1995

CONQUERING EUROPE

In the beautifully illustrated book that celebrated Cirque du Soleil's 10th anniversary, there is a black-and-white photo, taken in 1982, that shows Gilles Ste. Croix, a lean, mustachoed, long-haired stiltwalker, setting off on a solitary walkathon to help raise funds for a new circus entertainment that he and his street-performer colleagues had launched in Quebec. Now move forward 13 years. Ste. Croix is still lean, but he no longer has a mustache or long hair. For a fund-raising device, he has traded in his stilts for a cellular phone, through which he keeps in touch with the ever-expanding, far-flung empire of the Cirque.

The little summer festival that he and his friends started just outside Quebec City has grown into a full-blown circus that they put under a blue and yellow striped tent and called Cirque du Soleil. Their first circus cost $50,000, employed 62 people and ran for a little less than three summer months in Quebec. The performers brought their own costumes. Now, with year-round operations on three continents, the Cirque spends about $2.5 million on each show and charges a top ticket price of $41. The organization's annual budget runs around $55 million and there is a payroll of 600 persons. There are 45 performers wearing 90 costumes in the latest creation, Alegría, with each costume custom designed for the particular magical environment of this production.

Back home at its headquarters in Montreal, the Cirque creative team was busy developing the early stages of their next offering, which will repeat the now-established five-year cycle of American-Japanese-European touring.

On other fronts, Ste. Croix says, Cirque management is preparing a television series and a feature film, either for theatrical release or cable or network showing, and responds to a request from the Canadian government and createsa show for the heads of state gathered at the G7 Summit in Halifax, Nova Scotia. By spring of 1998, an even larger theater for Cirque attractions should be ready to open in Las Vegas. The amazing thing about this phenomenal expansion is that it has been accomplished by the same crew of ragamuffin players who began so modestly in 1982.

"We came from nothing," Ste. Croix says. "We have grown from street players to company managers, but we have tried to make that a comfortable growth. At this stage, we are the originals, still running the show and still carrying the original spirit, but now we must learn to spread that company spirit with new people whom we invite to sit around our table. The flame continues to burn inside of us, but we must be able to pass that flame on to the right people in the future."

1994

1996