first performances it became clear that the audience success was simply incredible.

By the way, in September 2009, Guy Laliberte became one of the first space tourists. From the International Space Station, he tried to draw the attention of all mankind to global problems lack of water.

How to calm your heart: Cirque du Soleil's grandiose plans

Since 2008, Cirque du Soleil has had a representative office in Russia. The fall of 2009 was marked by the premiere production of Varekai, specially prepared for Russian audiences. Russian audiences are also familiar with the Circus of the Sun from its four-minute performance at the Eurovision song contest, which took place in Moscow in 2009. Therefore, millions of people are looking forward to new tours with great impatience. And they won’t keep you waiting long, already in the fall of 2010, on October 25, on the Luzhniki stage the Russian audience will be greeted by a new show program of the enchanting Circus of the Sun - Corteo. The troupe’s performance will not be limited to Moscow - the Circus of the Sun will go to tour across Russian cities!

It is worth saying that in relation to Russia, the Cirque du Soleil corporation has the same grandiose plans as the performances themselves. According to the director of the Circus of the Sun, it is planned to build a theater and create a permanent branch of Cirque du Soleil in Moscow. The project will cost close to $200 million. The amounts spent by the organizers on the creation of each new Cirque show du Soleil are as impressive as the productions themselves. Between 20 and 40 million dollars are spent on each new production. But what ultimately happens in the arena completely justifies the investment, making the audience admire the show program again and again.

To date, the Cirque du Soleil show has not yet been surpassed, but has not even come close to the unimaginable heights to which circus art has risen at Cirque du Soleil.

If Hollywood is the dream factory of cinema, the Canadian Cirque du Soleil is the dream factory of the circus world. This troupe is famous for its fantastic performances, which are an incredible combination of music, light and, of course, the skill of the artists, which is on the verge of human capabilities.

The current circus empire arose in the early 80s. On initial stage The company employed only 73 employees, but now 3.5 thousand people from more than 40 countries are involved in organizing the show. The troupe has repeatedly won international festivals. The number of spectators who have watched Cirque du Soleil performances is in the tens of millions. All projects of “Circus of the Sun” are a synthesis of Eastern and Western styles of circus art, incredible plasticity of gymnasts, dizzying stunts, enchanting special effects and live music. Currently, Cirque du Soleil presents 6 “tour shows” (Alegria, Corteo, Dralion, KOOZA, Quidam, Varekai), 2 “arena shows” (DELIRIUM, Saltimbanco). 7 other "permanent" shows are in New York (Wintuk), Orlando (La Nouba), Las Vegas (LOVE, KA, Mystere, "O", ZUMANITY). Every show is built around central theme, be it romantic story or a philosophical fairy tale.

The story begins in 1982, in the Quebec town of Baie-Saint-Paul (Canada). This marvelous picturesque village, a real creative paradise, attracts many artists, artists, and tourists. A group of young street performers entertain the crowd by juggling, dancing on stilts and breathing fire. Inspired by the apparent success, they come up with the idea of organizing a spectacular festival, which was then the forerunner of the emergence of Cirque du Soleil.

The Cirque du Soleil Soleil is founded with the help of the government of the Canadian province of Quebec, as part of a festive ceremony dedicated to the 450th anniversary of the arrival of Jacques Cartier in Canada.
The circus had a completely innovative concept: an extraordinary fusion of dramatic art and street performance, bold experimentation, extraordinary costumes, magical lighting and original music. Despite the fact that there is not a single animal on stage, distinctive features of this circus are noticeable from the very beginning. The debut takes place in the small Quebec town of Gaspé and then in 10 more cities in the province. The first yellow and blue tent seats 800 spectators.

After performing in Montreal, Sherbrooke and Quebec City, Cirque du Soleil is leaving its home province and bringing its show to its neighbors in Ontario for the first time. Performances take place in Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara Falls.

Cirque du Soleil is bringing its new production of "The Magic Continues" to eight cities across Canada, including Vancouver, where it is doing several screenings as part of Children's festival and Expo'86. The circus is also creating an international name for itself, as its performances receive top awards at festivals and competitions around the world. To accommodate future growth, a new 1,500-seat tent is being purchased.

This is the first time Cirque du Soleil is visiting America. The show “We're Remaking the Circus,” which was a triumphant success in Canada, is shown at a festival in Los Angeles, then travels to San Diego and Santa Monica. Encouraged by the warm reception of the California public, Cirque du Soleil is celebrating its success.

The show “We're Remaking the Circus” continues to tour North America, visiting on short time in Calgary, where the Winter Olympics are taking place. Stops in San Francisco, New York and Washington. A few weeks in Toronto. In any place, the result is the same: all tickets are sold and the press goes wild with delight.

Miami, Chicago, Phoenix are added to the route as we go.

In Montreal, the premiere of the performance “New Experience”, staged by the new division of the Circus, is taking place in a tent with already 2,500 seats. Then the play sets off on the roads of California. With this show, Cirque du Soleil broke all previous records for ticket sales. The decision is made to go on the first European tour with a showing of the play “We are remaking the Circus” in London and Paris. The beginning of the first overseas foray.

New Experience continues to travel across North America, making its first appearance in Atlanta. By the end of the tour across Canada and America, which lasted 19 months, the number of viewers reached 1.3 million.

Cirque du Soleil crosses Pacific Ocean and gains success in the land of the rising sun with the production of "Charm", which includes the best numbers from early productions. Screenings begin in Tokyo, then the show travels to other cities. Over four months, a total of 118 performances. At this time in Europe, Cirque du Soleil joins forces with the Swiss Knie Circus and performs in more than 60 cities throughout the country. “New Experience” receives a one-year contract to work in Las Vegas under the hospitable roof of the Mirage Hotel. Cirque du Soleil also adds the monumental “Saltimbanco” to its list of productions. After its premiere in Montreal, the show goes on a long tour of North America.

Following the success of the New Experience in Las Vegas, Cirque du Soleil is moving to new theater, built specifically to order, at the Treasure Island Hotel. A 10-year contract is being concluded with Mirage Resorts for a gigantic production of “Mystery”, worthy of the capital of show business. "Saltimbanco" continues its tour, increasing the number of viewers to 1.4 million.

"Saltimbanco" goes to Tokyo for 6 months. This same year, Cirque du Soleil celebrates its tenth anniversary. new production"Alegria". According to tradition, she goes on a two-summer tour after the premiere in Montreal. Meanwhile, Mysteria continues to make waves in Las Vegas, and Saltimbanco heads to Montreal for a short run of shows.

While "Alegria" is touring in triumph in the United States, Cirque du Soleil, responding to a request from the Canadian government, is staging a show specifically for the G7 Heads of Government meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada). "Saltimbanco" is going to conquer Europe. The circus is getting an impressive white tent with 2,500 seats. The first stop is Amsterdam, then Munich, Berlin, Dusseldorf and Vienna. The European headquarters of Cirque du Soleil is established in Amsterdam.

In April, the Circus launches a new show “Quidam”. After Montreal - a three-year tour of the United States.
Saltimbanco continues its European tour with stops in London, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Antwerp, Zurich and Frankfurt, while Alegria extends its Asian tour for a few more months.

"Quidam" is winning the hearts of American viewers in two more cities - Denver and Houston. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Saltimbanco European tour ends at London's Royal Albert Hall. Two weeks later, Alegria begins its journey through Europe. In the same year, the Main International Office in Montreal, called “Studio,” was commissioned, where all new Circus performances will be created in the future.

Quidam ends its US tour with a stop in Dallas. During this three-year journey, almost 1,000 performances were shown under the arches of the yellow and blue tent, which were seen by more than 2.5 million spectators. Further, in October 1998, the next permanent Cirque du Soleil show was launched on the Belagio stage in Las Vegas: “Oh!” This is the first water performance for the Circus. In December, the third permanent show “La Nouba” is presented to the public at Disneyland in Orlando (Florida, USA).
Saltimbanco is coming to Ottawa for a few weeks before embarking on a summer tour of Asia and Australia.

"Saltimbanco" begins a three-year tour of Australia-Asia from Sydney, and "Quidam" - a three-year tour of Europe - from Amsterdam. In addition to this, new project"Dralion" after Montreal goes on a tour of America. "Alegria" settles into a permanent location in Beau Rivage, Billoxi, Texas (USA). Finally, Cirque du Soleil releases its first live-action film based on the play "Alegria", as well as a television film "Cirque du Soleil Presents Quidam".

Audiences on three continents continue to enjoy Cirque du Soleil's four permanent shows (La Nouba, Mystère, O and Alegria) and three mobile shows (Quidam, Saltimbanco and Dralion). About 6 million spectators around the world watch these productions. Moreover, a stereo film (in IMAX format) “The Journey of Man” was released. The main premiere was in Berlin, in January 2000, then: simultaneous release in Montreal, New York and Los Angeles, then everywhere.