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Working for Cirque du Soleil is a dream many of us working for contemporary circus shows secretly (or not so secretly) harbor. I have dreamt about it for thirty years. Not just dreamt about it but worked towards it as well. However, as of now, my love affair still seems to be rather one-sided. This is a frank look at how the journey has been for me. Where it will lead is of course still an open book… and, as they say, it’s not the goal but the journey that matters in the end…
I was an orphan and adopted when I was still very little. I then grew up in a small town in Southern Germany. Creativity wasn’t prevalent in my adoptive family or my community. Instead, ours was a town surrounded by industry and fields. Most people I know stayed there all their lives and their children followed in their footsteps.
As soon as I could walk, talk, write, think, dream, however, I had other plans. I wanted to make the whole world my playground. I wanted to create and make a difference in people’s hearts.
But all that time growing up, working for circus shows never crossed my mind. Circus shows were something you went to. Not something you worked for. It wasn’t a profession.
Whenever I asked for guidance concerning studying after high school, all seemingly knowledgeable adults steered me towards working for a bank or insurance. Inquiring about the arts earned me strange and confused looks.
Working backstage was something I couldn’t research on my own back then either. The Internet hadn’t been introduced to the world yet. And I knew of no one who worked in the entertainment industry. Thus, I remained ignorant of what might wait for me out there.
Then, while I studied at the Zurich University of the Arts in 1992, I photographically documented the rehearsals of Switzerland’s National Circus Knie in Zurich. That year, Knie collaborated with a Canadian show called Cirque du Soleil.
I was instantly hooked by Cirque. In Love. Smitten. Whilst photographing rehearsals and shows over and over, I couldn’t get enough and marvelled at the performers’ poetry of motion, their colorful costumes. I was amazed by Cirque’s storytelling and seductive use of lighting and special effects.
Six years later, when Cirque du Soleil toured through Zurich with Alegria, they approached the movie theatre company I worked for at the time. They needed a big screen for a special team event.
As they arrived one rainy afternoon, filling our foyer with laughter and dozens of different languages, we brought them to the privacy of our smallest theatre. There, the entire cast and crew of Alegria began to watch a documentary about themselves on the silver screen.
I was the manager of this movie theatre at the time and the general manager of our chain asked me to stay around and be available, should our special guests need anything from us.
He didn’t need to tell me twice. Never did I see a more colorful and internationally diverse group of people. I loved the atmosphere of the unrestrained laughter. The many hugs and kisses. And the obviously very close relationship of collaboration these people shared. They felt like a big, charmingly chaotic family.
While my ushers kept a watchful eye on bored circus children who invaded every corner of our little multiplex like a horde of climbing chimps, I stayed inside the theatre for the duration of the screening.
The documentary cast a soft light on the vivid faces all around me. As I watched the cast and crew of Alegria watching themselves, and as I listened to their easy banter, I found myself crying uncontrollably. Happiness flooded my heart. I loved being amongst them and wished I could pause time or hit rewind repeatedly.
However, I still didn’t realize that there were actual jobs available backstage. Somehow, I still couldn’t connect the dots. Backstage remained a place as far away and unattainable to me as traveling to Saturn.
It was only years later, when I was in a relationship with a performer and spent many hours backstage with her that I began to meet technicians and stage managers and began to realize that people really worked behind the scenes.
I read whatever I could get my hands on about performing, backstage management, and the entertainment arts in general. I also volunteered whenever and wherever I could, in my spare time. Often, I was the follow-spot for gala events in our movie theatre company. Or I helped install lights and sound for annual events like the Zurich Fashion Ball in a hotel on the hill which looked like a fairy tale castle.
He alerted me to a show in Macau, China, which was being built right then and for which Cirque’s competitor, Dragone Entertainment, needed personnel.
I applied as soon as I got back to civilization and stable internet connections. And ended up working 4 years for The House of Dancing Water. I was an aquatic performer trainer, underwater stagehand (show diver), and underwater assistant stage manager (full-face mask diver) for this show.
Whilst being there, I found my way, and realized all my talents put together as well as all my thus far acquired transferrable skills added up to one thing: being a stage manager.
So, I went back to school. For 2 years, while I still worked full time for The House of Dancing Water, I took the ferry over to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts every dark day as well as on many mornings.
During the course of my studies, I was able to work a couple months at the Banff Centre in Alberta, on a theatre management internship. A life experience I wouldn’t want to miss for the world. Rocky Mountains plus an incredibly diverse entertainment program to coordinate and organize. Running to and fro between venues, stumbling over deer and elk at sub-zero temperatures. It was pure bliss.
Returning from Canada, I also assisted backstage on many small shows in Hong Kong.
No matter what I did though, I couldn’t get a foot into the stage management department of The House of Dancing Water. Yet I wanted nothing more. A show of that size was the best learning ground I could imagine to solidly build on all I had learned up until that point.
Especially considering that I had shown up late to the game. I desperately looked for a chance to make up for lost time to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible as a stage manager.
l was full of enthusiasm and the will to make it all work. Thus, I hoped for a chance to keep learning and growing in The House of Dancing Water… at the time, the largest show in the world. But it never happened.
Quite a few years passed, with me searching for alternate ways to keep on learning, whilst at the same time trying to make enough money to keep my wife and I afloat through multiple relocations.
Then, in 2018, I went back to Macau and had the chance to work as stage management swing for an arena vehicle stunt show called Elekron. Unfortunately, our show never quite took off as strongly as it was supposed to and was cancelled after only one year of operation.
However, for all of us involved in the show’s creation and operation, it was an enormous learning curve on so many levels. Technologically as well as in terms of cross-cultural collaboration. We even had two simultaneous show calls, in Mandarin and English since half of our cast only spoke Putonghua.
This experience was followed by one contract as Senior Stage & Production Manager for the aquatic amphitheatre on the cruise ship Oasis of the Seas.
And then came the Covid19 pandemic and everything shut down…
In 10 years of sending applications for all kinds of suitable positions, I only ever heard back from Cirque once. And had one interview, in 2019. For Nysa, a resident show that was planned in Berlin. I got short-listed. But then, just one week before my second interview all Cirque du Soleil shows closed indefinitely.
Now, after Covid, with shows slowly opening their doors again around the world, my dream seems more distant than it ever has before. After risking it all for so many years. After always staying adaptable to all kinds of situations, companies, and countries.
And after managing the high wire act of supporting myself and my family as well as learning the ropes of being a stage hand and stage manager as solidly as I could, the doors I would have so much liked to walk through one day remain firmly closed.
It’s a multitude of reasons I suspect. Nepotism surely plays a major role as it always does in our industry. Then there is my lack of working permits for countries like the USA, UK, and Australia where most big shows are located or touring, for which stage managers are needed. And, due to coming late into the game, I started late in building my base of show experience as well as my network.
What little network I did build wasn’t able to grow as much as it should have due to my never quite being able to get a longer-term foot in the door of our industry and my profession.
Most likely my dream of one day working for Cirque du Soleil will forever be out of reach. Rather, I’ll find myself in the auditorium, or visiting my more fortunate colleagues backstage.
Being the stubborn person I am though, I’ll keep dreaming my dream, nevertheless. Maybe it really is all about the journey. And the many closed doors I have faced repeatedly, the many rejections, do serve a higher purpose.
And then of course there also were the doors that opened ever so briefly. Doors which kept my passion alive. Experiences I’ll never forget. Who knows what purpose they all served…?
At fifty years of age, as mentally and physically agile as I’ve always been, I have less answers about life and my path than I had just after high school. If at all, I have more questions than ever before.
The only thing I know for sure is that without the arts, life has no soul. Especially storytelling and the performing arts hold an important place in our hearts.
Crowding around a campfire together and listening to tales told from our elders has evolved into what we see on stage and on the big screen today. Telling stories and listening to stories are an essential part of what it means to be human.
And I am grateful that, at least for a little while, I was allowed to take an active part in the continued creation of this beautiful, collaborative, creative, life-affirming process.
Remembering Her Life With Cirque du Soleil: Genevieve Denis
A Brief History of Cirque du Soleil
Liam Klenk was born in Central Europe and has since lived on four continents. Liam has always been engaged in creative pursuits, ranging from photography and graphic design, to writing short stories and poetry, to working in theatre and shows. In 2016, Liam published his first book and memoir, 'Paralian'.
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