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Cirque Reinvente

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Creations


Cirque
Réinventé


Création

Concepteurs
Scénographie
Musique
Personages

Expérience

1987

Chair Balancing
Juggling
Korean Plank
Slackwire
Handbalancing
Voltige
Trick Cycling
Tower on Wheels

1988

Chair Balancing
Juggling
Korean Plank
Contortion
Fil de Fer
Handbalancing
Voltige
Trick Cycling
Tower on Wheels

1989

Chair Balancing
Acrobatic Dance
Fil de Fer
Korean Plank
Flying Trapeze
Rola Bola
Juggling
Handbalancing
Trick Cycling
Tower on Wheels

1990

Chair Balancing
Acrobatic Dance
Fil de Fer
Korean Plank
Solo Trapeze
Aerial Cradle
Juggling
Handbalancing
Trick Cycling
Tower on Wheels

Odyssey

Itinéraire
Audio/Visual

 


Where magic is pure and fantasy real,
where dreams cease being just dreams...


Beginning in LaSalle in 1987 and ending rather unceremoniously in Paris in 1990, Le Cirque Réinventé (or "We Reinvent the Circus"), is the show that elevated Cirque du Soleil from a provincial rag-tag band of performers to a colorful set of international entertainers, creating nothing less than a phenomenon in the process. Today we as fans are intimately familiar with the story: how Cirque banked its success in West by performing outside their native Canada at the Los Angeles Festival in summer 1987, later criss-crossing the North American continent - taking Manhattan by storm, before picking up stakes and sailing across the pond to England and France. By today's standards the production is a simple one, without an esoteric story or theme, but if you look hard enough you can see a simple thread, the beginnings of a tapestry, which would be expanded and expounded upon year over year.

The show actually begins in the audience, where a dozen or so performers, clad in an assortment of street clothes, hide quietly, masquerading as ticketholders. The performance begins as they are then "selected," one by one, with a great deal of fanfare, to come into the ring. They make up a Capra-esque everyman's village: A slouch-shouldered and bespectacled businessman, a prim schoolteacher, a little girl, a teenager in jersey and baseball cap. They mill about, exchanging looks of amazement with the audience - is this a dream or is it really true? Timidly, they perform a few tricks, showing off a couple of dance steps or maneuvering a simple handstand. The truth is they begin responding to some mysterious urge to let out some of the folly and playfulness buried deep down in each of them. Arabesques, cartwheels, handstands... they can hardly contain their joy. Dream or reality? All we can tell is that they're being drawn into a world of fantasy.

Suddenly, as though rising from the seething belly of the earth, the King of Fools appears in a cloud of white smoke. In the blink of an eye, he transforms seemingly ordinary people into dancers, acrobats, and clowns. In this ode to the child living inside each and every one of us, flamboyant characters "contaminate" regular folk, who suddenly become circus artists. These everyday characters go on to discover their true colors, letting out the folly and playfullness buried deep inside them, which eventually shines through for all to see. By doing so, they begin to show us that this playfullness is inside of each us as well. They begin to dance about... Joined by the Queen of the Night and her helpers (the Infants), she produces the atmosphere from which the transformed people play out their destiny. So transformed that they become an integral part of the show. Music, movement, color, and light combine to produce an atmosphere of true enchantment. With the help of the ringmaster transformed into Ti-Claude, he will guide you towards your destiny. Our destiny. From this point on, anthing is possible. Dreams cease being just dreams...

Le Cirque Réinventé has won many awards including - La Rose d'Or 1989, Montreux, Switzerland; Emmy Award 1989, United States; four Gemini Awards 1989, Canada; Ace Award 1990, National Cable Television Association, United States; Silver Medal 1990, and the 32nd New York International Film and TV Festival.

 
Premiere: May 7, 1987
Type: Touring / Bigtop
Finale: December 30, 1990
 

Creative Team


Guide
Guy Laliberté
Director
Franco Dragone
Creation
Guy Caron
Costumes
Michel Crête
Choreographer
Debra Brown
  Composer
René Dupéré
Co-Composer
Benoît Jutras
Lighting Designer
Luc Lafortune
Set Designer
Andre Caron


Audio/Visual


 

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