Cirque du Soleil gearing up for a prime-time Oscar performance
In November, when Oscar telecast producers Don Mischer and Brian Grazer asked Cirque du Soleil to come up with a spectacular number for this year’s Academy Awards, the idea was to keep it under wraps until the show aired.
According to Yasmine Khalil, director of the Cirque’s special-events division, “They wanted to make it the big surprise of the evening.”
That thinking recently changed. Everyone involved suddenly agreed that a circus company that sells 15 million tickets worldwide on an annual basis might actually draw new eyeballs to the 2012 Oscars. So Mischer and Grazer made an official announcement about the Cirque’s participation on Feb. 17, telling people to expect “the largest Cirque cast ever assembled for a single act.”
At last count, that meant 54 performers, five of them Canadian.
Ever since the announcement, Khalil has been showered with interview requests.
Much has happened since she helped the Cirque make its first and only previous appearance at the Oscars, in 2002. “We weren’t as big as we are today,” she said. “We weren’t as well known as we are today.”
In fact, her job title didn’t even exist back then. “The success of that initial (Oscars) performance led shortly after to the Cirque establishing a special-events division,” she said. “Now we’re back. And obviously the Cirque is a very different organization than it was 10 years ago. It was a different era. ... Today it’s interesting to do it a different way. But it still has its challenges.”
But this time they know the building inside out. For the past decade, the Academy Awards have been held in the venue formerly known as the Kodak Theatre. (Thanks to a court ruling last week, the name of the now-bankrupt company has been dropped from Oscar mentions.) This is where Cirque du Soleil installed a permanent show, Iris, last fall, after renovating the backstage area to serve its specific needs. “Obviously, that’s a huge component,” said Khalil. “We know this building now almost better than they (the Oscar producers) know the building. We’ve explored every nook and cranny.”
The Cirque is not, however, going to be able to make full use of all that is circus-friendly in the theatre.
“What’s complex is that we have a three-minute segment in their 4½-hour show,” Khalil said. “And while this is huge for us, in the greater scheme of things they still have an important production to pull off. Se we don’t necessarily have access to everything. They’ve had to use up a lot of the spaces with their own equipment. But we do manage to do things that we wouldn’t be able to do if Iris hadn’t been there.”
What can they do in three minutes? “A lot,” replied Khalil, who was born in Cairo, was raised in Montreal and has worked for the Cirque for 15 years.
“We’re creating a completely original performance that pays tribute to the movie-theatre experience. We’ve actually written a script, which I can’t really talk about, which basically celebrates how amazing it used to be to go to the movies.” This nostalgic, date-night moment was “imagined” by JeanFrançois Bouchard, vice-president of creation and development at the Cirque and creative director for Iris.
Though it sounds like Iris abbreviated, the concept does differ, Khalil said. And it’s in keeping with the “Ye Olde Hollywood” theme of this year’s Oscars, which matches three of the best-picture nominees: The Artist, Hugo and Midnight in Paris.
Cirque artists have been brought in from three shows: Zarkana, Viva Elvis and Iris. “We’re bringing our best performers together,” Khalil said. “It’s a great collaboration.”
And yes, Khalil will be walking the red carpet. “I have to worry about the dress,” she said. “Not that anyone is going to be paying much attention to me.”
Khalil’s team just finished working on another stunning moment: 12 minutes for Madonna at the Super Bowl. But this time they aren’t collaborating with Montreal’s Moment Factory. They already have their own visuals team from Iris on site.
Given the large number of people who watch the Super Bowl (about 111.3 million in the U.S. this year) and the Oscars (about 37.6 million in the U.S. last year), “that’s a lot of eyeballs that are going to see Cirque in less than a month,” Khalil said. “The combined impact on the company is huge.”
Very little of what the special-events team does is this public, she explained. “We do dozens of private events that are no less important.” Like a wedding for a prince in Dubai that involved 5,000 guests. Or a product launch (Xbox) for Microsoft. And all the Cirque premiere parties.
This division is often the Cirque’s introduction to a foreign country. Then, as was the case in Russia, a full circus arrives. “We can go anywhere in the world, at any time,” Khalil said. “We get hundreds of requests every month.” But not all make the cut. “It has to pose a creative challenge. It’s got to be stimulating.”
On Sunday night, the Cirque moment will be aired during Oscar prime time, at about 9 p.m., she said. “Or at least that was the original plan.” Within a 4½-hour marathon, little is set in stone.