Thursday, March 6, marked the local opening of Cirque du Soleil: Crystal, a dazzling ice skating and acrobatics show created in 2017.
Crystal has toured more than 145 cities across 24 countries, including Brazil, Belgium, and Kuwait.
The show centres on Crystal, a creative misfit who dives into a frozen dreamworld in a classic coming-of-age story.
The Citizen was given the opportunity to see what goes on behind the scenes to bring such an impressive and intricate performance to life.
The CN Centre itself was transformed to accommodate the more than 100 crew members, 45 performers from 25 countries, and approximately 500 individual set pieces that are constructed and torn down each week.
Backstage, performers have everything they need, including a working kitchen staff, wardrobe and several laundry machines to wash both personal and on-stage clothing.
There is also a dedicated area for warm-ups and practice, which performers frequently use to prepare for their shows.
Speaking of wardrobe, the show uses about 1,250 pieces of clothing per performance and travels with over 4,000 items in total.
All of this is even more impressive when you consider that the crew and cast must travel constantly to different cities every week. This means all the living and performing equipment, including the massive performance rigging attached to the CN Centre’s roof, must be packed up at the end of their Prince George run.
"It's multi-disciplinary, not just an experience, but really the expertise," said artistic director Boris Verkhovsky. "When you look at the logistics, all of this has to be dismantled in under four hours. By the end of Sunday, it has to be reassembled within one day at the beginning of the week. It takes a lot of specialty. We hire a lot of local staff each time, but the drive is done by people with a lot of expertise and knowledge. One of the unique differences between projects like this and, let’s say, a giant music concert, is that it's not the same rigging. When you're rigging for human performance, the criteria are very different. The requirements for redundancy and backup mechanisms are much more intense."
Verkhovsky has been with Cirque du Soleil for more than 30 years and has a clear passion for his job.
"I started working with this company in 1993," said Verkhovsky. "I came in basically for one week to help with a little workshop during the creation of Mystère, our first resident show in Las Vegas. And then the rest is history. I ran away with the circus, and it's been 30-plus years. In that extensive period, many things have happened, but I come from the world of sport, as many of our people, both on the artistic side and among our coaching staff, come from sport. We bring a lot of that knowledge, but you have to learn a lot because it's a completely different industry, a completely different activity."
The majority of performers in Crystal have extensive backgrounds in sport, such as 30-year-old Amber Van Wyjk, who comes from a sports acrobatics background and joined Cirque when she was 15.
"Every day is different," said Van Wyjk. "Every day brings something new. We're working with people who are very passionate about the same thing you are, and I think that's a beautiful thing to share with a group of people who have worked their whole lives to get here. We share the same passion and we're here for the same reasons because we love it."
Van Wyjk also shares the stage with her fiancé, Darren Trull, and says that most performers tend to become close while touring together.
"We spend all day, every day together," said Van Wyjk. "We eat together, share hotels together, and share the stage together. What we do has a safety element to it, and that really makes you understand everyone. You can't just come in and not understand the rigours or not get along with your artistic director. It opens your perspective on different cultures, different languages. Everyone works hard to create a very family-like atmosphere. If you don't have that mentality or can't get along with people from other cultures, you maybe don’t belong here."
One of the talents on the ice is Leo Lucas Forza, who comes from a competitive figure skating background and has been with Cirque since 2019. He also shares the stage with his wife, Nicole Gosvian, whom he met at a figure skating competition.
"For us, it's a bit different because we didn't meet here," said Forza. "We joined the tour together, so we've been skating together for a bit longer. We're already used to each other, but, of course, training every day for hours, doing the same stuff — you try to make it perfect and more stable so you can perform it every day without it being dangerous or sketchy. The hardest part is not doing the stuff once, but being able to do it 300 times a year, show after show."
Forza told The Citizen that one of his favourite parts of the job is the unique nature of Cirque's performances.
"It's always like the first day," said Forza. "It's super exciting, and it can give you a bit of anxiety, but that’s good. It keeps you focused. I never take it for granted, so you always have to focus on the present, even if it's your 10,000th show. It's really exciting."
Cirque du Soleil: Crystal runs until Sunday, March 9, with shows at 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. shows on Saturday and at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $52 at https://ticketsnorth.evenue.net/events/CIRQUE.
