Moving From A Big Top To An Arena
The majority of Cirque du Soleil’s 21 productions worldwide are shown under the big top. Only two are designed as so-called “arena” shows, with speedy set-up and set-down that can drop into a new city every 10 days.
Alegria, the production Honolulu will host in October, is one such show.
On a recent Friday, over a lunch of ahi fried rice with a side of kimchi, Michael Smith, the show’s artistic director, talked about the logistics of traveling with an artistic cast largely comprised of former Olympic athletes.
The big top takes three days to set up and the equipment fills 57 trucks. The troupe travels with full catering, merchandising and a school for the performers’ and crew members’ children.
“We invest a lot in the artists. We travel with the family. We usually find apartments for families,” said Smith, a lanky, energetic 50-year-old. “Because it’s such a big infrastructure, we have to stay minimum of five weeks to make it worth it.”
But Hawaii’s 1.3 million population isn’t nearly big enough to sustain a big top Cirque show for five weeks. Smith says the big top shows need to visit cities of at least 3 million in order to cover their costs. A few years ago, Cirque management decided to invest in arena shows as way to reach smaller markets.
Alegria is one of Cirque’s longest-running shows. Created to mark Cirque’s 10th anniversary, it cost a reported $3 million to produce and represents one of the brand’s darkest concepts, showing the divide between old aristocracies and young upstarts, the powerful and the powerless.
In its 16 years, Alegria has been shown all over the U.S., in Europe four times and twice in Japan. Its cast of 55 performers and musicians hail from 15 different countries.
“So it was either going to retire, or go to arena,” Smith said. Last year, they moved the show into an arena. “The question at the time was, ‘Can we do it and not lose any artistic integrity of the show?'”
The set now goes up in 12 hours rather than three days and fits in 18 trucks instead of 57. Everyone stays in hotels. And as artistic director, Smith had to consider how the acts would look from arena settings where audiences might sit in high bleachers.
“We had to rework everything,” he said. Hawaii presents additional logistical challenges for organizers. “The most important is that if we’re going to bring it here, we bring the whole show. We’re not going to bring a cut down version because it’s a long way to Hawaii,” Smith said.
But some things remained the same.
The group still travels with chefs who try to use local food and produce when possible. In the cafeteria, the chefs usually write a little explanation about the fish or meat if it’s local. “We try and expand knowledge of local culture whenever possible,” Smith said.
