I recently visited behind the scenes at Cirque du Soleil’s traveling arena show, Varekai. As with all of this company’s performances, safety is the key factor. Performers fly through the air, climb 20 feet up on set pieces and do all kinds of circus style stunts, without a net. Production manager Mike Naumann walked me through the setup and how Varekai rolls.
First of all, the arena touring version of Varekai, which launched in Dec. 2013 in Bossier City, LA, is slated to run for approximately five years straight, all over the world. It’s based on the original Varekai production that has been staged in North America, Australia, Europe, Asia and South America from 2002 to 2013.
The show typically runs on a schedule of 10 weeks on, two weeks off, with an average of a week spent in each town. They typically do seven to eight shows per week. With 18 trucks of gear, they start load in at 7 a.m. and finish at 8 p.m. on normal days.
One of the things Naumann stressed was that they never try and load in and do a show in the same day. The reason is purely one of safety. After the crew is set up, the performers need to rehearse and get comfortable with the surroundings of each arena. While there are only two trim heights from which the rig and set are hung daily (depending on scoreboards and rigging obstacles per building), the techs and acrobats involved in all the aerial stunts need to feel comfortable before they perform live. Because of the massive set and all of its elements that have to be tightly held together, rushing the performers just isn’t acceptable.
The Rigging
This is one of the few shows where they list a rigging designer on credits. And for good reason, as Jaque Paquin designed the acrobatic equipment and aerial stunts for the show. While there are just over 100 motors in the air holding up the set, lights and audio; there are five riggers employed on this show. These riggers do a lot more than hang chain hoists out here. They rig various set pieces hanging over the stage, including all the acrobatic rigging, which enables the performers to drop out of the ceiling at times. Five riggers doesn’t seem like many once you realize all of the extra work that goes into their gig. Hanging motors is just part of it. Arena rigger Kurt McLaughlin filled me in on some details.
“Due to the fact that we fly so many people around by wires and other assorted stunts, like performers being thrown from set pieces into giant pieces of fabric, the flying rig must be restricted from moving itself.” The inertia of a performer swinging from a truss would normally set the truss swinging itself. That would wreak havoc on the flying gags as the performers have to take off and land in the same place every time. “With multiple performers suspended in the air, there is zero room for error. So the entire grid from which everything moves is anchored with hand lever chain hoists, load cells and guy wires to various parts of the building.”
PM Naumann further explains, “The truss is essentially a free hanging structure. A company named Hilti specializes in epoxy based anchoring / fastening systems that Cirque utilizes in arenas just for this purpose. If there are no existing anchors where Varekai needs them rigged, a trained Cirque Du Soleil rigging technician flies in and installs them.
“Of course Cirque du Soleil’s shows have played most arenas in the states so we don’t have too call them too often,” McLaughlin adds. “Once in a while, there is a brand new arena we haven’t been to yet.” He mentions that, besides four guy wires anchoring the rig side to side, the riggers also anchor all the trusses to the steel beams above them, further preventing any movement in any direction.
The acrobatic riggers are personally responsible for hooking the performers up and locking them into their flying apparatus. Bruno Delisle leads this team of specialized riggers. Three riggers spend the entire show up in the roof structure of what the production refers to as the Acro Grid. The unique set design has winches that are housed inside this set piece, all controlled by Tait’s Navigator system. The Navigator is a platform for control of automation equipment in the theatrical business. The Navigator Automation System is capable of everything from simple axis moves to complex three-dimensional flights. There are a total of six winches utilized during the show, along with a center lift built mid stage and two turntables — all run by one operator from the same console. Upstage, there is a truss referred to as the Bavette truss. This is a mechanism that lifts two huge white sheets from the stage to 30 feet up in the air. During one of the final acts of the show, performers swing from set pieces and are hurled through the air doing acrobatics and landing in these giant sheets. Due to the weight and inertia of these flying men being caught by the fabric, Cirque uses two-ton motors to ensure no motor ever goes over limit for a second.
Additional Safety Precautions
All techs on Varekai are trained in the art of first aid for any accident. Should someone get hurt, the techs are qualified to get that person from anywhere on stage to the paramedics, regardless of the injury. All riggers working for Varekai have been trained and certified by Gravitec (gravitec.com), a Seattle-based rigging specialist. Gravitec specializes in fall protection and rescue training. They sell as well as train workers in how-to scenarios with specialized gear that can lower an injured party from anywhere above the stage.
Varekai plays close to the center of an arena. Rigger McLaughlin starts advancing the show more than a year prior to show dates. The rigging dictates where, exactly, the stage will be set in each arena. This, in turn, dictates the audience seating arrangement. It also allows Kurt to keep in touch with the arenas for any unseen obstacles. A year could go by and if a new scoreboard has been installed (or other rigging obstacles introduced), he has to keep on top of everything.
The Stage
The first thing you see upon entering the arena is a huge set piece flying downstage center. They call it the Catwalk/Acro grid, and it houses four winches that lower the aerialists. To get up to this platform, the acrobats walk up a long stair unit from upstage left that wraps around to center. The whole contraption appears to be a rickety, unsafe structure — maybe something you’d expect to find in a third world country. It looks totally dangerous to ascend, but in actuality it is all OSHA approved for safety. The riggers work hand-in-hand with the five set carpenters to ensure the piece is assembled perfectly every show.
Cirque du Soleil set designer Stéphane Roy worked with Tait on the design and fabrication of the staging elements. The stage is built in two parts — a 40-foot-diameter round stage, where most of the performances take place, and the rear pentagon, which measures 70 by 30 feet (WxD) and houses the Enchanted Forest. The forest includes close to 330 metal poles that are stuck right into sockets installed in the stage decks. Resembling bamboo, they all have 20-foot stems and various sized extensions that give them alternating heights. Eight more poles are made of carbon fiber and are designed for the acrobats to climb up to various heights and swing around during the performance. The show starts with animal/creatures coming out of the forest mysteriously. The forest also conceals set pieces that will roll on stage for various circus stunts. Mike Naumann explained that because this show will travel as is to every continent, the pieces were all designed for easy plane loading. Any piece longer than 20 feet would have to load through the nose of the cargo plane, which wasn’t practical or economically wise. So nine Tait dollies were used just for the trees to travel.
The whole stage is only three feet high, so the crowd is extremely close to the action. There are perforations in the sides for audio PA fills, allowing them to be hidden. The stage has two turntables built into it that get used a few times. Most impressive is the finale, where these giant, custom-built swings are attached to the turntables and used to vault performers into the massive white sheets upstage. There is also a dramatic lift in the center that raises performers up six feet in the air for the swinging aerialists to fly over. Four trap doors are in play in several places as acrobats would climb out of manholes and descend on them as well.
Because of the stage height, the production has utilized an old trick reminiscent of the 1963 movie, The Great Escape. Dollies are run from upstage to the trap doors, transporting acrobats laying flat on their stomachs. The stage deck is made of Teraflex, which is an anti-shock sport flooring material. It allows for higher freedom of movement in rotation and secures the acrobats’ foothold to minimize the injury risk. The custom paint job on the deck is in remarkable condition after being on tour for one year.
The Lighting
Varekai was lit by Nol Van Genuchten. He started as a tech for Cirque du Soleil’s shows back in 1994, and this is his first big shot at designing a large touring production for them. His rig consisted of 107 moving lights, primarily 1,500-watt Alpha Spot and Wash fixtures from Clay Paky. The rig also includes a dozen Vari-Lite VL3000s for key lighting. Beautiful color washes accompanied every scene in the show, with lots of attention paid to sufficient front light. The trees were often textured with gobos as well as imagery displayed from two projectors. Together, that really brought the bamboo to life. Despite the sheer size of the stage, the players were never in a dark spot. Sexy mood lighting ruled the roost in this show.
Surprisingly, this production had no use for house followspots. Two truss spots were hung from the downstage corners of the outer perimeter truss. These illuminated the flying performers as they swung through the arena space. They also front lit acrobats when the action was all on the stage. But throughout the show, I noticed moving lights following individual performers. That was because of the Blacktrax system. Through sensor devices attached to performers themselves, the programmed moving lights could follow these sensors and keep the talent lit.
Live musicians usually masked by the forest when not wandering as minstrels played interesting music to accent the stunts and there was rarely a dull moment. The two-hour show is certainly a death-defying spectacle to take in. The constant audio gasps throughout the show were the best applause the acrobats and riggers could receive.
