The Cirque du Soleil carnival took a giant step closer to completion last weekend as the mindboggling logistical challenge continued with the final, major set-up stage of the main tent being accomplished.
You may have already seen a Cirque du Soleil performance in a Las Vegas residency for example, or even one of the shows that tours the country, much like the one soon to open in Santa Monica, but few have seen the actual setup in progress and it’s almost as good as the show itself.
A few select members of the media and other honored guests were invited on Saturday morning to watch what is called by the production crew as the "big top push" and to anyone with little or no knowledge of what this entails, you’d be forgiven for thinking it meant the main tent was being hoisted up.
Actually, not so much. Upon arrival it was clear that the main tent had already been erected so, from first glance it was hard to visualize what all the fuss was about. In essence, it involves lifting the bottom of the main tent up and moving at least a hundred large, thick and heavy metal poles into place that will support the weight of the main tent, while simultaneously tightening the cables that support the giant, primary poles.
The production takes up most of the Beach Parking Lot 1 North space, sometimes referred to as 1550 Pacific Coast Highway and walking through what looks a little like a construction site, you get a real sense of a completely different kind of choreography. This operation is a well-oiled machine and it has to be, much like a Formula One team traveling the world during the racing season, or a big-name music star performing concerts on tour. The most significant difference however, is that the very lives of the performers depend on every single element of the show’s infrastructure being tested, retested and certified beyond any doubt that it’s secure and safe.
Cirque first performed next to the Santa Monica Pier in 1987. More recently, Cirque has staged productions in 2009, 2012 and 2014. Following Cirque’s 2009 Santa Monica stay, the City commissioned an economic impact study which concluded the net fiscal benefit in the City was approximately $16.7 million, equivalent to $22.5 million today accounting for inflation.
Julie Desmarais, Turing Publicist for the Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, explains that the set-up crew is made up of 120 permanent production staff with over 30 different languages are spoken, but she says that there is an unofficial rule where English is the universal language spoken, with French also being quite predominant. A total of 70 semi-trailer trucks bring everything needed and they’re kept at a location in Orange County, with equipment being brought to Santa Monica when it’s required.
There is a dedicated kitchen tent where four sous chefs will cook over 200 breakfasts, lunches and dinners every day and lots of protein for the performers. "They can cook up to 40 or 50 kilograms of protein every day," Desmarais says, adding, "They have food provided here for them mainly because we do more than one show a day, so it's hard. They do their makeup in the morning and preparation between shows, so there's not enough time for them to go and get something to eat outside of the site."
"There's always the dessert, we have really good desserts," laughs Desmarais. "Many of the artists that do a lot of dieting, so they have their nutrition and we have a nutritionist on the tour that can also help … a base and teeterboard [artist] won't eat the same thing as a contortionist, though their timing or their eating schedules are also very different from another, the contortionist will never eat before the show, for instance," she says.
In every truck, or every tent there were engineers, technicians, specialists and people with job titles I’d probably never heard of all working furiously on their key contribution to the whole affair. One tent was just full of audio equipment and another was full of lighting rigs with giant spotlights that had chairs attached to them in which the operators sit some 50 ft in the air during each show.
As our group gathered under the big tent, so did just about every member of the production crew as the big top push was a task that required every able hand available. Since safety is always of primary concern, we had to remain very much in the center of the tent as two teams of 40 assembled, with four people to each of the giant poles, each one approximately 20 ft tall.
A supervisor shouted instructions and the first set of 10 poles were carefully lifted and placed into position, during which the second team had positioned themselves at the next set of 10 poles. As they lifted theirs, the first team moved into position for the next set of 10…and so it went, surprisingly seamlessly as all 10 sets, each with 10 poles, were lifted vertically and secured to the ground, allowing daylight to stream into the big top tent. All in all, the whole procedure couldn’t have taken more than 10 minutes and a huge cheer erupted when the job was completed, as is customary.
Almost immediately, we could see workers kitted out in climbing equipment abseiling down the outside roof of the tent to begin tightening all the other cables that were required to make the venue secure. Along with pushing over a thousand slightly smaller, but still pretty-damn-big metal stakes actually into the parking lot asphalt to anchor the primary tent support poles, additional concrete has also been added to provide support for the giant tarpaulin tepee.
With work continuing around the clock, only a few days remain before the opening night on Saturday. The VIP tent, ticket tent and wardrobe tent, albeit each one being significantly smaller than the one we had just been inside, still had to be put together. It was clear a lot still had to be done, but given how quickly the team had already got to this stage, no one had any doubt it wouldn’t be accomplished with time to spare.
"[Santa Monica] is where Cirque got its American start and we're happy to see the big top back being raised today," said Mayor Phil Brock. "On top of that, it brings culture, it brings a touch of French Canada and … it's a wonderful experience for everybody. Every time Cirque has a new show, it's another way for people to connect with exotic themes and a different type of [entertainment]. So I'm thrilled that Cirque is back … and it's great to see this [tent] rise again today."
According to Desmarais, Koozå comes from the Sanskrit word koza, which means "box," "chest" or "treasure." It was chosen by the show’s creator, David Shiner, because the show's concept is, in essence, a "circus in a box."
"It's acrobatics, it's laughter, it defies gravity and you'll see acts that you've never seen before," Desmarais says.
Kooza by Cirque du Soleil opens on Saturday, October 19 at the Beach Parking Lot 1 North space adjacent to the Santa Monica Pier. Tickets start at $69 and for more information, visit the website here.
scott.snowden@smdp.com
