All language subtitles for Cirque du Soleil 1994 A Baroque Odyssey

Long ago in a northern land too often
forsaken by the Sun there lived a man

beyond all men

yet a child of nature, a giant.

With great striding legs, he hastened
from city to hamlet, an itinerant

of laughter.

Wherever simple folk gathered, he
gladdened hearts with dance, music, and

People of Quebec called him

Alexis the Trotter.

Alexis lives as the Quicksilver Spirit,
the primeval energy behind

Cirque du Soleil.

So, the night of the premiere, well, I
think that's the night we're going to

all our pants down and say, well,
listen, that's the show.

Tonight is the night.

We cannot go back. And especially this
year, we cannot change the date of

premiere because Christmas is 25 of
December, and that cannot be changed.

So something will be born again this
year.

I'm excited. I can't wait for it to
start.

It's been a year. We've been training
for one year.

We're creating, I mean, we're creating
this thing where we can express

as people, you know, to another person,
to an audience.

Certainly, Las Vegas represents a great
opportunity for Cirque du Soleil.

Artistically, it represents a big task
because the kind of show business

entertainment here, which is presented,
I would say, is a little different than

Cirque du Soleil. It also represents a
big task to do a show

of Cirque du Soleil here and make it
successful.

If I could make a reference,

The actual reference is we do believe we
could make, grow a flower in the

desert, and that's how we approached
Cigna Salé playing in Las Vegas.

The flower journeyed south to the Nevada
desert, but had actually taken root in

other places, other times.

During the 70s, flower power smothered
North America.

It was the season of the witch, of sit
-ins, love -ins, and hair.

Lots of hair.

Caught up in this ferment of values and
ideas, the young founders of Cirque du

Soleil learned to reinvent their
fractured world.

I became a street performer almost by
accident.

In school, I was going to be working in
architecture, so I tried out a couple of

years.

I couldn't keep up with the white sheet
syndrome every morning.

So I gave it up and really decided to do
what I wanted to do when I was a

teenager, which was being in theater.

But I met the Grand Puppet Theater.

Took classes and still walking puppetry
and did a show with them as well.

So I said, hey, how come I cannot do
this in Quebec?

So I went back and I started to have
this idea of gathering friends and

who had some kind of guts and
performance and just built a troupe and

the street and maybe walk into a theater
one day to do this show.

In 1980, Gilles Sainte -Croix founded a
troupe of stilt -walkers, Les Echassiers

de Baie -Saint -Paul.

Soon joined by Guy Laliberte, the young
troupe produced its first show, The

Legend of Alexis le Trotteur.

This marked the start of an enduring
collaboration between Gilles and Guy.

The life of a street performer is the
life of somebody who's, you know,

traveling with his back sack or his
little things.

And just going on a quest of adventure.

Guy Laliberté followed the sun to his
own South Sea paradise.

In the meantime, in Hawaii, I was also
thinking about the project I would be

working on when I was coming back.

during summer in Quebec, which project
was at a certain point Les Echassiers de

Baie -Saint -Paul, La Fête Foraine de
Baie -Saint -Paul and La Fête du Soleil.

Mid -summer's night, 1982.

The northern sky over Baie Saint -Paul
shimmers with ghostly apparitions.

The Aurora Borealis, nature's own
celestial performer, hovers over a

assembly of street players.

It is the Fête Foraine of Baie Saint
-Paul, a festival that transforms a

town into a giant giddy trade fair of
circus arts.

Clowns, jugglers, magicians, acrobats
and musicians mount dozens of shows,

filling streets with their riotous
workshops, sweeping young and old alike

the gentle madness of this midsummer
heat.

By nightfall, the atmosphere is
electric.

The performers are primed. They have
honed their craft and are now joined

one delirious pagan celebration.

As the final notes sound, the heavens
crack.

The sounder comes facing us.

Then, a new circus is born, dedicated to
the sun.

The fact that I've been on the beach a
lot of times under the sun, thinking

about it as an influence, the sun of
Hawaii being a very big influence. But

the other hand, I was looking in the
dictionary of symbol,

If you look under the definition of sun,
it's a very powerful sign, which means

the power of youth, which means a lot of
energy.

So I guess at that time, we're a bunch
of young kids, and we certainly had to

identify ourselves with the sun and the
energy of the sun. And that's where the

namesake dissonant came from.

The dream was in the soul and the head
and the mind of all the street

performers.

On the other hand, I think there was
also another motivation 10 years ago,

was also important, was the quest of
young people who want to make their

job, who want to make a living out of
it, was representing the

dream of...

a certain number of people who want to
do their own circus, their own job.

In 1984, dignitaries, among them Premier
René Lévesque, threw their support

behind this lunatic band of untried
players.

It was a real start.

We wanted to do a tour in Quebec. We had
to rent trucks. We needed lighting.

We had to play around.

We had to make our point.

We had to get some credit.

You can't always pay in advance.

And today,

you talk about it, you do it, and no one
questions it.

It's just a matter of time.

To understand our financial situation,
it was a bit complicated.

The first year, well, it was a
government contract. The second year, we

the technical phase.

The third year, we were almost at the
point of death in our balance sheet.

In 1987, we went up the ladder. In 1988
and 1989, we invested

a lot. We improved the salaries, the
quality of life.

And at that time, we were still a small
organization, a small group on tour.

And we were from back east America.

So we just decided to put everything in
our truck and come in Los Angeles.

And it was kind of a question of live or
die in L .A.

And it was really the case, because if
we didn't achieve success, I

think, you know, at that time, we
probably didn't have the money to pay

to put back in our truck to come back in
Canada.

We don't.

grow tomatoes and we don't produce cars
and we produce soap.

Picked off his... He's a piece of art.

Sexy.

You prefer giving jobs to a couple of
people than feeding an elephant.

Please welcome the Cirque du Soleil. If
you have a chance, go see Cirque du

Soleil. You'll have a marvelous time.

Il y a eu un positionnement que l
'Organisation du Cycle du Soleil s 'est

au tout débit. C 'est -à -dire conquérir
l 'Amérique du Nord.

Puis conquérir l 'Amérique du Nord, nous
autres, c 'est vraiment descendre

ouest. On a commencé par l 'ouest pour
finir dans l 'est.

Et puis New York représente finalement
un peu la dernière étape du plan

quinquennal qu 'on s 'était fixé.

I quit.

I resigned two times, and I cried three
times.

Just for New York?

Yeah, just for New York. That was the
only city I really decided, no, they are

too tough.

First, we got the permit an hour before
the door opened.

We were having 400 journalists at the
door waiting for the permit.

But when we arrived at the permit, at
the kitchen, we opened a huge bottle of

champagne, and at the end of the show, I
take some claps for myself.

Puis, le succès aussi, ça me fait peur.

Bon, maintenant que les critiques sont
sorties à New York, on sait que ça

marche. Comment on fait pour rester
aussi simple?

C 'est le gros danger qui nous guette, c
'est la grande... C 'est là qu 'on va

voir si on est vraiment comme on l
'espérait.

In 1988, following the American triumph,
a crisis.

Disillusioned by success, many
performers quit.

Tension, losses, goodbyes.

The founders endured and learned.

For the sun must rise again.

Most companies that get larger and
bigger and have larger projects and go

the world, they have to structure
differently.

So Cirque du Soleil changed in that
sense that it's more structured and less

personal.

But at the same time, we try to keep the
same spirit of respecting and being

audacious, being creative.

So that spirit is what we started with.

put on a show.

The big top is our oyster and our
playground.

Do you remember the pleasure of
anything?

The sweet thrill of getting away with
doing what you love and doing it like no

one else?

Can you recall passion?

A vision of grace in the heart of chaos?
Take a bite out of life. It's here now

and gone already.

Youth unravels under your feet of clay,
so play.

Pirouette over the tightrope of
conventions for youth.

No past and no constriction.

Let's howl at the sun and dance beneath
the lunar sway.

I am a provocation, a celebration.

Look at me and see the child you had
forgotten.

The child is king and I the fool who
cavorts at his feet.

Close your eyes and follow the visionary
flood of intuition.

Sometimes you have three or four
interpreters for the director to direct,

Franco being French -speaking but
Italian as well, his

English is very poor, and we have to get
around to that factor.

I think that as soon as the basic stage
language is established, people then

start to function very well.

This studio will be really a church.

So it's me in that.

As soon as you come inside of this, I
don't want no one word.

You can talk a lot outside, but as soon
as you are here...

No words. Because we will work on this.

And I really need, and you will need,
the silence.

We cannot say that each show has a
theme, but we choose a theme

just to guide us.

A theme to have a...

discussion between us and I used to say
that a team for me is like a country you

decide to visit it's why we choose a
team so we have something to

debate and those discussions give us the
strength to do the show

Be able to do acting, dancing. You never
know what he's going to ask of you. So

you always have this almost a nervous
energy.

Because you want to please him. And you
know that this man can bring out

anything from your body that he wants.

And so once you finish your rehearsal,
the energy is there. So it just goes

you to whatever rehearsal you have for
the rest of the day.

Faster, faster.

Don't move this.

Don't move.

Being

a

gymnast, I was constantly thinking about
what the judges were going to mark me

down for doing wrong.

And now all I think about is how I can
please the audience, what they're going

to love, not what they're not going to
like.

I have no artistic pretension and I have
no idea.

I try to have a look and to grasp the
moment when something happens. And at

moment, if I have looked carefully, if I
have grasped well, I can at that moment

talk to the artists, talk to a set and
say, that's how it's going to happen. So

my source of inspiration, I would say,
is in the look I have on things.

Move within a dream till the dream moves
you till the dream dreams you.

Leap, vault, and tumble with a wink at
fate, a kiss at danger.

Soar into a bottomless sky because
gravity is just another law that's meant

be broken.

Spin out of reach till the dream of you
leaves us.

Inspiration is a very fragile thing and
a very hard thing to define.

I think that in my work, it's the people
who are the inspiration.

It's the material that inspires you.
It's very much like a sculpture. I think

that when you find the proper lights,
you will paint the proper painting or a

sculpture, the proper marble, and you
will get a great sculpture out of it.

Inspiration is very, very fragile, I
guess. So it's when we find artists that

are very talented, to build a show with
them and they will inspire whatever work

will come out of it.

You need a full comprehension of the
intent of the show, the gut feeling, and

that can only be picked up at the
earlier stage of the production when

sitting together around a table and
we're discussing the show, what the

is, what's the feeling going to be.

And in order to be able to light the
show, you need to be able to grasp that.

So you need to be careful not to have
choices that are made earlier on dictate

what you're going to do on opening
night.

We're going to get rid of the plumes.

Hey,

man.

Hey, Guy. Hello. Hello, Guy.

Have a good one.

We all have a way of walking, running,
moving, looking.

But it's not just the physique, it's
everything that the person carries in

that inspires me.

It's true that I have a lot of work that
I do before, before, for the group in

general, but I have main characters. And
there are always people in the group

who detach themselves, who, with time,
will take up more space.

And for me, there are costumes that
often appear for them.

You think that the numbers of the show
will be composed of numbers that will

have a beginning and an end and then
another number and then another number.

Well, here I announce to you that we
will try to

do the opposite of that.

We are going to discover,

we are going to destructure the numbers
in order to make a show that is

integrated.

Bizarrely, I feel like we are still in a
transition period.

If the Cirque du Soleil was a transition
period between the three previous shows

and the new envergure, the new audacity
of the circus, the new experience was

also a transition period, where we still
kept some signs of the past.

It's a simple tooth.

the new experience. There was still the
track team, but it was called

Corporation, with Madame Corporation,
obviously inspired by the circus

tradition, but contrary to the circus
tradition, she was a woman.

Usually, it's rather a man who does it,
Mr.

Loyal, the track leader.

So we have an image together.

C 'est l 'histoire du planet. It's the
story of the world.

All the people and the urgence that we
must come together and wake up and save

the world before we all die.

And the gesture.

It's us.

Coming together.

All the world. To fight.

And we are ready to die for the Earth.

Calming the Earth.

The fight.

Around the world, there is suicide. So
wake up.

Now.

This rebirth.

The cry.

All over the world.

The urgency to wake up.

Now.

There may be a constant in the
scenographies that we install on the

There is always the idea of the
saltimbanque behind each of the

the idea of the public square, finally,
that we always try to install, which

causes meeting places, which causes
demonstrations a little out of the

which, I would say, justifies
pirouettes, which justifies madness,

justifies the race, which justifies
confrontations, exchanges, etc.

Mon émotion musicale est beaucoup plus
du 19e siècle, je pense.

Et là, je ne parle pas avec prétention,
mais si je parle de la musique comme je

la vois moi, je vois que l 'émotion que
je souris, c 'est beaucoup plus près du

lyrisme du 19e siècle, de la modernité,
par exemple, qu 'on a trouvé avec les

courants musicaux des années, les plus
synthétiques avec les machines.

Je suis moins près de ça, même si je les
utilise.

The influence I got from the Saint
-Édouard is perhaps something that

Festival of the Sun. There will always
be some. It was like the core to which I

carved other things as it progressed. I
carved voices, I carved percussions.

This year, I'm going to carve even more
percussions in the spectacle of 1994 for

the 10th anniversary, while trying to
return to the core of what this musical

research was that I did for the Festival
of the Sun.

J 'aime beaucoup, beaucoup les musiques
de toutes sortes de cultures.

Il y a des fois, il y a certaines
cultures qui peuvent nous faire peur,

leurs musiques, elles ne nous font
jamais peur. C 'est toujours une très

porte d 'entrée dans n 'importe quelle
culture, la musique.

Quand j 'ai enseigné au Ciel du Soleil,
c 'est que t 'en as 15, 20 qui sont

toujours autour de toi, t 'appuies sur
20 gros tambours.

À un certain moment, tu le vois en face.

Tu vas te dire, ils ont la bête.

They have a sense of observation.

They have the synchronism developed by
Baby with the dance.

They have a sense of staging.

So sometimes when I take my baguettes,
they're beautiful.

I was telling the artists a month ago,
my

challenge is that when people meet you
in the street,

Qu 'il... vraiment qu 'il soit intimidé
par vous.

En criant, justement, une manière de se
démarquer, c 'est en criant un certain

mythe, peut -être.

Comme le cirque est déjà un mythe dans
la tête des enfants et de tout le monde,

des grands -enfants aussi, c 'est un
mythe, c 'est les gens du voyage.

Increasingly, Gilles Sainte -Croix and
Guy Laliberté scour the globe for new

talent, new acts.

England, China, Russia, France, they
come from everywhere to join the Cirque

Soleil's core of local performers.

From 1984 on, this internationalism has
ensured a constant creative renewal and

a steady stream of distinctions from
around the world.

In the U .S., Japan, and soon in Europe,
wherever the blue and yellow big top

rises, it signals the fulfillment of
this duck's eternal quest for

We were brought up in trailers.

I was. And when Julie and I married, we
worked circus for about 10 years and

cabarets and lived in trailers.

And both the kids were conceived in
trailers.

So moving to a trailer wasn't difficult.

It's hard to call us gypsies. Chick -fil
-A is more or less the Club Med of

circuses in a way.

Yeah, it gives it more of a circus
feeling if you're living on the site.

When we bring it down at the end of the
city, and before they bring it up in the

next city, I spend a couple of days
working, and every time there's this

emptiness.

I don't feel at home anywhere except
when I'm here with these people.

Everything else is temporary.

It's the only thing that's permanent in
our lives is the Big Top and everything

that surrounds it and the people that
live in it and work in it.

It's hard to have a relationship with
somebody.

If you want to have a relationship on
tour, it's something hard because you're

going to work each day and stay each day
with the same person. I don't know, 24

hours a day with the same person. For
me, it's something hard.

And if you have a girlfriend with
somebody who's not on tour, that means

you'll never see her.

He writes and writes and writes to his
girlfriend.

Oh, yeah?

Every day, a letter. A letter, a
telephone, and a fax. All moving.

My parents were also in the circus, and
my grandparents, but my parents were

knife throwers and rope spinners and
whipcrackers and stilt walkers.

So you were one in the circus? Yeah,
more or less. My grandparents were

acrobats, foot acrobats.

They called it Risley, Risley acrobats.

I did just two or three weeks in
Scotland, in England, and that was it. I

just completely hooked on it. And then
they went on and did more tours with

circus, and I spent probably about six
months with them all together, just

touring all over England.

And then it just sort of went on. I just
couldn't... The idea of going back to

university was like, no, this is too
much fun to give up, you know.

Come closer as you are going to be
placed.

And I start to read a lot of books and
articles about the cities

in the world, and I share it with my
friends from Cirque du Soleil, and we

decide to choose the urbanity, the
cities in the future to do

Saltimbanco.

It has evolved a lot. My work has had
several stages.

My vision of the city at the beginning
of my drawings was very black.

that came out was very, very black.

All my tones were gray.

It was green.

It was a bit post -nuclear.

Finally, with Franco, we decided to go
the other way.

At the beginning, we wanted a rock

-baroque show.

We tried, and in the end, the show,
rather than being rock, remained rock,

became tender.

Because we also said to ourselves, but a
little by the strength of things, the

casting with which we work is quite
tender.

I tried to make some rockers.

Heavy metal, so he always responded with
a certain tenderness.

Voilà, c 'est ça qu 'il faut. Bravo.

Creation has an input, of course, in the
whole company because we produce show.

Ten

years

ago, there was about 75 employees, and
right now there's 600.

I think I've been able to achieve a good
webbing between the art and the

business, and that's what is really in
the center of SIC.

They're doing this just before contract
negotiations. Now they have a double of

me. How stupid.

I should have waited.

Tomorrow

you

don't work. We work at 6 o 'clock only.

Ten years ago, I was an happiness
merchant, and ten years after, I'm still

happiness merchant. So as long as I will
be doing the same job, I guess my

motivation will still be there.

After the experience we had in Las Vegas
with a show on the stage, after Salta

Banco, after the new experience, and
after this show called Alegria, where we

did all these shows, I would say in the
same vein or in a certain movement, we

have the intention to look at the 10
years that have passed to see

precisely what we are going to do.

in the near future and in the medium
term as well. To see how we have worked,

it is still relevant.

And as far as I'm concerned, the subject
of the show that I'm doing

now with the circus actually carries on.

It also carries on the theme of power,
but also carries on the look we have of

our past.

There is a category, a family of
characters that I call the nostalgic

They are like that, they always have a
mirror in their hand to see if they

laugh too much and at the same time look
at their past.

And to evolve, I would say, to evolve,
we must also accept to kill certain

things. To leave room for the young, we
must also accept to die.

So, I don't know if we have a mission,
but in any case, it's clear that we...

There's a lot of rituals.

Some are very personal, some are
collective, some are related to wishes

we... like to bring to our big top,
every big top that we use

and we work in have a name.

Some other rituals are there strictly to
wish a good tour or wish a good life to

the show we've been creating.

That's about what I could talk about the
ritual because beyond that, it's a very

personal, it's a very intimate moment.

The dream is to do what we're doing, so
the dream will be still the same thing

in 10 years.

And then there's another one I'll be
also able to achieve, which is going,

I don't know, on a spaceship somewhere
on another planet and talk and chat with

those extraterrestrials.

I truly believe in that, so anyway, I'm
ready.

Franco Dragong, are you influenced by
the forces of the cosmos?

It's a big challenge to do a show. So we
try to put all the elements with us.

The wind, the snow, and also the stars.

And of course the people.