Cirque du Soleil in Prague

If your idea of circuses is still a straw-littered ring with a boisterous ringmaster, stupefied animals and a few tricks, perhaps a trip to Cirque du Soleil is necessary. Cirque du Soleil have taken acrobatics and in their over twenty years of performing and transformed it into nothing less than art. But don’t take my word for it, check out this clip of their show Saltimbanco.

The biggest difference I’ve seen with Cirque shows is the concentration and how much they put into the background of what’s going on on stage. Normally in a traditional circus if there’s a woman doing a hula hoop act or a hand balancing act, she is the main focus and everything else supports that, the stage light is on her and everything else is darkened out and so that you only really see her. What Cirque brought to the stage is one thing, they don’t have any animals so that they can utilize their stage so they can do the stage as they want, so they can do an array of colors or designs for the stage. Two, when you see the show, you’re going to notice the main act, but the environment around that act also tells a story. I think that’s where Cirque has perfected the art of circus, so that no matter what angle you actually sit at in the arena or the big top, you’ always have something to watch no matter where you sit.

With Saltimbanco you’re talking about one of the oldest shows. This show is I believe 17 to 18  years old. They have conceptors that actually sit down and plot the story-line of what the idea of the show is going to be. Then they have acrobatic conceptors who fill the stage with ideas of what’s going to help bring that story to life and how they’re going to go about it. It’s amazing. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen so many people sit down at a table to create one show.  To do a comparison again with a traditional show, you mostly have director or the ringmaster or the owner of the show, who says we’re going to make a show like this. Then they’ll put the music to it and put the acrobatics to it, and it’s basically a straightforward presentation of acrobatics. With Cirque du Soleil, what they try to is follow a story and an emotion through out the show, so you’re taken on this journey, so it’s not just one number after the next. What Cirque du Soleil does best, I’ll say it again, is the transitions between the acts, so you have two major acts, but the transition between them, is almost an act itself, a mini act, that carries you into the next, that ties those two together. And it’s that which makes it such an enjoyable show to watch because you’re constantly filled with visual stimulus and emotional stimulus.

For me, and you’ll notice this yourself if you go with a group of people, everyone takes from the show something completely different. It’s not meant to be a story told, but how you interpret the story is an important part of it. And for me, the show is more a celebration of humanity. a celebration of our lives, how we live it, how we see it, how we want to see it, you have a lot of aspects in the show, without telling you too much about the show, where you have an authority figure, you have people who are mischievous, you have people who are very obedient, in the sense that they follow the rules, the day to day rules. The beauty of that, the fun part about that, is that we play with how the authority figure and the mischievous ones interact with each other. Sometimes you know you want to tell that authority figure that he can go stuff it, so to speak. In life there are a lot of things we can’t do because the repercussions. In this show we can really jump on that, we can really have fun with that, and exploit that. When you see the show, you’re really going to have so much presented to you, it’s going to depend on where you sitting and what you see and what you focus on and what you focus on is going to be basically what reaches out to you.

[Laughs] One thing I have to add with Cirque du Soleil shows is that it is very abstract. So, yes I’m the ringmaster. I’m that authority figure, so to speak, on stage at the time, but it’s not the top hat, the red tails and the big black boots. He is a character that stands out. I like to say he’s the master of nothing. In his own mind, in his own head, no-one is over him, nothing is greater than him, but he’s a nitwit. He doesn’t have control of anything. No one wants to listen to him. That’s where I find my fun on the stage.

It is possible. Like I said, it’s very abstract. There’s nothing to point the finger to say what is what, but we play with those emotions that we have, those feelings that we have toward authority figures. Let’s say that something can be death-defying and we celebrate that. We celebrate those differences and we celebrate those unique situations we find ourselves in.

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We also managed to talk to a Prague-based rope-skipper Adrienn Banhegyi a new hire of Cirque du Soleil.

Sometimes you have to wait a while for your dreams to come true. For Hungarian born rope-skipper, Adrienn Banhegyi, she had to wait five years before Cirque du Soleil accepted her.

Adrienn started with rope-swinging when she was 18. Rope-skipping for the uninitiated (which included me until I spoke with Adrienn) is the athletic acrobatic cousin of jump rope. Rope-skippers don’t just jump rope,. They cartwheel, dance, skip and tumble over rope. As Adrienn said, rope-skipping fits into the urban roots of Cirque du Soleil, which has combined traditional circus arts with more modern disciplines.

In order to be accepted, Adrienn had to demonstrate not only her fitness and flexibility but also her skills as a performer. “The training involves a lot of role-playing,” she said. It was also important that she could bring to the stage the vision of the choreographer.

Now, she is set to join the international troupe for Wintuk, Cirque du Soleil’s New York based show.