FESTVAL: A CELEBRATION OF THE ARTS : SUNNY SIDE UP

‘Too many circuses are too traditional. I want to return to the feeling of the 1920s when the circus in in Europe was the inspiration for other arts’

Le Cirque du Soleil is no ordinary circus--not if that means sawdust and spangles, clowns in baggy pants performing pratfalls and throwing pies, animals doing tricks to the crack of a whip or sideshows that trade on freaks and mutants. There are neither elephants nor elephant men in The Circus of the Sun.

Instead, there are two hours of seamless unity--a joining of music, humor, ballet, athletics and spirit by a troupe of unique young performers that goes beyond the usual collection of unrelated acts at most circuses and vaudeville-like variety shows.

The Cirque du Soleil’s high-wire performers, clowns, jugglers, acrobats and original music launch the Los Angeles Festival on Sept. 3 from a blue-and-yellow-striped tent on the corner of First and Alameda Streets. Before its final performance on Sept. 20, the Quebec-based Circus of the Sun will give 27 performances of a very unusual sort of circus.

There are other Canadian circuses, even bigger ones than Le Cirque du Soleil, but none as successful, and all in the traditional mode of multiple rings, animal acts and commonplace performances.

“I come from the theater,” explains artistic director Guy Caron. “Too many circuses are too traditional. I try to make it a total show, like an opera, with music, light and acting. I try to take the circus from the bottom and put it at the same level as the other arts, to return to the feeling of the ‘20s when the circus in Europe was an inspiration for other arts.”

So, at one point in last year’s show, a man playing the role of a waiter cleaning up a night club slowly begins to balance the chairs he is moving, first one on his chin and then another and another until he has built an elaborate structure that resembles a huge fan, all sitting on the point of his chin.

There are three young Chinese cyclists who can do things with two-wheelers that can hardly be believed. And another group that can cram more people on a bike than can be shoved into a small car.

And there are the Andrews, Jacqueline Williams and Andrew Watson, young British trapeze specialists who work on rings near the top of the tent. For 8 1/2 minutes they perform, not with the usual audience-frightening tricks, but with near balletic maneuvers that even during a rehearsal drew applause and shouts of approval from other performers and technicians.

The Andrews in many ways represent the spirit of Le Cirque du Soleil. Watson is 27, Williams, 23. Both came to the world of the circus three years ago from totally unrelated backgrounds. And their attitude toward circuses is as unorthodox as their background.

“We try to act,” Williams says, “not just be sexy or macho . We don’t try to scare the audience out of their wits. What we do up there is a ballet set to the best music in the business.”

And, Williams adds, “We have dignity here. I don’t have to wear a bikini or act silly. We are artists, and Le Cirque du Soleil recognizes that. There are no pressures here to lower standards.”

Yet, for all its quality and professionalism, Le Cirque du Soleil is young, both in its actual age and in its artistic and management make-up. The average age of the performers, management and work crew is in the low 20s. The circus was founded three years ago by a group of Quebec street performers .

“I organized Canada’s first festival of street performers because there was no recognition of us as artists, of our spirit or that we represented an art form,” says Guy LaLiberte, founder and general director of Le Cirque du Soleil and a one-time fire-eater.

After this collection of jugglers, stilt-walkers and fire-eaters proved a hit in Quebec City, “we decided we could take the streets into a tent and present something entirely different. That’s how the circus was born.”

Under the 27-year-old LaLiberte’s direction, Le Cirque du Soleil has grown from spending about $970,000 a year to put on 50 shows to a $6-million operation that will perform 272 times in Canada and California. Next year, according to LaLiberte, the circus will budget about $7.5 million for 300 performances in Canada and the United States.

But it is not money that makes Le Cirque du Soleil the special organization that it is. What does starts with the big top, the $300,000 French-made tent in which the show goes on.

Just as its performances are unlike those of other circuses, so is the big top different. Inside the 250-foot-diameter and 150-foot-high tent is a single ring, really a round stage that is nearly surrounded by more than 1,700 seats in a horseshoe arrangement.

The show and its 80 full-time workers and performers will arrive in town in 30 vans and trucks carrying 320 tons of equipment, a self-contained world with facilities for sleeping, a laundry and even a restaurant .

“We build and fix everything in our own shops,” says Jean Heon, one of the circus officials. “We have our own welders, our own electricians and set builders. There isn’t anything we don’t do ourselves.”

Well, not exactly. When Le Cirque du Soleil shows up, it does do one traditional thing: It hires as many as 120 roustabouts to help put up and take down the tent.

An ultramodern stereo system fills the tent with original music more akin to that of a Broadway show or film than to the military marches and 1950ish big-band sounds of most circuses.

According to Caron, “music is 90% of the show--music that makes a performance like an opera, a totality of sound, light and acting.”

The music is written and arranged by Rene Dupere, a classically trained composer who says, “My inspirations are Brahms, Pink Floyd and Vangelis,” inspirations that translate into a melange of rock, electronic and classical music.

It’s played by seven musicians, all on synthesizers except for one traditional instrument--this year a saxophone. The result is a wall of sound that, Dupere says, “is a unitary composition more like a movie sound score than a variety show. It has a concept that matches Caron’s concept for the whole circus.”

The music combines with lighting effects--a mix of smoke, strobes and color--to create a swirling, flashing world that transports and lifts the audience into a fantasy detached from reality, (as well as simultaneously disguising the more mundane movements of sets and performers.)

Under the direction of Caron, a theater-trained actor, performers often take roles as if in a play, or move in a choreographed manner resembling a ballet. The costumes also are a departure, reaching back to the use of masks, gowns and clothes drawn from the Renaissance courts and medieval street fairs that inspired Caron and LaLiberte.

Everyone works backstage as well as on stage--and on various tasks. The acrobats pull ropes and help to clear the stage, electricians help to drive the 200 pegs that support the tent, and management people deal out costumes.

This team approach is one of the strongest attractions for the artists, according to aerialist Watson.

“We are part of a company,” Watson says, “not merely a lot of acts.”

“After only three years,” LaLiberte says, “we are attracting some of the best, most creative talent in the world.” What all of this means, according to Caron, is that “we have artists who with their power, their energy and their creativity . . . can transform my dream into reality.”