Text by: Keith Johnson | April 2002
Fascination! Newsletter, Issue #8 /// { Read }

The book begins with a quick Cirque du Soleil history, then a quick circus history with illustrations, focusing on "traditional" circus disciplines and clowns. It then concentrates on Cirque du Soleil in three basic sections. (Now remember I'm translating, poorly.) "The Acts" covers the less-traditional acts in Saltimbanco, such as Bungee and Chinese Poles, and the people who perform them. "The Concept" seems to discuss the creation and brainstorming of the show with several pages of costume sketches by Dominique Lemieux. It also discusses and has diagrams of the stage, big top, and lighting design. It's in this section where you'll find a majority of the books 47 illustrations.

Finally, what I would call "The Evolution" part of the book seems to address how the show evolved, and how the Cirque du Soleil process differs from more traditional circuses, with the artists and creators interacting and feeding off each other. The book takes great pains to point this out, to the point of having a diagram of "spectacle du cirque traditionnel" showing an insular "tradition" keeping out the "nouvelles idees" from the process. This is offset by a similar diagram for Cirque du Soleil, showing "nouvelles informations", as well as all other areas of the production, having influence on each other.

There are three interesting Appendixes at the end of the book. The first has year-by-year highlights from 1987-1996, listing awards and media (magazine, television) appearances. The second is a very complete listing of tour itineraries from 1984-1998 (even including their first tour of Quebec in June-Aug 1984). And finally there is a 5-page bibliography, including some citations in English.