I negotiated with vendors and met with 20 bankers in two weeks. So the next year, in 1985, we had to restart negotiations with the government to get a subsidy, and ended up with a huge debt. Six months of tours would not ensure a business. By the end of the tour I knew we could succeed, but the only way this could become a business was if we could leave Canada during the winter months.
#Founder of cirque de soleol how to
By the time we got to Montreal, we pretty much knew how to do things. After that first show in Gaspé, we started a 15-city tour in Quebec. We had about 10 acts in the show, with trapeze artists, stilt-walkers, clowns, and contortionists. I helped to put up the tent, did marketing, did the artistic direction. In the beginning I did everything, like everyone did. For the government, that first effort was a one-year event, but it was our big break to learn things and continue to dream. That is where the idea of "Soleil" came from, on a beach in Hawaii, and because the sun is the symbol of youth and energy. When I need to take time to reenergize, I go somewhere by the ocean to sit back and watch the sunsets. Cirque du Soleil means Circus of the Sun. Our first tour was under a blue-and-yellow big top that seated 800, and Cirque du Soleil became the popular success of the summer.
I was able to get our first contract from the government for $1 million. It was our dream to create our own circus, so I took charge and became the producer. They asked us, the street performers, to develop an artistic concept that would carry the festivities out across the province. In 1984 the Canadian government had a cultural budget for the celebration of the 450th anniversary of Jacques Cartier's discovery of Canada. You managed the money you got out of the hat and learned to be disciplined with what you got. Up to then, the attitude was: Invite the street performers, pay them a sandwich, and they'll be happy. I was first a street artist, performing in a theater troupe on stilts, and started a festival of street performers in Quebec.
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