Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net (2022) Movie Script
Do we have Tasha? Sound?
Hey, Jenny,
are you under the barge?
Sound, you there?
- Sound is ready.
- Thank you.
Automation, the comets coming.
Comets are green.
Have a good show.
I'm not hearing myself.
Human comets in the grid
are ready to load.
Thank you.
Electrics, formations,
plex, commentary.
Yes. And radio.
Give me a second.
- Let me go this way.
- Yep.
Places, please,
for the entire company.
This is your places call
for the top of the show.
- Clowns standing by.
- Thank you.
Are we clear for masking?
Sound, please, start the dripping.
Thank you.
1224, go. Thank you.
Effects 140, go.
Horizontal curtain, go.
The Coronavirus
outbreak is now a global pandemic.
The list of closings
and activities being suspended
is growing from coast to coast.
Coronavirus concerns are already taking
a major toll on the country's
tourism industry.
Cirque du Soleil is filing for bankruptcy.
It will immediately lay off
more than 3,400 workers
who had been previously furloughed.
Yes, can you hear me now?
Oh, good, good, good, good.
So are you still in Vegas?
There's a lot going on, as you know.
So I was planning to
do a meeting on the 25th,
and we'll take it from there.
Within 48 hours,
we went from 44 shows around the world
to zero shows.
I never felt in my life
that I could wake up one day,
and I will have no show,
no revenue, no nothing.
It has been very, very difficult
because letting people go,
letting friends go,
that was... that was horrible.
For a moment,
I thought maybe this is the end.
We all panicked.
We actually made the decision
that we needed to let go
95% of our people.
How do you do that?
Everybody understands
that our business that we're in
is actually human performance,
human...
Our human being is at the center
of everything we do.
So, I was wondering,
will our people be forgiving us?
It feels like home to be in the air.
You can forget anything
that's going on in the outside world,
like, just be present.
My COVID investment was a lollipop lyra.
Mostly, it's to keep me sane,
but also it's important to me
to work on something aerial
while we're in quarantine.
Solo trapeze is my primary discipline
in Cirque du Soleil.
When COVID hit,
it was a really uncertain time.
It's really, really difficult
to live without purpose.
Do you want a ponytail, or like this?
I'm a single dad. I have two children.
And I took advantage of this time
to spend time with the kids.
All right, you're ready.
I'm an artist coach for an act
that it's called the Bateau.
During the shows,
I didn't have many chances
to put my children to bed.
So just grateful for them.
I'm trying to get $1.40.
I got the $1. It's in my thing.
But financially, it's been hard.
I'm on unemployment now.
The first time in my life
that I've been unemployed.
I've done the show for 16 years.
During the pandemic,
I started teaching Zoom classes.
I think I've had a lot of support, though.
You know, like, my family
always supported me.
My dogs support me.
I don't know
if I can do this still, but I'll try.
I haven't warmed up yet.
Killed.
A little rusty, but that's all right.
There's nothing like what we do.
Not being able to train
the way we should be able to train,
that's frustrating.
So we're gonna start with plis.
Six, seven, eight.
You gotta pli.
When it first started,
you know, we're like, "All right, guys,"
we'll see you in a couple
of weeks, you know."
And then it kind of kept on going,
and it felt like we were chasing a carrot.
Mentally, it was tough
not knowing when we would
be able to go back to work,
if we would be able to go back to work.
Now it's time that people
get that 90 minutes of
forgetting about their problems,
and dream a little bit.
And I think that's what we all want,
intermission to be over.
All right, are we ready?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I think we're at full house.
We've been holding on making
the employment offers to people
until the announcement is done.
We're already a week behind.
The governor made his
announcement earlier this week,
opening up 100% occupancy.
We'll probably know Tuesday afternoon
what the actual guidelines
and protocols will be.
The reopening of our first shows
is so important for everyone.
This is the revival of the company.
This is the major announcement
that we'll have to make.
If we send the letters out on Thursday,
we're expecting people
to show up to work on Monday.
It's compressing things
a little tight for us,
from a health and safety perspective,
in bringing the artists back.
Will tickets be able
to be on sale on Wednesday?
We're working on that.
- I don't have a final date yet.
- Okay.
Governor Sisolak said this week
that he intends to have
all counties return
to full capacity by June 1st.
Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group
confirmed they closed
an agreement with new lenders
giving them a solid foundation
to successfully relaunch.
So I guess we're ready.
Thank you all for being with us today.
All of us have been waiting
for this moment
for over 400 days now.
That was very tough for all of us.
And finally, we are meeting for good news.
I'm here today to announce
that the curtain
will officially raise again,
starting in Las Vegas.
We want people to forget
about this pandemic,
and come with us to celebrate the comeback
of Cirque du Soleil and enjoy life again.
Tell the world
we are back.
Now the hard work starts.
And that process is a struggle,
but it's a beautiful struggle.
And we get to get back
to doing what we love,
and I'm so excited for that.
Whew! Let's go.
Hello, everyone.
I can't express how happy I am
to welcome you all back to this room.
Let's make history all over again.
Welcome back.
I'm very excited that
we're gonna bring back
this beautiful show back on stage.
During May, you're gonna focus mainly
at reintegrating your acts.
And slowly in June,
we're gonna start to work
on the artistic aspect
of that beautiful diamond.
You will also see that
some of your colleagues are gone.
They will not come back,
and new artists will come in.
That's all I have to say for today.
Thank you! It's so nice to see you.
We have a lot to do
in a very short amount of time.
Next week, all of the technical crew
is gonna start coming back.
They have to get
refamiliarized with the space
and clean things up 'cause
they haven't been touched for a year.
Every single costume we have
has some kind of elastic in it,
or something that's probably rotten,
and a large percentage will need work.
This is the band room.
We're raising the height
of these partitions
to mitigate spread of the virus.
Lights are not pointing where they're
supposed to point anymore.
And when you've got thousands of fixtures,
that kind of thing can be hard to notice.
It's gonna be an intense time,
and we've got eight weeks
till opening night.
We're gonna get our ass kicked.
Go, go, go, go,
go, go, go all the way up.
Good girl. Nice.
What's wrong
with the baby hands now?
- I know, right?
- Huh?
You gotta work on those for sure.
My hands will be fine.
It's my knees that are gonna rip.
Is that what we're waiting on
for the stage,
- to get the water?
- Yeah, there's no water.
Is the pool drained? Can we see?
- It's like a funnel, yeah?
- Yeah.
Brings back memories.
When the show was created,
they wanted to use water as the medium.
There's something about
the water and the flow
and the beginning of life,
that make this unique and fascinating.
This has this rubberized surface
that you can move
and dance and perform on,
and then it sinks,
exposing the water here,
which is why you see all these holes in it
so that the water can extrude
through when it moves.
Each one of these lifts
can lift about 100,000 pounds.
All these lifts move individually,
creating a constantly-moving stage.
There's just something unique and magical
about a stage made of water.
When we did "O,"
the water was the great surprise.
In the history of Cirque,
we were at the top
of 15 years of evolution,
and so "O" was a kind of synthesis
of all what we had been through,
the fears, the joy,
the difficulties of life.
During the creation of "O,"
I try to paint images that think,
images that talk.
The show, it's about
the memory of a theater.
In this theater,
a lot of stories has been told,
and it's why you can meet
a lot of different characters.
It's why we can accept to have
a wedding and a funeral.
It is why we take an audience member,
and he is pulled into a journey
in the memory of the theater.
In "O," it's always about humankind,
human being, about life.
And the water element
force you to meditate,
and it is so magical
and the water is so unpredictable,
so dangerous, also, the water.
The show would never be what it is
without each individual making it improve.
On the top,
two 150s, two lines, 275 twice.
I would say my life definitely
revolves around artistic swimming.
I'm in the pool every single day,
whether it's on stage with "O,"
or whether it's coaching,
or whether it's training for myself,
or whether it's helping
my club in California.
On my way to California,
there's this mom and dad
that got kicked off a flight,
and they were super wasted,
but the mom was
offering everyone Twizzlers.
And all I could think was,
"Don't let her go!"
- I want some."
- "I need that candy."
- I know.
- Before you go, give me some.
425s on 25.
I grew up in Syracuse, New York,
and I was a gymnast.
And at one point, my sister wanted
to try synchronized swimming,
now called artistic swimming.
It was at a public pool over the summer,
I had nothing else to do,
and it just progressed from there.
Go Billy!
That's a guy.
- Hey!
- Is he any good?
It really is one of the most
demanding sports in the world.
You have to be an acrobat.
You have to be a great swimmer.
You have to have the power
of a water polo player
and the grace of a dancer.
I mean, you don't get to breathe.
So all this time you're underwater,
you're not breathing.
You're not able to touch the bottom.
You're throwing people
two or three meters out of the pool
with nothing but kind of the momentum
of the athletes underwater.
Meet the US team,
the champion Aquamaids.
And meet this year's star Aquamaid,
19-year-old Bill May
from Syracuse, New York,
who, despite his obvious differences,
is one of the best
synchronized swimmers in the world.
For most of my career,
there weren't a lot of men that swam,
and then in 2000, I was like,
"I wanna go to the Olympics."
And then they made a vote
not to include men in the Olympics.
So that was discouraging,
but I'm thinking, "Okay, I still love it."
And then in 2003 and 2004,
I was contacted by casting,
and they asked if I want to do
Cirque du Soleil.
And I'm like, "You know, like,"
this could be the opportunity of my life."
You know, it's like a dream.
I wanted to be
the best I could possibly be,
no matter where
that journey would take me.
You know, if someone tells me
I can't do something,
I'm gonna prove them wrong.
During the pandemic,
when all of these pools are closed
and you couldn't be closer than six feet,
normally, artistic swimmers
are only a few inches apart,
so when you have to
try to do what you have to do
from six feet away from each other
and not have the ability to lift,
you know, somehow you still have to train.
Okay, guys. Ready?
Five, six, seven, eight.
One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight.
One, two, three, four.
It's six at a time.
Oh.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
One, two, three, four.
Okay, well, this part was really good.
The rest of it was not good.
Okay, stop.
Guys, you gotta get back into the mindset,
of being able to hold that pattern.
We have to start, like,
getting awareness of each other again.
They're making me nervous.
It feels like we have a lot to do.
- We'll take it day by day.
- Yeah.
We got five days in a week, so...
So here we have some grapes.
It was, like, an experiment to see
if you could make wine in the desert.
Very clich, you know? Like, I know.
I'm from France,
and I used to do gymnastics there.
I did an audition
for Cirque du Soleil in Paris.
They invited me to Montreal
for one of the acts
at "O" and Las Vegas.
We have a lot of friends
whose performing careers
have come to an end this year, abruptly,
without having their last bow,
without knowing that
their show was going to close.
A lot of artists were
in the position that he was in,
being on P-1 visas,
where you legally cannot work
for a company other than the one
that brought you there on that visa.
So I feel so lucky,
and at the same time,
I have this responsibility
to, like, do it as best
as we can to make it work.
So if tickets are selling for our shows,
it will work for our friends' shows,
you know, that are also, like, waiting
for that phone call to say, like,
"All right, you're gonna be back."
Over the pandemic,
we had some sort of technical mishap
which resulted in flooding,
and they had to refloor
one of our training rooms.
Time is of the essence right now.
We took advantage of a local school here.
They're the only place
in town that I know of
that has a cradle,
which is what really we're training here.
Remember what you wanna do
is you wanna just sit into it
and then push, okay?
Nice. That was better.
Sometimes, I have
to stop myself and realize,
"Okay, what you're doing
is actually really dangerous."
But I love it. It's a Zen for me.
It's kind of like
putting your headphones on
and getting in a...
a mood.
It helps get my mind off things.
As a kid, I had very severe ADHD.
My mom was, like, "Oh, my gosh,
This kid has so much energy."
What am I gonna do with it?"
And she put me in gymnastics,
and I took off from there.
I was involved in gymnastics
for 23 years total.
I was at the end
of my term for university,
and my coach goes,
"Hey, what about Cirque du Soleil?"
I go, "What? What's Cirque du Soleil?"
I'd never had heard about it in my life.
Two weeks later,
I was in Montreal training.
It was such a happy moment
for me in my life.
I wish I could go back in time,
to that experience.
We were a big team,
and I miss it.
I had been dealing
with a divorce prior to COVID,
and then COVID happened.
As time kept going on,
it got tougher mentally.
From 6:00 in the morning
until probably midnight,
I literally sat staring
at the freaking backyard.
I should have been in touch more.
I should have reached out more.
I just kind of shut down.
So getting back to work
and kind of trying
to forget what happened,
you don't know
how important that is to me.
All right, what's the goal?
There's a mark up there.
Just go to that mark.
All the way to the lights.
No, she's gonna coil the rope on her lap.
That's my goal. Am I?
- Ugh.
- Go ahead and try it.
All right. Oh, man.
Oh, man!
Oh, no.
There you go. That's the mark.
- Whoo!
- Okay, cool.
Holy crap,
I didn't think I had that in me.
Not gonna lie.
Oxygen, anyone? Oxygen?
Ugh.
Me and my partner,
we've never worked together before,
so it's all new for us,
but we are doing the same skills
that we would do normally in the show.
My ex-partner was my ex-husband, actually,
and, unfortunately, he was let go.
Up.
Seesaw.
You're working too much.
- Let him throw you.
- Okay.
He just need to, like,
feel you and afterwards,
give you more from legs.
Like, you know, not the arms,
- but just from legs to the arms.
- Okay.
Okay, all right.
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
- Yay, that was better.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Come down.
- I'm ready.
- Okay.
- Up.
- Okay, cool.
I can drive my legs a lot more.
But that was better.
I feel like I felt him a lot more.
Yeah, I just needed to learn how to,
like, let him do the work.
I think I got in the bad habit of...
With the other partner,
- just working too much.
- Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, cool.
You're just trading one sports car
for another sports car.
- Andriy's got a little bit of...
- Upgrade.
- Yes.
- The upgraded version.
- Let's do it.
- Okay, cool.
Open curtain in one hour.
One, two.
One, two, switch, kick.
Two. Switch, two, three.
Okay, good.
Breather?
Ding, ding, ding.
Normal round is three minutes,
so we try...
Otherwise, we're both...
Like this.
We met backstage at the show.
The thing is, when you're a technician,
like myself,
and the artists are
all in makeup and stuff,
it's kind of tough
to really know who's who at first,
but she's got a really
giggly, high-pitched voice,
and that was my first...
I was like,
"That girl that's always laughing,"
always in a good mood."
I've kind of been
a circus baby the whole way.
I went to circus school
in my home country of Australia.
Every step I took in my career
was to get to Cirque du Soleil.
Every year in Paris,
they have a competition
called "Cirque de Demain."
This was like the Olympics of circus.
Trapeze is the best feeling.
That weightlessness, it is like flying.
It's when I feel, like, really alive.
I ended up winning the whole competition,
so Cirque du Soleil scouted me.
And that was over ten years ago.
So this is Emma first time
on the trapeze in a long time,
so we're gonna go very, very slow.
She's gonna tense a little,
maybe a little motion sickness.
It could happen. It could happen.
Like, sometimes, you get a little seasick
- after a while.
- Yeah.
Yeah, I feel you.
Okay, I was...
I pulled you too hard, you mean?
- Yeah.
- Okay.
Al is a support system
and a teammate,
and also a coach.
It's so many different hats that he wears,
but that's the true,
like, beauty of a launcher.
They kind of know what
you're gonna do before you do it,
so they can preempt.
Like, maybe your
nervous habit is to go early,
or do something weird with your technique,
and he'll kind of, like,
know that instinctually.
- We'll try that move again.
- Okay.
So here's the drop to the back.
And stand on the trapeze,
not... Ooh.
Yeah, ripped right out my hands.
- Welcome back.
- Thank you.
- Nice job.
- That felt good.
- Ice feels better, I'm sure.
- Yeah.
How you doing? You good?
- Oh, yeah, I got a zinger.
- Ooh.
- Like, my whole...
- Yeah.
- That's why I let go.
- Mmm-hmm.
I forgot about
how much that burns.
Come on. It's been a year.
Lifters are cleared to go out.
Clear slack.
Eddie, can you let the divers know
that lift 4 is coming up to minus 10-5.
Copy that.
Take lift four
to Russian swing height.
Lift four
going to Russian swing height.
Copy that.
Life in Cirque.
- Break's over.
- Oh!
- Work time.
- All right.
Mentally, you have to remember
this is not something that's simple.
Or they'd sell it at
Toys "R" Us, the Russian swing.
- We're clear to jump?
- Clear.
Up.
Let's jump. Let's jump.
Up!
There it is. Yeah!
I've been diving all my life,
so for me, doing a triple
somersault is so easy
that it's part of my nature.
We're talking to the contortionist,
and we're like, "Oh, how did you do this?"
That was amazing. That's so difficult."
And they're like, "It's so easy.
You just bend like this, and that's it."
I used to do diving shows
in Colombia and Central America,
and obviously, I wanted
to be a diver for all my life.
I was competing for my state.
I was three times national champion.
And then I read that they
needed divers for Cirque du Soleil,
which was completely
life-changing experience for me.
Eventually, Cirque du Soleil wanted me
to play this character, Philemon.
As Philemon, I start from the audience.
I need to immerse myself into this role.
I've been in the show for 16 years,
but I still don't feel like it.
I still feel, like, fresh,
and especially now,
coming back after this year.
Hey, we are ready to pull our locks
and put these switches back in service.
And this is full speed.
All right, full speed back this way.
We're just gonna send it home,
and that's it for this test sequence.
I'm definitely nervous.
Mentally, I already know
that I can do this,
but am I still at that same level?
96.6.
- Submitted, you're in.
- Awesome, thank you.
Have a good rehearsal.
They're training up here,
and they're doing that there.
Whoo.
I always wanted to dance.
You can express yourself without speaking.
You can move people
and command their attention.
I started dancing with my brother.
We used to watch Yo! MTV Raps.
And, you know, every Friday,
some type of music video
would come out, like, Janet or Michael.
And we'd recreate all the videos
and learn all the dances together.
We'd have the high-top fade
and the polka dot shirts
and the Hammer pants
and the patent leather shoes.
There was a dance studio
around the corner,
and I'd go and just stand
and look in the window
of the dance studio.
And finally, one day,
the dance teacher came out,
Betty, and she was like,
"All right, come on."
Let's... you know,
Let's see what you can do."
And from there, it was on.
As performers, you're not you anymore.
You're a part of this world,
and you're a part of this character
until that curtain closes.
- Huh?
- I can see.
Yes, lots of work.
- When you do the pickup figures.
- Yeah.
Show me.
- 'Cause I start here...
- Yeah.
...and then I look.
It's nice if you can stop
one second before moving on.
Okay, so...
'Cause for me, that is a sentence.
And what you do after is another sentence.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
Yeah, and even clearer.
- Clearer, yeah.
- Yeah.
Right after trapeze,
we quick-change into this costume.
The red dress character is somebody
who's beautiful, but broken inside,
somebody who is incapable
of giving or receiving love.
Nice. Nice, Emma.
Nice.
Try to avoid...
This is dancing, for me.
I try to feel like she has a...
bad energy that she's
trying to escape her skin.
Play with that then. I like that.
- I'm warming.
- I like it.
- Okay, good.
- One. Yeah.
- Continue.
- The press in the music.
The idea is that
you are the master of fire,
that you control the fire.
It's also the idea of...
And it works... Yes, and it works
when you have a lot of energy.
Yeah, for sure.
I'm not sure about the drums,
the drums section.
That was something that I added,
and it was actually getting a...
Not a bad reaction.
I had the impression
that suddenly, we're losing the character.
Mmm-hmm.
I mean, that was kind of the joke
of the contrast, but...
- Think about something else, yes.
- Okay.
- Think about something else.
- Okay.
- Okay. We're good?
- Yeah.
Ladies and gentlemen.
Um...
Okay, good. We'll do it again.
Ladies and gentlemen, Meranzimus here.
Welcome back to Cirque du Soleil!
- This is tight with my ass.
- It's tight?
It's challenging,
but I feel like...
Okay.
Maybe the other one
is not as tight.
All right.
Yeah, I just need
a little bit of leg room there.
Okay.
- The veil is too tight.
- Yeah.
And when I move, it's gonna snap.
These boots, like, do you
get them at, like, at Amazon?
Oh, no. Honey, these are custom.
This one I feel
my zipper is a little tight.
It's a little tight.
This is the one
that she was wearing.
So this is not supposed to be here.
- It's supposed to be here.
- Right.
And by this being high,
it's pulling this, all that stuff.
- I know, Luisse, but it was tight before.
- Uh-huh.
So I just thought, you know,
now, we have, like,
- a little time to fix it maybe.
- Okay.
- Okay, let's go ahead and fix this.
- And just do it.
Oh, my gosh,
this has been a minute.
Still looks good.
- Ha!
- Yeah, this looks amazing.
Thank goodness.
It still looks incredible.
Yeah. Your coppers, please.
What do you think our masks
are gonna look like
that we have to wear on stage?
I don't know.
I asked for a sweet leather one,
you know, like, super, like, dom.
Of course you did.
You can't see this part.
I got my finger back here,
so there will be no pinching.
Okay. This one's a tight one.
Oh, yeah, mama,
get used to this feeling again.
- That's a corset.
- Oh, yeah?
One step closer
to a pre-pandemic normalcy.
Capacity and social distancing rules
are dropped as of today.
The state does
allow businesses the choice
to decide whether they will still
require masks inside or not.
You want some X-rays?
I've had eight surgeries,
injuries from my craft.
This is my lumbar, so my back.
Right shoulder. Back.
Back. Shoulder.
Back.
And... knee.
Yeah.
I have to remember I'm older.
I'm kind of making sure that I'm, like,
extra, extra, extra, extra careful.
Ay-yi-yi.
- Did you guys raise the boat?
- Hello, swimmers. Hello, everybody.
It looks higher than before.
Did you put it more high?
I'm scared.
- Scared of height.
- This looks high, huh?
"Long fly" won't be a problem.
"Gymnast" will be a problem.
- Oh, yeah?
- Yeah.
All right.
I was a competitive gymnast,
being part of the Olympic team
from Romania.
I got an invitation to be a part of Cirque
after I stopped competing.
Bateau is French for "boat."
There is parallel bars from gymnastics.
At the end, they have a cradle
that comes from the cirque discipline.
It's not motorized.
We actually push and stop the boat,
and it does take
all 12 of us to be in sync.
And go!
Jump!
Okay, good.
- Hey, hey, hey.
- Oh, boy.
Whoo!
This is called the gymnast.
They don't usually miss this one.
He's like, "What you doing?"
When you're getting,
like, get your arms ready.
Line... Hey!
Okay, cool. Grab it. There you go.
So I just said they don't usually,
and then we go.
Yeah.
So that's how that goes.
Perfect.
Okay?
Anything can go wrong
because we are high in the air
and we are working with another partner.
Gotta watch Marchuk.
Can't have that as a habit.
Catching like he caught.
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah.
How was work?
It was actually really good.
I had a moment where I sat on the boat
and I just stared out at the audience
because I was, like,
"Is this really happening?"
Like, am I back? Am I here?"
- 7-440, or...
- Oh, yes.
Divers are good to go.
- Aquatics is set.
- Thank you.
And clear for lifters.
Carts are clear for lifters.
We have rescue divers
during the entire show.
If you were to watch underwater,
it's a completely different show
because they're moving equipment.
They're helping to move performers
from one side of the stage to the other.
They are catching performers
that come into the water.
Their job is just as difficult
and dangerous as ours.
Stand by, stand by, stand by.
Bill is set. Bill is set.
Bill is set. Bill is set.
- Thank you, Bill.
- Thank you, Bill.
Continue 607. Go.
Here comes Billiam!
Man, I was spinning forever.
Well, that's why it's good.
We had to simulate
what it's really gonna be like
with the brake release.
It's gonna be slow.
I thought I was gonna get in a body bag.
I mean, not the body bag.
Not the body bag.
The backboard.
Can you please let the divers know
that lifts one and three
are going to plus one foot.
This week's issue on the list
is the cylinder issue,
which is the muscles
that push them up and down.
So we found out that there is
a problem with all of them,
and that at any time,
they could all go down.
So it puts a little pressure
on us in this chair
because we have lots
of different contingencies.
There are seven lifts in the show,
and you take any one of them out,
or a combination of them out,
and the show is very different.
So there is a bit of tension
calling the show
'cause it can happen at any time.
So the whole time, you're a bit on edge
and you're ready to flip
to that version of the show.
We're doing that now.
My act is different now.
So I'm attempting
a more difficult finale trick.
I created the trick.
I was the first one to perform it,
so that's why I want it in my routine.
Of course, I can go back if I feel like
it's not ready or not consistent.
But for now, that's the goal,
to have that more
difficult trick in there.
And I feel a responsibility
to keep the show as beautiful
and keep the artistry there
because that's what
separates Cirque du Soleil
from traditional circus.
I'm definitely a person
who has stage fright.
That's probably one of
the biggest struggles that I have
is to be confident in my own ability.
I always worry, like,
in the back of my mind,
"Am I going to perform well,
or am I gonna let the mental part
get the best of me?"
- Ah, I'm kicking out, sorry.
- It's okay.
Oh, shucks.
I just landed really heavy.
- That's it.
- That's beautiful!
Ugh. That was good!
Up.
Up!
Okay, we are on the clock.
We're waiting
for the thing to come down.
Go!
Up!
Oh!
- You okay?
- All good.
- Okay.
- My shoes.
- You lost your shoes?
- Yeah.
Just making sure, you know?
- We need a towel.
- Make sure my shoes are fine.
So he's pulled you in on that one,
or someone pulled in.
- Flipped.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, that's what I meant.
- Okay. It's okay.
- Yeah.
- I'll change, and then...
- Okay.
How's your shoulder?
He got you one-handed.
- You all right?
- No, no, I'm safe.
- Okay. Okay.
- It's safe. Yeah.
You good?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks.
Sorry, sir. I saw him with one.
Amber, how was it?
Did you do with our tour before?
- Uh-uh, never.
- Really?
First time.
Well, it's got to be hard
to switch partners.
Like, you're used
to the way somebody flies.
Yeah, I gotta fix some things, definitely.
I like that.
And then, like, it would
take me all the way,
just keep going down, see,
and it would take us past
all these lakes and stuff.
Mammoth Lakes, then figure we go down.
I started with one partner,
and I had thought that
that's who you're gonna
follow through with,
and then we had been training for a while.
And then they said, "Okay,
we're gonna switch your partner."
So I was like...
"Okay, sure, no problem."
But... people don't realize,
"Hey, you know, things are gonna happen
'cause we are a new partnership."
It's just, you know,
we got to find each other.
We got to, um... get comfortable,
because we've never flown together.
It would just be nice if they were like,
"Okay, we understand this."
But I think it's,
"Hey, we got to be ready,"
or we got to do this and that."
And being rushed, it doesn't help that.
Let's see.
Oh, man, how old was I?
I think I was in second grade, maybe.
My brother is awesome.
He is badass, too.
We did everything together.
He had been in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Finally, he had come home.
And I'm like, "All right, cool."
I'm old enough.
I can hang out with my brother."
One day before I went to training,
he was on the couch,
he was watching something.
And I could tell he wasn't really good.
You know, something was on his mind.
And I stopped and I just...
Before I walked out, I looked at him
and I wanted to tell him that I loved him,
but that's not us, you know?
We're kind of rough and tough,
like, we don't really show our emotions.
But I had this really big,
overwhelming feeling.
I'm like,
"Man, I just wanna say I love you."
And I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't, and I went to training,
and the whole day was off,
and blew out my ankle that night,
just blew it out, and I was so upset.
I had just gotten in the house,
and got a phone call, and I answered it,
and it was his girlfriend,
and she was just crying.
She was, like, crazy.
I couldn't understand her.
I was like, "What? Wait."
Okay, what?"
Like, I'm 18, and she's saying
these things on the phone.
And she says, "You know, he's been shot."
And I'm like...
He was dead on scene, I believe,
because, um, he was shot in the heart.
I was like, "There's no way."
"There's no way he's gone right now.
It's... it's not possible."
Sorry.
I was like...
"Why can't you fix it?"
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
She makes me feel better.
All artists to the stage.
All artists to the theater.
- We're not all here yet.
- Let's start.
One, two, one, two.
Tonight, we're gonna do a short animation
until the end of clown one.
We will stop, and we will correct,
and then we will redo it again.
Where's Braden?
- Oh, Braden.
- Oh, Braden.
Nice, Braden isn't here.
Braden?
Well, it's a bugger,
because now we're done.
No, no, no, no, come on.
I said come to the theater.
We're starting right now.
We will not do animation.
We'll do all the rest,
but we need to do clown one
as soon as possible.
Okay, bye.
- He's not home.
- Why?
He did not watch the schedule.
Everybody's here except one.
Are we good
with artists at places?
We do not have Emma
at the trapeze.
Emma?
You scared me.
- No one can find Emma.
- She's there.
Well, I wasn't sure...
- She's not there?
- No, we're trying to find her.
There it is. Thank you.
- Effects 140.
- Ladies and gentlemen.
Okay. Stop, stop, stop.
- Awful, awful, so we'll...
- No, it didn't stick together.
- I will work again with them.
- Yeah.
They forgot everything we did last week.
Hey, Paul, as soon as
we've done this run of fire knives,
we can roll straight back into doing
another run with Sasha.
Is the five in the right position
for a bandit?
They're gonna have to move.
Lift five up a few inches.
- Negative nine needs to be up...
- So everything set...
...a little bit,
and then we're gonna go.
To include 28 complete.
I'm gonna ask you a question.
Why is it so long?
We're just checking...
They were asking about Vermicelli,
if they're going,
and they were asking for you,
wanting to know where
we're starting from, and if we're...
Okay, you answered. That's okay.
If somebody wants to check on Em,
and Ari is standing by to do the catch.
He was just changing tanks.
Braden has not arrived yet?
Yes, this is a friendly reminder
to check your air.
You don't wanna be that guy.
One, two, three, right.
Oh shit. We just had a collision.
Are they okay?
I'm gonna go check on John.
We just had an artist collision.
John hit somebody.
Copy, copy.
- Are they okay?
- Well, no...
Do we need to hold?
Is John okay?
- He's okay.
- Thank you. Effects 230. Go.
He was not expecting somebody
to be swimming there.
Effects 240. Go.
- John's swimming off.
- Copy.
- We got the med stage left.
- Stop.
Braden is not gonna make it. He woke up.
I landed right on her.
Square... Like, bloody nose.
There was no empty square next to me.
So let's...
He had no girl. You had no guy.
Let's talk about the problem,
how we're gonna solve it.
We're just not going to.
You have to work with the divers.
They've never done this before.
Okay.
Mark for masking.
Artist in the water.
Artist in the water stage left.
Okay sign and sending off stage.
He's giving the okay sign.
It's the Titanic.
It's hard to starboard.
Titanic ten times.
Pods one, two, and three coming in.
Holding plate.
We're setting up a trapeze
on the upstage platform, read you.
Copy.
I'm ready.
Artist has fallen.
Yeah.
Everything okay?
That sucks.
Artist is climbing back up.
That one, it didn't look like
you even made a connection with the...
Did the rope wrap you?
- I have no idea.
- Okay.
Now I'm on high alert here.
- Okay.
- Okay.
See, that was smooth.
Artist has fallen.
Right away.
You're good!
- That one sucked.
- Are you okay?
- That one picked me up.
- Yeah.
I'll tell you if I'm not, Jen.
We're kind of
at the cutoff point
of whether we can go forward
with this trick or go back.
It's a setback.
So we'll tell Pierre you're
gonna go back to the original act.
And have a different pick point
for the launch.
We need to rehearse that,
so Joe is gonna find some time.
So that's just... Put that in the past.
Let's move on, yeah?
- Yeah.
- Good girl.
So that's that.
We'll just make sure it's consistent,
and then we'll put it back in.
We'll figure it out. Don't be sorry.
But I'm sorry we couldn't do it now.
- Yeah, me, too.
- We worked so hard on it.
I know.
And we're so close. It just sucks.
We're still close.
We're still close.
And it's not off the table.
Well, for premiere, it is.
For premiere,
it's off the table,
but we'll premier it later.
We'll get it out there, okay?
All right.
It's just disappointment,
like, that's all.
Billy.
Let's just run this one like this...
Yeah.
And maybe we'll get them
to practice a little bit.
- Okay, let's do it.
- Okay.
The first spin of every day,
you get, like, a little dizzy,
but then after, you're good to go.
It's like riding a bicycle.
Actually, I love the feeling.
You just don't think about anything else.
You just ride the wave.
- Howdy, howdy, Roger.
- Hey, hey, hey.
All right, let's chop her off.
The one that was with me all COVID.
My God, wow.
And I put your step-by-step
out in case you needed it.
I'm definitely gonna need it.
- I'm coming.
- Oh, you're coming?
- I'm coming.
- I'm coming.
It feels like we just did this
like a second ago.
Welcome back
to the first day of school,
- children.
- Uh-huh.
Did you shave before
or did you just shave?
- Ah!
- I just shaved.
Baby face.
- I used to do it, like, 15 minutes.
- Jesus.
I like this side better,
I think, like this.
Hey, they're sisters, not twins, you know.
- I like it.
- Thank you, Amber.
- That's all.
- All done.
We had our Olympic trials today.
Oh, yeah. How did it go?
They didn't call it by 0.2.
- Shut your face.
- Mmm-hmm.
Watch out, Bill. I'm gonna beat you.
- You almost done?
- I'm almost done, finally.
Ta-da!
Driving down Frank Sinatra
and just stopping and turning
and looking at people.
They're just like, "Ah!"
You know, people are already like,
"I don't know what happens
in Vegas at 5:00 in the morning."
And then you're like...
That is one crazy drag queen.
Very good.
- Sixteen years.
- It's amazing.
We are going to look
at some safety features
and talk about some safety items.
So this first one is if we have
an artist injured on stage
and we stop the show, you will see this.
That is your cue to leave the stage
and go to the stage left training room.
As of June 25th,
all fully vaccinated personnel,
you no longer need to test or wear masks.
Yes.
A week from now,
we will not be wearing masks.
Now we are at the phase
where we need to run it.
Is it at the level it should be?
No, not yet.
Because for me, it's not organic yet.
And for that, they need to do it.
- And do we have the clowns?
- All right.
Clowns are standing by.
- Of course.
- Thank you.
Places please, for clowns,
human comets, and musicians.
The call is places for clowns,
human comets, and musicians.
Winch cue 606. Go.
Winch cue 607. Go.
Clear to hook up. Clear to hook up.
Clear to hook up.
- Lift fault.
- Thank you, lift fault.
Winch cue 608. Go.
- Clear right.
- Lift fault again.
- Clear left.
- Thank you.
Lift fault on five again.
Lift five to bar six.
Lifts will not clear, Joe.
- Lifts are not clearing.
- Okay, thank you.
Still bar six on lift five.
Aquatics,
can we get a word on that?
We're clear on five, right?
Yes, sir.
Yeah, they're saying it's clear.
Don't move. Don't move.
Winch cue 608.5. Go.
Winch cue 609. Go.
Lifts still not clear?
- Still not clear.
- Thank you.
Toe bar six on five.
Lift fault. Stay in your hoops.
Lift fault. Stay in your hoops.
We're going to do a water exit.
Water exit.
All right, performers
are gonna exit into the water.
Performers gonna exit into the water.
Exit into the water.
Go, lifts clear.
And the guys
are swimming to the gutter.
Still lift five?
Yeah, I mean,
they can't clear it.
They don't know what's going on.
What just happened?
Uh, a lift fault,
so the lift was stuck
at the bottom of the pool.
So for our exits,
we heard the calling stage manager say,
"Water exit. Water exit."
Gutter bow.
Oh, it's a gutter bow as well. Okay.
And so we stopped and jumped in the water.
But that literally almost never happened.
- But that's a first for me.
- Yeah, me too.
- First in a really long time.
- Yeah.
We had a live fault
at a very strange place,
and we couldn't get it back
the rest of the show.
So that's why the lifts stayed down
and didn't come back up.
We were able to get the final curtain,
which was great.
And thanks for all of you
for the gutter bow.
That worked out great, except a reminder
for the finale comets.
When we do white-black
is when you should be leaving
and coming around
to be able to do the closing curtain
for Aurora and Philemon.
Yes.
Whoo!
I feel... We stuck.
Out there. Out there.
Yeah, when you pull,
you go like this.
So it's like that.
They said, like, very...
Whoo-hoo! Yeah.
- Wow.
- See?
There, that's good!
Oh, that's good. That's good.
- Yeah, good!
- Whoo-hoo!
Whoo!
- Ah!
- Good.
Okay.
- Good job.
- Thank you.
- Good, hyped?
- Yes.
Great out there, really good.
It's information, you talk
to each other with no words.
Of course, we do talk.
Yeah, you do talk.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- Yep.
- Small talk, so no.
Yeah, you know.
Actually, me and my partner
made some really good
advancements yesterday.
So that was good. That was really nice.
Great training.
Every time, it gets better. I love it.
And I love the challenges, too, actually.
That's what makes me work harder
and wanna push it more.
'Cause if it was easy,
that wouldn't be fun.
We don't know
a lot of the details.
We just know that it happened.
And we know that that's not something
that would have gone over
very well earlier today,
why we waited till this moment
to bring you all up to speed.
We take these losses very seriously.
Process it over the weekend.
And as best as you can...
get rid of it by next week
because we do take this stuff
to the stage,
but it's also part of our responsibility
because there are people in the audience
who are doing the same thing,
and we have to save them from that.
So let's save them from that first,
and we'll deal with our stuff
when we're done,
when we go home, okay?
Yesterday, I just found out
one of my best friends passed away.
And it was completely unexpected,
so I am kind of still
in the shock mode where I'm like,
"No, that's..."
Doesn't make any sense, like, at all."
He has a wife and a kid,
and now they're by themselves.
I had talked to Dre,
and I said I had my friend pass away,
but, um, I think he
got in his head about it
rather than being there for me,
and he went the opposite way,
kind of like, questioning kind of thing.
And I was like, "Wait a minute."
I was like, "Hold on."
"Come on, you're supposed
to be there for me.
My friend just passed away."
And I think he got in his head about...
Because it was a male,
but I'm like, "Wait a minute. No, no, no."
"It's a family, like, the whole family.
We're all good."
Las Vegas is back to 100%.
Famous shows
are making their return on the strip.
The relaunch of Cirque du Soleil in Vegas.
The group's iconic aquatic show
is gearing up for a comeback.
And as you can imagine, people are excited
to get back to something
that feels more like normal.
Um...
I didn't take any notes.
I have some comments,
but I didn't take any notes.
You have the responsibility
to touch people.
To maybe, out of 1,800 people,
if you can touch 200 people,
enough for them to be better human beings
and to contribute to have a better world,
we have succeeded at doing something.
Thank you.
Have a good night, and see you tomorrow.
You know, it kind of helps
with the nerves a little bit
because even people that
didn't come back to the show
are calling and wishing us luck.
So it's nice to hear from everyone.
The reaction has been incredible.
It's been amazing
feeling that love from everybody,
and it really reminds me
of why I do what I do
and why I love what I do.
Thank you, babe.
Romance, oh!
I'm okay right now.
I'm, like, not too nervous right now.
But when it starts getting close to shows,
I'll be nervous.
Say good luck, Mama.
Good luck on your first show.
I'll see you in a bit.
You know, there was
this one skill that we did,
and it was new,
and it was scary, and I've never done it,
and all I thought about was my brother.
I'm like, "Okay, cool. Yeah."
"Happy place, happy moment.
Think about my brother."
Like, how cool would it be for him
to be there and be like,
"All right, you got this."
I wish, like, my whole family was there.
Everyone, all, like, my OG friends,
it would be good for them to come,
my new OG friends, my family.
That'd be cool if they were there.
Dre.
It's hard to find someone
to share something with,
and finally, I feel like I have.
And it makes me very sad
that I can't share that.
I miss him.
But, yeah, I'm very sad.
I just feel empty. That's all.
I kind of just have
to push it aside for now
and focus on this amazing thing.
I'm still ready.
Ready.
- We said masks?
- Masks.
I need your help. Thank you.
Everyone's been through a lot,
so they deserve to be happy.
They deserve to laugh,
they deserve to cry,
or they deserve to feel these emotions,
and we need to deliver that for them.
Okay, here we go.
Whenever something global happens
that's devastating and sad,
people are searching for a way to escape,
and I think that theater
is really important for that.
Is everybody ready for tonight?
- Yeah!
- I can't hear you.
Is everybody ready for tonight?
Yeah!
One more time.
Is everybody ready for tonight?
Yeah!
- Have a good show!
- Whoo!
Hello, everyone.
- Fluid effects?
- Set.
Thank you. Do we have Aurora?
- Yes, we do.
- Thank you.
- Sound?
- Ready.
- Electrics?
- Yes.
- Automation?
- Set.
- Aquatics?
- Set.
- Carpentry?
- Yes.
- And rigging?
- Pitter, patter. Let's get at her.
And Jenna can confirm
Jorge is in the house.
Great. Thank you.
All right, guys.
Stand by for places.
Stand by for places.
And southeast,
start the dipping.
- 10-4.
- Thank you.
- There a lot of people out there?
- There's a few.
I'm, like, super nervous.
- You're nervous?
- I'm on the console.
That's why he's nervous.
I haven't gotten
a places call yet.
Jason's just trying
to make you more nervous.
And aquatics,
please send the divers to places.
- Divers on the way.
- Thank you.
And aquatic, please send mnage to places.
- Mnage on the way.
- Thank you.
All right, ladies and gentlemen.
It's party time.
Mnage, this is your places call.
Mnage to places.
Stage right copy. Have fun.
Stay right. Good show, Regina.
Stage left, good show.
Thank you. Have a good show.
Ladies and gentlemen,
a dance and a tune.
Welcome back to Cirque du Soleil.
Intermission is over.
Lot of energy out here.
It's gonna be good.
Yeah, I can hear them.
I'm not crying. You're crying.
And now, sit back, relax.
Philemon, go.
Philemon, clear.
Launch key 26,
effects 150 on the tabs.
- Go.
- Effects 150, clear.
Horizontal curtain.
Go.
Launch key 28. Go.
- Are wings clear?
- Trapeze line is clear.
Effects 180. Go.
Launch key 62. Go.
We have Emma solo, trapeze.
Stand by for Emma.
One, two, three.
Miss Emma.
Curtain effects 200. Go.
Barge go, barge go, barge go.
Oh, my God, we did it.
Oh, my God!
You did a good job.
Good job.
Good job.
Hey.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
I feel like I could have
done a triple, man.
I know. You were so high.
I tried to land you better on that one,
- but it was like boom!
- Don't care.
If I was on the trapeze, though,
I don't care.
- You were high out there.
- I was high.
I saw the trapeze
and, like, I saw the ropes,
and then I was like bang!
Like, I felt it in my pop.
I was like, "Rocking air time?"
Ready to raise the boat.
Cradles clear.
Very nice.
- Glitter.
- Glitter.
- Oh, nice.
- Gatinho.
- Boat is set.
- Thank you, boat.
Go, guys.
Whoo-hoo!
- Nice.
- I was not not doing Soleil.
Just behind you, my friend.
Oh.
We'll work that out slowly
and a little bit at a time.
- That was awesome.
- Yeah, exactly.
Wrong way first. Anyone for a swim?
- Oh, cool.
- Yeah, it was good.
Sweet, good work.
Good. How are you?
How you doing?
Stand by for garden swings
Stand by for garden swings
One, two, three, garden swings
Launch key 110. Go.
The lifts are gonna level.
The lifts are going to level.
Copy that.
Whoa!
Ready to load the mask.
Back three clear to come in.
Hello.
You guys, you,
the artists, had faith.
And that was so inspiring for us,
you know?
We were alone in the head office,
and we were just thinking
about the first night
of our show in Vegas.
And now...
we're living the dream.
And I want to thank you,
because we're back!
During the pandemic,
I went up to California to coach,
and when I was there, my coach,
she started to get into her mind
that maybe it's time for her to move on.
So she asked me if I would come
and be the head coach
of the Santa Clara Aquamaids
in San Jose, California.
And I thought about it,
I thought about it,
I thought about it,
and if it didn't happen now,
I would probably lose that opportunity.
And it is one of my dreams.
I wish it would have been
five to ten years later
'cause I still love the show,
and I still wanna be here.
Today is my last...
Today...
Today...
Sorry.
Every time I try to talk, which is good.
This is gonna be a terrible show.
I don't know why I have friends
coming to this one.
They should have come last week,
but today's gonna be my last...
my last day at "O."
I'm choosing to leave because
I have another opportunity.
But, you know, I feel healthy.
I could go on forever.
"O" is part of my heart, part my soul.
So to say I have to leave...
like, I feel like a piece of me is dying.
It's a place to share,
like, a moment in time
with the audience,
with the people around us
that is never gonna be the same.
Tomorrow, there'll be something different,
but it's something so special.
It's the ending of
that feeling for me today,
but I'll always have the memories,
you know, and the best
memories of my life.
Hey, Jenny,
are you under the barge?
Sound, you there?
- Sound is ready.
- Thank you.
Automation, the comets coming.
Comets are green.
Have a good show.
I'm not hearing myself.
Human comets in the grid
are ready to load.
Thank you.
Electrics, formations,
plex, commentary.
Yes. And radio.
Give me a second.
- Let me go this way.
- Yep.
Places, please,
for the entire company.
This is your places call
for the top of the show.
- Clowns standing by.
- Thank you.
Are we clear for masking?
Sound, please, start the dripping.
Thank you.
1224, go. Thank you.
Effects 140, go.
Horizontal curtain, go.
The Coronavirus
outbreak is now a global pandemic.
The list of closings
and activities being suspended
is growing from coast to coast.
Coronavirus concerns are already taking
a major toll on the country's
tourism industry.
Cirque du Soleil is filing for bankruptcy.
It will immediately lay off
more than 3,400 workers
who had been previously furloughed.
Yes, can you hear me now?
Oh, good, good, good, good.
So are you still in Vegas?
There's a lot going on, as you know.
So I was planning to
do a meeting on the 25th,
and we'll take it from there.
Within 48 hours,
we went from 44 shows around the world
to zero shows.
I never felt in my life
that I could wake up one day,
and I will have no show,
no revenue, no nothing.
It has been very, very difficult
because letting people go,
letting friends go,
that was... that was horrible.
For a moment,
I thought maybe this is the end.
We all panicked.
We actually made the decision
that we needed to let go
95% of our people.
How do you do that?
Everybody understands
that our business that we're in
is actually human performance,
human...
Our human being is at the center
of everything we do.
So, I was wondering,
will our people be forgiving us?
It feels like home to be in the air.
You can forget anything
that's going on in the outside world,
like, just be present.
My COVID investment was a lollipop lyra.
Mostly, it's to keep me sane,
but also it's important to me
to work on something aerial
while we're in quarantine.
Solo trapeze is my primary discipline
in Cirque du Soleil.
When COVID hit,
it was a really uncertain time.
It's really, really difficult
to live without purpose.
Do you want a ponytail, or like this?
I'm a single dad. I have two children.
And I took advantage of this time
to spend time with the kids.
All right, you're ready.
I'm an artist coach for an act
that it's called the Bateau.
During the shows,
I didn't have many chances
to put my children to bed.
So just grateful for them.
I'm trying to get $1.40.
I got the $1. It's in my thing.
But financially, it's been hard.
I'm on unemployment now.
The first time in my life
that I've been unemployed.
I've done the show for 16 years.
During the pandemic,
I started teaching Zoom classes.
I think I've had a lot of support, though.
You know, like, my family
always supported me.
My dogs support me.
I don't know
if I can do this still, but I'll try.
I haven't warmed up yet.
Killed.
A little rusty, but that's all right.
There's nothing like what we do.
Not being able to train
the way we should be able to train,
that's frustrating.
So we're gonna start with plis.
Six, seven, eight.
You gotta pli.
When it first started,
you know, we're like, "All right, guys,"
we'll see you in a couple
of weeks, you know."
And then it kind of kept on going,
and it felt like we were chasing a carrot.
Mentally, it was tough
not knowing when we would
be able to go back to work,
if we would be able to go back to work.
Now it's time that people
get that 90 minutes of
forgetting about their problems,
and dream a little bit.
And I think that's what we all want,
intermission to be over.
All right, are we ready?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I think we're at full house.
We've been holding on making
the employment offers to people
until the announcement is done.
We're already a week behind.
The governor made his
announcement earlier this week,
opening up 100% occupancy.
We'll probably know Tuesday afternoon
what the actual guidelines
and protocols will be.
The reopening of our first shows
is so important for everyone.
This is the revival of the company.
This is the major announcement
that we'll have to make.
If we send the letters out on Thursday,
we're expecting people
to show up to work on Monday.
It's compressing things
a little tight for us,
from a health and safety perspective,
in bringing the artists back.
Will tickets be able
to be on sale on Wednesday?
We're working on that.
- I don't have a final date yet.
- Okay.
Governor Sisolak said this week
that he intends to have
all counties return
to full capacity by June 1st.
Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group
confirmed they closed
an agreement with new lenders
giving them a solid foundation
to successfully relaunch.
So I guess we're ready.
Thank you all for being with us today.
All of us have been waiting
for this moment
for over 400 days now.
That was very tough for all of us.
And finally, we are meeting for good news.
I'm here today to announce
that the curtain
will officially raise again,
starting in Las Vegas.
We want people to forget
about this pandemic,
and come with us to celebrate the comeback
of Cirque du Soleil and enjoy life again.
Tell the world
we are back.
Now the hard work starts.
And that process is a struggle,
but it's a beautiful struggle.
And we get to get back
to doing what we love,
and I'm so excited for that.
Whew! Let's go.
Hello, everyone.
I can't express how happy I am
to welcome you all back to this room.
Let's make history all over again.
Welcome back.
I'm very excited that
we're gonna bring back
this beautiful show back on stage.
During May, you're gonna focus mainly
at reintegrating your acts.
And slowly in June,
we're gonna start to work
on the artistic aspect
of that beautiful diamond.
You will also see that
some of your colleagues are gone.
They will not come back,
and new artists will come in.
That's all I have to say for today.
Thank you! It's so nice to see you.
We have a lot to do
in a very short amount of time.
Next week, all of the technical crew
is gonna start coming back.
They have to get
refamiliarized with the space
and clean things up 'cause
they haven't been touched for a year.
Every single costume we have
has some kind of elastic in it,
or something that's probably rotten,
and a large percentage will need work.
This is the band room.
We're raising the height
of these partitions
to mitigate spread of the virus.
Lights are not pointing where they're
supposed to point anymore.
And when you've got thousands of fixtures,
that kind of thing can be hard to notice.
It's gonna be an intense time,
and we've got eight weeks
till opening night.
We're gonna get our ass kicked.
Go, go, go, go,
go, go, go all the way up.
Good girl. Nice.
What's wrong
with the baby hands now?
- I know, right?
- Huh?
You gotta work on those for sure.
My hands will be fine.
It's my knees that are gonna rip.
Is that what we're waiting on
for the stage,
- to get the water?
- Yeah, there's no water.
Is the pool drained? Can we see?
- It's like a funnel, yeah?
- Yeah.
Brings back memories.
When the show was created,
they wanted to use water as the medium.
There's something about
the water and the flow
and the beginning of life,
that make this unique and fascinating.
This has this rubberized surface
that you can move
and dance and perform on,
and then it sinks,
exposing the water here,
which is why you see all these holes in it
so that the water can extrude
through when it moves.
Each one of these lifts
can lift about 100,000 pounds.
All these lifts move individually,
creating a constantly-moving stage.
There's just something unique and magical
about a stage made of water.
When we did "O,"
the water was the great surprise.
In the history of Cirque,
we were at the top
of 15 years of evolution,
and so "O" was a kind of synthesis
of all what we had been through,
the fears, the joy,
the difficulties of life.
During the creation of "O,"
I try to paint images that think,
images that talk.
The show, it's about
the memory of a theater.
In this theater,
a lot of stories has been told,
and it's why you can meet
a lot of different characters.
It's why we can accept to have
a wedding and a funeral.
It is why we take an audience member,
and he is pulled into a journey
in the memory of the theater.
In "O," it's always about humankind,
human being, about life.
And the water element
force you to meditate,
and it is so magical
and the water is so unpredictable,
so dangerous, also, the water.
The show would never be what it is
without each individual making it improve.
On the top,
two 150s, two lines, 275 twice.
I would say my life definitely
revolves around artistic swimming.
I'm in the pool every single day,
whether it's on stage with "O,"
or whether it's coaching,
or whether it's training for myself,
or whether it's helping
my club in California.
On my way to California,
there's this mom and dad
that got kicked off a flight,
and they were super wasted,
but the mom was
offering everyone Twizzlers.
And all I could think was,
"Don't let her go!"
- I want some."
- "I need that candy."
- I know.
- Before you go, give me some.
425s on 25.
I grew up in Syracuse, New York,
and I was a gymnast.
And at one point, my sister wanted
to try synchronized swimming,
now called artistic swimming.
It was at a public pool over the summer,
I had nothing else to do,
and it just progressed from there.
Go Billy!
That's a guy.
- Hey!
- Is he any good?
It really is one of the most
demanding sports in the world.
You have to be an acrobat.
You have to be a great swimmer.
You have to have the power
of a water polo player
and the grace of a dancer.
I mean, you don't get to breathe.
So all this time you're underwater,
you're not breathing.
You're not able to touch the bottom.
You're throwing people
two or three meters out of the pool
with nothing but kind of the momentum
of the athletes underwater.
Meet the US team,
the champion Aquamaids.
And meet this year's star Aquamaid,
19-year-old Bill May
from Syracuse, New York,
who, despite his obvious differences,
is one of the best
synchronized swimmers in the world.
For most of my career,
there weren't a lot of men that swam,
and then in 2000, I was like,
"I wanna go to the Olympics."
And then they made a vote
not to include men in the Olympics.
So that was discouraging,
but I'm thinking, "Okay, I still love it."
And then in 2003 and 2004,
I was contacted by casting,
and they asked if I want to do
Cirque du Soleil.
And I'm like, "You know, like,"
this could be the opportunity of my life."
You know, it's like a dream.
I wanted to be
the best I could possibly be,
no matter where
that journey would take me.
You know, if someone tells me
I can't do something,
I'm gonna prove them wrong.
During the pandemic,
when all of these pools are closed
and you couldn't be closer than six feet,
normally, artistic swimmers
are only a few inches apart,
so when you have to
try to do what you have to do
from six feet away from each other
and not have the ability to lift,
you know, somehow you still have to train.
Okay, guys. Ready?
Five, six, seven, eight.
One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight.
One, two, three, four.
It's six at a time.
Oh.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
One, two, three, four.
Okay, well, this part was really good.
The rest of it was not good.
Okay, stop.
Guys, you gotta get back into the mindset,
of being able to hold that pattern.
We have to start, like,
getting awareness of each other again.
They're making me nervous.
It feels like we have a lot to do.
- We'll take it day by day.
- Yeah.
We got five days in a week, so...
So here we have some grapes.
It was, like, an experiment to see
if you could make wine in the desert.
Very clich, you know? Like, I know.
I'm from France,
and I used to do gymnastics there.
I did an audition
for Cirque du Soleil in Paris.
They invited me to Montreal
for one of the acts
at "O" and Las Vegas.
We have a lot of friends
whose performing careers
have come to an end this year, abruptly,
without having their last bow,
without knowing that
their show was going to close.
A lot of artists were
in the position that he was in,
being on P-1 visas,
where you legally cannot work
for a company other than the one
that brought you there on that visa.
So I feel so lucky,
and at the same time,
I have this responsibility
to, like, do it as best
as we can to make it work.
So if tickets are selling for our shows,
it will work for our friends' shows,
you know, that are also, like, waiting
for that phone call to say, like,
"All right, you're gonna be back."
Over the pandemic,
we had some sort of technical mishap
which resulted in flooding,
and they had to refloor
one of our training rooms.
Time is of the essence right now.
We took advantage of a local school here.
They're the only place
in town that I know of
that has a cradle,
which is what really we're training here.
Remember what you wanna do
is you wanna just sit into it
and then push, okay?
Nice. That was better.
Sometimes, I have
to stop myself and realize,
"Okay, what you're doing
is actually really dangerous."
But I love it. It's a Zen for me.
It's kind of like
putting your headphones on
and getting in a...
a mood.
It helps get my mind off things.
As a kid, I had very severe ADHD.
My mom was, like, "Oh, my gosh,
This kid has so much energy."
What am I gonna do with it?"
And she put me in gymnastics,
and I took off from there.
I was involved in gymnastics
for 23 years total.
I was at the end
of my term for university,
and my coach goes,
"Hey, what about Cirque du Soleil?"
I go, "What? What's Cirque du Soleil?"
I'd never had heard about it in my life.
Two weeks later,
I was in Montreal training.
It was such a happy moment
for me in my life.
I wish I could go back in time,
to that experience.
We were a big team,
and I miss it.
I had been dealing
with a divorce prior to COVID,
and then COVID happened.
As time kept going on,
it got tougher mentally.
From 6:00 in the morning
until probably midnight,
I literally sat staring
at the freaking backyard.
I should have been in touch more.
I should have reached out more.
I just kind of shut down.
So getting back to work
and kind of trying
to forget what happened,
you don't know
how important that is to me.
All right, what's the goal?
There's a mark up there.
Just go to that mark.
All the way to the lights.
No, she's gonna coil the rope on her lap.
That's my goal. Am I?
- Ugh.
- Go ahead and try it.
All right. Oh, man.
Oh, man!
Oh, no.
There you go. That's the mark.
- Whoo!
- Okay, cool.
Holy crap,
I didn't think I had that in me.
Not gonna lie.
Oxygen, anyone? Oxygen?
Ugh.
Me and my partner,
we've never worked together before,
so it's all new for us,
but we are doing the same skills
that we would do normally in the show.
My ex-partner was my ex-husband, actually,
and, unfortunately, he was let go.
Up.
Seesaw.
You're working too much.
- Let him throw you.
- Okay.
He just need to, like,
feel you and afterwards,
give you more from legs.
Like, you know, not the arms,
- but just from legs to the arms.
- Okay.
Okay, all right.
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
- Yay, that was better.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Come down.
- I'm ready.
- Okay.
- Up.
- Okay, cool.
I can drive my legs a lot more.
But that was better.
I feel like I felt him a lot more.
Yeah, I just needed to learn how to,
like, let him do the work.
I think I got in the bad habit of...
With the other partner,
- just working too much.
- Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, cool.
You're just trading one sports car
for another sports car.
- Andriy's got a little bit of...
- Upgrade.
- Yes.
- The upgraded version.
- Let's do it.
- Okay, cool.
Open curtain in one hour.
One, two.
One, two, switch, kick.
Two. Switch, two, three.
Okay, good.
Breather?
Ding, ding, ding.
Normal round is three minutes,
so we try...
Otherwise, we're both...
Like this.
We met backstage at the show.
The thing is, when you're a technician,
like myself,
and the artists are
all in makeup and stuff,
it's kind of tough
to really know who's who at first,
but she's got a really
giggly, high-pitched voice,
and that was my first...
I was like,
"That girl that's always laughing,"
always in a good mood."
I've kind of been
a circus baby the whole way.
I went to circus school
in my home country of Australia.
Every step I took in my career
was to get to Cirque du Soleil.
Every year in Paris,
they have a competition
called "Cirque de Demain."
This was like the Olympics of circus.
Trapeze is the best feeling.
That weightlessness, it is like flying.
It's when I feel, like, really alive.
I ended up winning the whole competition,
so Cirque du Soleil scouted me.
And that was over ten years ago.
So this is Emma first time
on the trapeze in a long time,
so we're gonna go very, very slow.
She's gonna tense a little,
maybe a little motion sickness.
It could happen. It could happen.
Like, sometimes, you get a little seasick
- after a while.
- Yeah.
Yeah, I feel you.
Okay, I was...
I pulled you too hard, you mean?
- Yeah.
- Okay.
Al is a support system
and a teammate,
and also a coach.
It's so many different hats that he wears,
but that's the true,
like, beauty of a launcher.
They kind of know what
you're gonna do before you do it,
so they can preempt.
Like, maybe your
nervous habit is to go early,
or do something weird with your technique,
and he'll kind of, like,
know that instinctually.
- We'll try that move again.
- Okay.
So here's the drop to the back.
And stand on the trapeze,
not... Ooh.
Yeah, ripped right out my hands.
- Welcome back.
- Thank you.
- Nice job.
- That felt good.
- Ice feels better, I'm sure.
- Yeah.
How you doing? You good?
- Oh, yeah, I got a zinger.
- Ooh.
- Like, my whole...
- Yeah.
- That's why I let go.
- Mmm-hmm.
I forgot about
how much that burns.
Come on. It's been a year.
Lifters are cleared to go out.
Clear slack.
Eddie, can you let the divers know
that lift 4 is coming up to minus 10-5.
Copy that.
Take lift four
to Russian swing height.
Lift four
going to Russian swing height.
Copy that.
Life in Cirque.
- Break's over.
- Oh!
- Work time.
- All right.
Mentally, you have to remember
this is not something that's simple.
Or they'd sell it at
Toys "R" Us, the Russian swing.
- We're clear to jump?
- Clear.
Up.
Let's jump. Let's jump.
Up!
There it is. Yeah!
I've been diving all my life,
so for me, doing a triple
somersault is so easy
that it's part of my nature.
We're talking to the contortionist,
and we're like, "Oh, how did you do this?"
That was amazing. That's so difficult."
And they're like, "It's so easy.
You just bend like this, and that's it."
I used to do diving shows
in Colombia and Central America,
and obviously, I wanted
to be a diver for all my life.
I was competing for my state.
I was three times national champion.
And then I read that they
needed divers for Cirque du Soleil,
which was completely
life-changing experience for me.
Eventually, Cirque du Soleil wanted me
to play this character, Philemon.
As Philemon, I start from the audience.
I need to immerse myself into this role.
I've been in the show for 16 years,
but I still don't feel like it.
I still feel, like, fresh,
and especially now,
coming back after this year.
Hey, we are ready to pull our locks
and put these switches back in service.
And this is full speed.
All right, full speed back this way.
We're just gonna send it home,
and that's it for this test sequence.
I'm definitely nervous.
Mentally, I already know
that I can do this,
but am I still at that same level?
96.6.
- Submitted, you're in.
- Awesome, thank you.
Have a good rehearsal.
They're training up here,
and they're doing that there.
Whoo.
I always wanted to dance.
You can express yourself without speaking.
You can move people
and command their attention.
I started dancing with my brother.
We used to watch Yo! MTV Raps.
And, you know, every Friday,
some type of music video
would come out, like, Janet or Michael.
And we'd recreate all the videos
and learn all the dances together.
We'd have the high-top fade
and the polka dot shirts
and the Hammer pants
and the patent leather shoes.
There was a dance studio
around the corner,
and I'd go and just stand
and look in the window
of the dance studio.
And finally, one day,
the dance teacher came out,
Betty, and she was like,
"All right, come on."
Let's... you know,
Let's see what you can do."
And from there, it was on.
As performers, you're not you anymore.
You're a part of this world,
and you're a part of this character
until that curtain closes.
- Huh?
- I can see.
Yes, lots of work.
- When you do the pickup figures.
- Yeah.
Show me.
- 'Cause I start here...
- Yeah.
...and then I look.
It's nice if you can stop
one second before moving on.
Okay, so...
'Cause for me, that is a sentence.
And what you do after is another sentence.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
Yeah, and even clearer.
- Clearer, yeah.
- Yeah.
Right after trapeze,
we quick-change into this costume.
The red dress character is somebody
who's beautiful, but broken inside,
somebody who is incapable
of giving or receiving love.
Nice. Nice, Emma.
Nice.
Try to avoid...
This is dancing, for me.
I try to feel like she has a...
bad energy that she's
trying to escape her skin.
Play with that then. I like that.
- I'm warming.
- I like it.
- Okay, good.
- One. Yeah.
- Continue.
- The press in the music.
The idea is that
you are the master of fire,
that you control the fire.
It's also the idea of...
And it works... Yes, and it works
when you have a lot of energy.
Yeah, for sure.
I'm not sure about the drums,
the drums section.
That was something that I added,
and it was actually getting a...
Not a bad reaction.
I had the impression
that suddenly, we're losing the character.
Mmm-hmm.
I mean, that was kind of the joke
of the contrast, but...
- Think about something else, yes.
- Okay.
- Think about something else.
- Okay.
- Okay. We're good?
- Yeah.
Ladies and gentlemen.
Um...
Okay, good. We'll do it again.
Ladies and gentlemen, Meranzimus here.
Welcome back to Cirque du Soleil!
- This is tight with my ass.
- It's tight?
It's challenging,
but I feel like...
Okay.
Maybe the other one
is not as tight.
All right.
Yeah, I just need
a little bit of leg room there.
Okay.
- The veil is too tight.
- Yeah.
And when I move, it's gonna snap.
These boots, like, do you
get them at, like, at Amazon?
Oh, no. Honey, these are custom.
This one I feel
my zipper is a little tight.
It's a little tight.
This is the one
that she was wearing.
So this is not supposed to be here.
- It's supposed to be here.
- Right.
And by this being high,
it's pulling this, all that stuff.
- I know, Luisse, but it was tight before.
- Uh-huh.
So I just thought, you know,
now, we have, like,
- a little time to fix it maybe.
- Okay.
- Okay, let's go ahead and fix this.
- And just do it.
Oh, my gosh,
this has been a minute.
Still looks good.
- Ha!
- Yeah, this looks amazing.
Thank goodness.
It still looks incredible.
Yeah. Your coppers, please.
What do you think our masks
are gonna look like
that we have to wear on stage?
I don't know.
I asked for a sweet leather one,
you know, like, super, like, dom.
Of course you did.
You can't see this part.
I got my finger back here,
so there will be no pinching.
Okay. This one's a tight one.
Oh, yeah, mama,
get used to this feeling again.
- That's a corset.
- Oh, yeah?
One step closer
to a pre-pandemic normalcy.
Capacity and social distancing rules
are dropped as of today.
The state does
allow businesses the choice
to decide whether they will still
require masks inside or not.
You want some X-rays?
I've had eight surgeries,
injuries from my craft.
This is my lumbar, so my back.
Right shoulder. Back.
Back. Shoulder.
Back.
And... knee.
Yeah.
I have to remember I'm older.
I'm kind of making sure that I'm, like,
extra, extra, extra, extra careful.
Ay-yi-yi.
- Did you guys raise the boat?
- Hello, swimmers. Hello, everybody.
It looks higher than before.
Did you put it more high?
I'm scared.
- Scared of height.
- This looks high, huh?
"Long fly" won't be a problem.
"Gymnast" will be a problem.
- Oh, yeah?
- Yeah.
All right.
I was a competitive gymnast,
being part of the Olympic team
from Romania.
I got an invitation to be a part of Cirque
after I stopped competing.
Bateau is French for "boat."
There is parallel bars from gymnastics.
At the end, they have a cradle
that comes from the cirque discipline.
It's not motorized.
We actually push and stop the boat,
and it does take
all 12 of us to be in sync.
And go!
Jump!
Okay, good.
- Hey, hey, hey.
- Oh, boy.
Whoo!
This is called the gymnast.
They don't usually miss this one.
He's like, "What you doing?"
When you're getting,
like, get your arms ready.
Line... Hey!
Okay, cool. Grab it. There you go.
So I just said they don't usually,
and then we go.
Yeah.
So that's how that goes.
Perfect.
Okay?
Anything can go wrong
because we are high in the air
and we are working with another partner.
Gotta watch Marchuk.
Can't have that as a habit.
Catching like he caught.
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah.
How was work?
It was actually really good.
I had a moment where I sat on the boat
and I just stared out at the audience
because I was, like,
"Is this really happening?"
Like, am I back? Am I here?"
- 7-440, or...
- Oh, yes.
Divers are good to go.
- Aquatics is set.
- Thank you.
And clear for lifters.
Carts are clear for lifters.
We have rescue divers
during the entire show.
If you were to watch underwater,
it's a completely different show
because they're moving equipment.
They're helping to move performers
from one side of the stage to the other.
They are catching performers
that come into the water.
Their job is just as difficult
and dangerous as ours.
Stand by, stand by, stand by.
Bill is set. Bill is set.
Bill is set. Bill is set.
- Thank you, Bill.
- Thank you, Bill.
Continue 607. Go.
Here comes Billiam!
Man, I was spinning forever.
Well, that's why it's good.
We had to simulate
what it's really gonna be like
with the brake release.
It's gonna be slow.
I thought I was gonna get in a body bag.
I mean, not the body bag.
Not the body bag.
The backboard.
Can you please let the divers know
that lifts one and three
are going to plus one foot.
This week's issue on the list
is the cylinder issue,
which is the muscles
that push them up and down.
So we found out that there is
a problem with all of them,
and that at any time,
they could all go down.
So it puts a little pressure
on us in this chair
because we have lots
of different contingencies.
There are seven lifts in the show,
and you take any one of them out,
or a combination of them out,
and the show is very different.
So there is a bit of tension
calling the show
'cause it can happen at any time.
So the whole time, you're a bit on edge
and you're ready to flip
to that version of the show.
We're doing that now.
My act is different now.
So I'm attempting
a more difficult finale trick.
I created the trick.
I was the first one to perform it,
so that's why I want it in my routine.
Of course, I can go back if I feel like
it's not ready or not consistent.
But for now, that's the goal,
to have that more
difficult trick in there.
And I feel a responsibility
to keep the show as beautiful
and keep the artistry there
because that's what
separates Cirque du Soleil
from traditional circus.
I'm definitely a person
who has stage fright.
That's probably one of
the biggest struggles that I have
is to be confident in my own ability.
I always worry, like,
in the back of my mind,
"Am I going to perform well,
or am I gonna let the mental part
get the best of me?"
- Ah, I'm kicking out, sorry.
- It's okay.
Oh, shucks.
I just landed really heavy.
- That's it.
- That's beautiful!
Ugh. That was good!
Up.
Up!
Okay, we are on the clock.
We're waiting
for the thing to come down.
Go!
Up!
Oh!
- You okay?
- All good.
- Okay.
- My shoes.
- You lost your shoes?
- Yeah.
Just making sure, you know?
- We need a towel.
- Make sure my shoes are fine.
So he's pulled you in on that one,
or someone pulled in.
- Flipped.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, that's what I meant.
- Okay. It's okay.
- Yeah.
- I'll change, and then...
- Okay.
How's your shoulder?
He got you one-handed.
- You all right?
- No, no, I'm safe.
- Okay. Okay.
- It's safe. Yeah.
You good?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks.
Sorry, sir. I saw him with one.
Amber, how was it?
Did you do with our tour before?
- Uh-uh, never.
- Really?
First time.
Well, it's got to be hard
to switch partners.
Like, you're used
to the way somebody flies.
Yeah, I gotta fix some things, definitely.
I like that.
And then, like, it would
take me all the way,
just keep going down, see,
and it would take us past
all these lakes and stuff.
Mammoth Lakes, then figure we go down.
I started with one partner,
and I had thought that
that's who you're gonna
follow through with,
and then we had been training for a while.
And then they said, "Okay,
we're gonna switch your partner."
So I was like...
"Okay, sure, no problem."
But... people don't realize,
"Hey, you know, things are gonna happen
'cause we are a new partnership."
It's just, you know,
we got to find each other.
We got to, um... get comfortable,
because we've never flown together.
It would just be nice if they were like,
"Okay, we understand this."
But I think it's,
"Hey, we got to be ready,"
or we got to do this and that."
And being rushed, it doesn't help that.
Let's see.
Oh, man, how old was I?
I think I was in second grade, maybe.
My brother is awesome.
He is badass, too.
We did everything together.
He had been in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Finally, he had come home.
And I'm like, "All right, cool."
I'm old enough.
I can hang out with my brother."
One day before I went to training,
he was on the couch,
he was watching something.
And I could tell he wasn't really good.
You know, something was on his mind.
And I stopped and I just...
Before I walked out, I looked at him
and I wanted to tell him that I loved him,
but that's not us, you know?
We're kind of rough and tough,
like, we don't really show our emotions.
But I had this really big,
overwhelming feeling.
I'm like,
"Man, I just wanna say I love you."
And I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't, and I went to training,
and the whole day was off,
and blew out my ankle that night,
just blew it out, and I was so upset.
I had just gotten in the house,
and got a phone call, and I answered it,
and it was his girlfriend,
and she was just crying.
She was, like, crazy.
I couldn't understand her.
I was like, "What? Wait."
Okay, what?"
Like, I'm 18, and she's saying
these things on the phone.
And she says, "You know, he's been shot."
And I'm like...
He was dead on scene, I believe,
because, um, he was shot in the heart.
I was like, "There's no way."
"There's no way he's gone right now.
It's... it's not possible."
Sorry.
I was like...
"Why can't you fix it?"
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
She makes me feel better.
All artists to the stage.
All artists to the theater.
- We're not all here yet.
- Let's start.
One, two, one, two.
Tonight, we're gonna do a short animation
until the end of clown one.
We will stop, and we will correct,
and then we will redo it again.
Where's Braden?
- Oh, Braden.
- Oh, Braden.
Nice, Braden isn't here.
Braden?
Well, it's a bugger,
because now we're done.
No, no, no, no, come on.
I said come to the theater.
We're starting right now.
We will not do animation.
We'll do all the rest,
but we need to do clown one
as soon as possible.
Okay, bye.
- He's not home.
- Why?
He did not watch the schedule.
Everybody's here except one.
Are we good
with artists at places?
We do not have Emma
at the trapeze.
Emma?
You scared me.
- No one can find Emma.
- She's there.
Well, I wasn't sure...
- She's not there?
- No, we're trying to find her.
There it is. Thank you.
- Effects 140.
- Ladies and gentlemen.
Okay. Stop, stop, stop.
- Awful, awful, so we'll...
- No, it didn't stick together.
- I will work again with them.
- Yeah.
They forgot everything we did last week.
Hey, Paul, as soon as
we've done this run of fire knives,
we can roll straight back into doing
another run with Sasha.
Is the five in the right position
for a bandit?
They're gonna have to move.
Lift five up a few inches.
- Negative nine needs to be up...
- So everything set...
...a little bit,
and then we're gonna go.
To include 28 complete.
I'm gonna ask you a question.
Why is it so long?
We're just checking...
They were asking about Vermicelli,
if they're going,
and they were asking for you,
wanting to know where
we're starting from, and if we're...
Okay, you answered. That's okay.
If somebody wants to check on Em,
and Ari is standing by to do the catch.
He was just changing tanks.
Braden has not arrived yet?
Yes, this is a friendly reminder
to check your air.
You don't wanna be that guy.
One, two, three, right.
Oh shit. We just had a collision.
Are they okay?
I'm gonna go check on John.
We just had an artist collision.
John hit somebody.
Copy, copy.
- Are they okay?
- Well, no...
Do we need to hold?
Is John okay?
- He's okay.
- Thank you. Effects 230. Go.
He was not expecting somebody
to be swimming there.
Effects 240. Go.
- John's swimming off.
- Copy.
- We got the med stage left.
- Stop.
Braden is not gonna make it. He woke up.
I landed right on her.
Square... Like, bloody nose.
There was no empty square next to me.
So let's...
He had no girl. You had no guy.
Let's talk about the problem,
how we're gonna solve it.
We're just not going to.
You have to work with the divers.
They've never done this before.
Okay.
Mark for masking.
Artist in the water.
Artist in the water stage left.
Okay sign and sending off stage.
He's giving the okay sign.
It's the Titanic.
It's hard to starboard.
Titanic ten times.
Pods one, two, and three coming in.
Holding plate.
We're setting up a trapeze
on the upstage platform, read you.
Copy.
I'm ready.
Artist has fallen.
Yeah.
Everything okay?
That sucks.
Artist is climbing back up.
That one, it didn't look like
you even made a connection with the...
Did the rope wrap you?
- I have no idea.
- Okay.
Now I'm on high alert here.
- Okay.
- Okay.
See, that was smooth.
Artist has fallen.
Right away.
You're good!
- That one sucked.
- Are you okay?
- That one picked me up.
- Yeah.
I'll tell you if I'm not, Jen.
We're kind of
at the cutoff point
of whether we can go forward
with this trick or go back.
It's a setback.
So we'll tell Pierre you're
gonna go back to the original act.
And have a different pick point
for the launch.
We need to rehearse that,
so Joe is gonna find some time.
So that's just... Put that in the past.
Let's move on, yeah?
- Yeah.
- Good girl.
So that's that.
We'll just make sure it's consistent,
and then we'll put it back in.
We'll figure it out. Don't be sorry.
But I'm sorry we couldn't do it now.
- Yeah, me, too.
- We worked so hard on it.
I know.
And we're so close. It just sucks.
We're still close.
We're still close.
And it's not off the table.
Well, for premiere, it is.
For premiere,
it's off the table,
but we'll premier it later.
We'll get it out there, okay?
All right.
It's just disappointment,
like, that's all.
Billy.
Let's just run this one like this...
Yeah.
And maybe we'll get them
to practice a little bit.
- Okay, let's do it.
- Okay.
The first spin of every day,
you get, like, a little dizzy,
but then after, you're good to go.
It's like riding a bicycle.
Actually, I love the feeling.
You just don't think about anything else.
You just ride the wave.
- Howdy, howdy, Roger.
- Hey, hey, hey.
All right, let's chop her off.
The one that was with me all COVID.
My God, wow.
And I put your step-by-step
out in case you needed it.
I'm definitely gonna need it.
- I'm coming.
- Oh, you're coming?
- I'm coming.
- I'm coming.
It feels like we just did this
like a second ago.
Welcome back
to the first day of school,
- children.
- Uh-huh.
Did you shave before
or did you just shave?
- Ah!
- I just shaved.
Baby face.
- I used to do it, like, 15 minutes.
- Jesus.
I like this side better,
I think, like this.
Hey, they're sisters, not twins, you know.
- I like it.
- Thank you, Amber.
- That's all.
- All done.
We had our Olympic trials today.
Oh, yeah. How did it go?
They didn't call it by 0.2.
- Shut your face.
- Mmm-hmm.
Watch out, Bill. I'm gonna beat you.
- You almost done?
- I'm almost done, finally.
Ta-da!
Driving down Frank Sinatra
and just stopping and turning
and looking at people.
They're just like, "Ah!"
You know, people are already like,
"I don't know what happens
in Vegas at 5:00 in the morning."
And then you're like...
That is one crazy drag queen.
Very good.
- Sixteen years.
- It's amazing.
We are going to look
at some safety features
and talk about some safety items.
So this first one is if we have
an artist injured on stage
and we stop the show, you will see this.
That is your cue to leave the stage
and go to the stage left training room.
As of June 25th,
all fully vaccinated personnel,
you no longer need to test or wear masks.
Yes.
A week from now,
we will not be wearing masks.
Now we are at the phase
where we need to run it.
Is it at the level it should be?
No, not yet.
Because for me, it's not organic yet.
And for that, they need to do it.
- And do we have the clowns?
- All right.
Clowns are standing by.
- Of course.
- Thank you.
Places please, for clowns,
human comets, and musicians.
The call is places for clowns,
human comets, and musicians.
Winch cue 606. Go.
Winch cue 607. Go.
Clear to hook up. Clear to hook up.
Clear to hook up.
- Lift fault.
- Thank you, lift fault.
Winch cue 608. Go.
- Clear right.
- Lift fault again.
- Clear left.
- Thank you.
Lift fault on five again.
Lift five to bar six.
Lifts will not clear, Joe.
- Lifts are not clearing.
- Okay, thank you.
Still bar six on lift five.
Aquatics,
can we get a word on that?
We're clear on five, right?
Yes, sir.
Yeah, they're saying it's clear.
Don't move. Don't move.
Winch cue 608.5. Go.
Winch cue 609. Go.
Lifts still not clear?
- Still not clear.
- Thank you.
Toe bar six on five.
Lift fault. Stay in your hoops.
Lift fault. Stay in your hoops.
We're going to do a water exit.
Water exit.
All right, performers
are gonna exit into the water.
Performers gonna exit into the water.
Exit into the water.
Go, lifts clear.
And the guys
are swimming to the gutter.
Still lift five?
Yeah, I mean,
they can't clear it.
They don't know what's going on.
What just happened?
Uh, a lift fault,
so the lift was stuck
at the bottom of the pool.
So for our exits,
we heard the calling stage manager say,
"Water exit. Water exit."
Gutter bow.
Oh, it's a gutter bow as well. Okay.
And so we stopped and jumped in the water.
But that literally almost never happened.
- But that's a first for me.
- Yeah, me too.
- First in a really long time.
- Yeah.
We had a live fault
at a very strange place,
and we couldn't get it back
the rest of the show.
So that's why the lifts stayed down
and didn't come back up.
We were able to get the final curtain,
which was great.
And thanks for all of you
for the gutter bow.
That worked out great, except a reminder
for the finale comets.
When we do white-black
is when you should be leaving
and coming around
to be able to do the closing curtain
for Aurora and Philemon.
Yes.
Whoo!
I feel... We stuck.
Out there. Out there.
Yeah, when you pull,
you go like this.
So it's like that.
They said, like, very...
Whoo-hoo! Yeah.
- Wow.
- See?
There, that's good!
Oh, that's good. That's good.
- Yeah, good!
- Whoo-hoo!
Whoo!
- Ah!
- Good.
Okay.
- Good job.
- Thank you.
- Good, hyped?
- Yes.
Great out there, really good.
It's information, you talk
to each other with no words.
Of course, we do talk.
Yeah, you do talk.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- Yep.
- Small talk, so no.
Yeah, you know.
Actually, me and my partner
made some really good
advancements yesterday.
So that was good. That was really nice.
Great training.
Every time, it gets better. I love it.
And I love the challenges, too, actually.
That's what makes me work harder
and wanna push it more.
'Cause if it was easy,
that wouldn't be fun.
We don't know
a lot of the details.
We just know that it happened.
And we know that that's not something
that would have gone over
very well earlier today,
why we waited till this moment
to bring you all up to speed.
We take these losses very seriously.
Process it over the weekend.
And as best as you can...
get rid of it by next week
because we do take this stuff
to the stage,
but it's also part of our responsibility
because there are people in the audience
who are doing the same thing,
and we have to save them from that.
So let's save them from that first,
and we'll deal with our stuff
when we're done,
when we go home, okay?
Yesterday, I just found out
one of my best friends passed away.
And it was completely unexpected,
so I am kind of still
in the shock mode where I'm like,
"No, that's..."
Doesn't make any sense, like, at all."
He has a wife and a kid,
and now they're by themselves.
I had talked to Dre,
and I said I had my friend pass away,
but, um, I think he
got in his head about it
rather than being there for me,
and he went the opposite way,
kind of like, questioning kind of thing.
And I was like, "Wait a minute."
I was like, "Hold on."
"Come on, you're supposed
to be there for me.
My friend just passed away."
And I think he got in his head about...
Because it was a male,
but I'm like, "Wait a minute. No, no, no."
"It's a family, like, the whole family.
We're all good."
Las Vegas is back to 100%.
Famous shows
are making their return on the strip.
The relaunch of Cirque du Soleil in Vegas.
The group's iconic aquatic show
is gearing up for a comeback.
And as you can imagine, people are excited
to get back to something
that feels more like normal.
Um...
I didn't take any notes.
I have some comments,
but I didn't take any notes.
You have the responsibility
to touch people.
To maybe, out of 1,800 people,
if you can touch 200 people,
enough for them to be better human beings
and to contribute to have a better world,
we have succeeded at doing something.
Thank you.
Have a good night, and see you tomorrow.
You know, it kind of helps
with the nerves a little bit
because even people that
didn't come back to the show
are calling and wishing us luck.
So it's nice to hear from everyone.
The reaction has been incredible.
It's been amazing
feeling that love from everybody,
and it really reminds me
of why I do what I do
and why I love what I do.
Thank you, babe.
Romance, oh!
I'm okay right now.
I'm, like, not too nervous right now.
But when it starts getting close to shows,
I'll be nervous.
Say good luck, Mama.
Good luck on your first show.
I'll see you in a bit.
You know, there was
this one skill that we did,
and it was new,
and it was scary, and I've never done it,
and all I thought about was my brother.
I'm like, "Okay, cool. Yeah."
"Happy place, happy moment.
Think about my brother."
Like, how cool would it be for him
to be there and be like,
"All right, you got this."
I wish, like, my whole family was there.
Everyone, all, like, my OG friends,
it would be good for them to come,
my new OG friends, my family.
That'd be cool if they were there.
Dre.
It's hard to find someone
to share something with,
and finally, I feel like I have.
And it makes me very sad
that I can't share that.
I miss him.
But, yeah, I'm very sad.
I just feel empty. That's all.
I kind of just have
to push it aside for now
and focus on this amazing thing.
I'm still ready.
Ready.
- We said masks?
- Masks.
I need your help. Thank you.
Everyone's been through a lot,
so they deserve to be happy.
They deserve to laugh,
they deserve to cry,
or they deserve to feel these emotions,
and we need to deliver that for them.
Okay, here we go.
Whenever something global happens
that's devastating and sad,
people are searching for a way to escape,
and I think that theater
is really important for that.
Is everybody ready for tonight?
- Yeah!
- I can't hear you.
Is everybody ready for tonight?
Yeah!
One more time.
Is everybody ready for tonight?
Yeah!
- Have a good show!
- Whoo!
Hello, everyone.
- Fluid effects?
- Set.
Thank you. Do we have Aurora?
- Yes, we do.
- Thank you.
- Sound?
- Ready.
- Electrics?
- Yes.
- Automation?
- Set.
- Aquatics?
- Set.
- Carpentry?
- Yes.
- And rigging?
- Pitter, patter. Let's get at her.
And Jenna can confirm
Jorge is in the house.
Great. Thank you.
All right, guys.
Stand by for places.
Stand by for places.
And southeast,
start the dipping.
- 10-4.
- Thank you.
- There a lot of people out there?
- There's a few.
I'm, like, super nervous.
- You're nervous?
- I'm on the console.
That's why he's nervous.
I haven't gotten
a places call yet.
Jason's just trying
to make you more nervous.
And aquatics,
please send the divers to places.
- Divers on the way.
- Thank you.
And aquatic, please send mnage to places.
- Mnage on the way.
- Thank you.
All right, ladies and gentlemen.
It's party time.
Mnage, this is your places call.
Mnage to places.
Stage right copy. Have fun.
Stay right. Good show, Regina.
Stage left, good show.
Thank you. Have a good show.
Ladies and gentlemen,
a dance and a tune.
Welcome back to Cirque du Soleil.
Intermission is over.
Lot of energy out here.
It's gonna be good.
Yeah, I can hear them.
I'm not crying. You're crying.
And now, sit back, relax.
Philemon, go.
Philemon, clear.
Launch key 26,
effects 150 on the tabs.
- Go.
- Effects 150, clear.
Horizontal curtain.
Go.
Launch key 28. Go.
- Are wings clear?
- Trapeze line is clear.
Effects 180. Go.
Launch key 62. Go.
We have Emma solo, trapeze.
Stand by for Emma.
One, two, three.
Miss Emma.
Curtain effects 200. Go.
Barge go, barge go, barge go.
Oh, my God, we did it.
Oh, my God!
You did a good job.
Good job.
Good job.
Hey.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
I feel like I could have
done a triple, man.
I know. You were so high.
I tried to land you better on that one,
- but it was like boom!
- Don't care.
If I was on the trapeze, though,
I don't care.
- You were high out there.
- I was high.
I saw the trapeze
and, like, I saw the ropes,
and then I was like bang!
Like, I felt it in my pop.
I was like, "Rocking air time?"
Ready to raise the boat.
Cradles clear.
Very nice.
- Glitter.
- Glitter.
- Oh, nice.
- Gatinho.
- Boat is set.
- Thank you, boat.
Go, guys.
Whoo-hoo!
- Nice.
- I was not not doing Soleil.
Just behind you, my friend.
Oh.
We'll work that out slowly
and a little bit at a time.
- That was awesome.
- Yeah, exactly.
Wrong way first. Anyone for a swim?
- Oh, cool.
- Yeah, it was good.
Sweet, good work.
Good. How are you?
How you doing?
Stand by for garden swings
Stand by for garden swings
One, two, three, garden swings
Launch key 110. Go.
The lifts are gonna level.
The lifts are going to level.
Copy that.
Whoa!
Ready to load the mask.
Back three clear to come in.
Hello.
You guys, you,
the artists, had faith.
And that was so inspiring for us,
you know?
We were alone in the head office,
and we were just thinking
about the first night
of our show in Vegas.
And now...
we're living the dream.
And I want to thank you,
because we're back!
During the pandemic,
I went up to California to coach,
and when I was there, my coach,
she started to get into her mind
that maybe it's time for her to move on.
So she asked me if I would come
and be the head coach
of the Santa Clara Aquamaids
in San Jose, California.
And I thought about it,
I thought about it,
I thought about it,
and if it didn't happen now,
I would probably lose that opportunity.
And it is one of my dreams.
I wish it would have been
five to ten years later
'cause I still love the show,
and I still wanna be here.
Today is my last...
Today...
Today...
Sorry.
Every time I try to talk, which is good.
This is gonna be a terrible show.
I don't know why I have friends
coming to this one.
They should have come last week,
but today's gonna be my last...
my last day at "O."
I'm choosing to leave because
I have another opportunity.
But, you know, I feel healthy.
I could go on forever.
"O" is part of my heart, part my soul.
So to say I have to leave...
like, I feel like a piece of me is dying.
It's a place to share,
like, a moment in time
with the audience,
with the people around us
that is never gonna be the same.
Tomorrow, there'll be something different,
but it's something so special.
It's the ending of
that feeling for me today,
but I'll always have the memories,
you know, and the best
memories of my life.