Flying without wings
Renowned performance company Cirque du Soleil are on their way to Dublin with their new show, Ovo. Darragh Mcmanus went to see what we can expect at a performance in Lyon, where he met two of the show’s artists, Robin Beer and Jorn De Laender
The southern French city of Lyon is a beautiful place, with ancient Roman ruins, thriving art and fantastic restaurants you’d expect in the home of gastronomy. But that’s not why myself and some other journalists are here. On this sunny afternoon, we’re walking through a cavernous space in close-to-total darkness: once a train station, this is now the Halle Tony Garnier concert arena, and we’re in the backstage area watching the acrobats of Cirque du Soleil go through their paces. Surprisingly, I’m the only one who’s seen a Cirque du Soleil show before. I say surprisingly, because the circus troupe, which began life in a small Quebec town in 1984, has grown into an all-enconquering success, with several shows running around the world at any one time, including residencies in Las Vegas.
One of those shows is Ovo, which arrives to Dublin’s 3Arena from April 18-21. This particular show, with its theme of insects running riot in visually stunning ways, began in 2009. The company, based in Montréal, revisited the show after Covid, adding fresh narrative and acrobatic elements, and three new acts.
Jeanine, our chatty press officer, tells us that half the cast – they call them “artists”, not acrobats – are new to this run of Ovo, kicking off in Lyon before touring Europe.
And what an immense undertaking it is. There are about 100 people in the core team, including 52 artists, who are gymnasts, tumblers, trampolinists, contortionists, aerialists, jugglers and more, from 25 nationalities. They come from sport backgrounds as well as circus school, and include two former Olympians.
As we gaze, open-mouthed, at people scampering up and down a purpose-built training tower – like a giant Meccano toy fitted out with trapeze equipment and climbing ropes – Jeanine gives us more info. Setting up the stage in each venue takes those 100 people about 12 hours (and 4½ hours to dismantle). Twenty-three trucks transport the gear from city to city. All costumes – very important in Cirque du Soleil – are handmade in Montréal, fitted precisely to each artist and washed and repaired daily by four full-time wardrobe technicians.
We move to the theatre itself: a massive, almost overwhelming space where trampolinists are bouncing so high, and so fast, that your breath kind of catches. They modestly stress that it’s all about practice and concentration, but really, anything this skilled, daring and perfectly timed comes close to appearing like magic to the untrained observer.
They’re on the actual stage that will feature in that evening’s production: giant eggs are dotted around the place, as per the show’s Portugueselanguage title, but interestingly, Cirque du Soleil artists do “lots of practice but no full dress-rehearsal”, Jeanine says. That makes it a “purer experience” at showtime. But an important part of what they’re doing here is “validating”: getting their bearings in an unfamiliar venue. Spectacular sets, rock-concert lighting and rockin’ good music are very important for Cirque. We meet the seven-piece band, rehearsing from their position underneath the stage. The spine all this artistry hangs on is the narrative and of course, the comedic interludes.
To find out more, I chat to the main Ovo clown, played by 39-year-old Londoner Robin Beer. He’s actually a trained actor who, with his wife, runs a theatre company in Greece. But, as he says with a wry smile, “Theatre life is so uncertain that literally running away to join the circus gives you more of a regular income.”
In this show, Robin adds, “the clowns are an important part, a story that goes all the way through. So we all have back-ups. If one of us is ill, we need someone to fill in. It’s not like the other performers, who you can move around a little in case of injury.”
Theatre life is so uncertain that literally running away to join the circus gives you more of a regular income
- ROBIN BEER, CLOWN
Does he do any gymnastics himself? Robin laughs: “I do not! I fall about a bit and pull at my face.”
His stand-in is Belgian Jorn De Laender (33). Jorn’s main gig is as one of those people bouncing ridiculously high and fast, among other feats of acrobatic derring-do. He says of his route to a life in Cirque, “I come from a sports background and competed at a high level. Then, when that ended, I wanted to see what I could do with that skill set. Now here we are!”
We keep an eye out for both during the performance that night. Robin is easy enough to spot, albeit unrecognisable under make-up that takes several hours to apply. And I think I see Jorn bouncing, rolling, somersaulting, tumbling, jumping and generally doing these breathtaking feats that seem, to me at least, beyond what the human body is capable of doing.
Yet they make it look so easy, which is, perhaps, the most amazing thing of all.
Cirque du Soleil: Ovo is at the 3Arena, April 18-21, ticketmaster.ie
I come from a sports background …Then when that ended, I wanted to see what I could do with that skill set. Now here we are!
- JORN DE LAENDER, TRAMPOLINIST