Cirque Du Soleil originated in 1984 with a small group of street performers in the small town of Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada. The group included Guy Laliberté, the founder of the company. Laliberté has now built an empire with close to 4,000 employees, including 1,300 performing artists from nearly 50 countries! Cirque Du Soleil has held productions in over forty countries and 300 cities on a total of six continents, and we currently have six shows touring under the Big Top, four shows touring in arenas, and nine residential shows. The company has also recently announced its collaboration with James Cameron for the creation of a show based on Avatar.

Here’s a video celebrating 30 years of Cirque Du Soleil.

When this journey started for me, I couldn’t have spat out one fact about the company. Heck, even the name frightened me with all of its extra vowels and French roots! On April 2, 2003, my gymnastics coach sent my family to see Alegria by Cirque Du Soleil. I was expecting elephants, clowns, and stilts, and instead, I watched flying circus acts and tumblers, one of a kind makeup and costumes, and live music. It’s easy to imagine the pure amazement and appreciation that I had for the show as an elite gymnast, but it wasn’t solely the acrobatics from the power tumbling, high bar, and Russian bar acts that sent me into a mesmerized state. I appreciated and understood that it was art; I related to the use of acrobatics to evoke expression and emotion. Thus, the dream was born.

                          

After years of club gymnastics and four years of NCAA gymnastics at the University of Maryland, I retired from the sport and started a new life, eager to find something that gave me as much passion, motivation, and success as gymnastics. I was newly married and had gone back to school, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that it was going to be extremely difficult to find something fulfilling in the manner that 17 years of a career as a gymnast did. Soon thereafter, with my husband’s encouragement, I submitted an online application through Cirque Du Soleil’s casting website.

I was contacted by casting a few months later, and I was asked to submit a demo video to display my skills, strength, flexibility, and personality. After completing and submitting the video, I was asked to spend four months in Montreal, Canada to attend General Formation, basically a circus intensive. General Formation gave me the opportunity to go from gymnast to artist as I trained a flying act, studied dance, music, clowning, etc., and I experienced the magnificence of our international headquarters, an atmosphere of creativity, design, and artistry.

I left Montreal without a contract because there was nothing available at the time. I knew that my time was well spent though; I had a new passion and felt inspired, and I knew that I had proven myself capable of becoming an artist at Cirque Du Soleil. I headed back home and patiently waited for a spot to open up that I would be compatible with. Casting looks for exact profiles, often including certain talents, physical appearance, personality, and more. Some people wait forever and never get a call, and others, like me, get lucky with time and talent. Nine months later, I was offered my current contract at Corteo, and my husband and I have been touring South America with the show ever since!

From the day that I sent my application in until my first day at Corteo was a little over 1 year and 11 months. While I spent some time in Montreal during that period for training, the wait was long, stressful, and filled with doubt. Looking back, this time period only increased my desire, and I’m thankful that I had to work at it, that it wasn’t handed to me on a golden platter. For others, the road can be much longer, much more difficult, like my friend Cory Sylvester from Quidam who finally got the phone call after ten years of dreaming, waiting, and wishing. I’ve also heard ideal stories where it just works out; the application is sent in and arrival on a show occurs just a few weeks later, like my Aussie friend Hayley Wright and her first gig at Viva Elvis.

My personal story is just one of many. To be an artist within this company is an honor, a symbol of what happens when hard work and talent are combined. Some pursue Cirque Du Soleil to fulfill a dream, travel the world, or as a way to make ends meet, and others, solely because it’s an avenue to entertain, to create art. Although each story is varied, each individual’s journey and purpose different, there are a large number that began through the same place: gymnastics.

Gymnasts are popular in the Cirque Du Soleil world because of their ability to pick up new circus acts quickly. Gymnasts understand dedication, teamwork, and high pressure situations, and they have spatial and body awareness. The skills in the circus world are often similar to gymnastics skills; they just might be on a bouncy bar instead of a beam, 10 or 15 meters higher than normal, or in my case, being caught my giant men instead of catching a bar!


The picture above includes some of the gymnasts of Corteo!

Former Gymnasts currently in Corteo:

Ukraine:
Inna Teslenko: National team member, 2002-2004
Olga Varenyuk: National team member, 200-2002
Inna Rudenko: Jr. National team member
Aleksandr Kunytskyy: National team member, 1998-2000
Sergeii Pikhotenko: National team member, 2002-2007

Russia:
Yury Tikhonovsky: National team member, 1999-2004

USA:
Tyler Block: NCAA gymnast at UC Berkeley, 2004-2008 (Golden Bear)
Alix Croop: NCAA gymnast at University of Pittsburgh, 2005-2009 (Parkettes Gymnastics)
Steven Gaudette: Jr. national team member, 1999-2000 & 2002 (Daggett)
Alina Weinstein: NCAA gymnast at University of Illinois, 2009-2013 (Arena Gymnastics)
Abigail (Adams) Schmidt: NCAA gymnast at U of Maryland, 2007-2011 (Cypress Academy)
Fred Umali: Jr. national team member (Top Flight Gymnastics)
Tacia Van Vleet: University of Washington, 2001-2005

Canada:
Yvonne Tousek: National team member, 1995-2000; Olympic team member 1996 & 2000

Romania:
Ciprian Veres: National team member, 1994-2004

China:
Yann Li: National team member, 2001-2003

England:
Kanukai Jackson: National team member, 1995-2004

Australia:
Hayley Wright: National team member, 2002-2006

Belarus:
Andrey Kushneryk: National team member, 2002-2005

Japan:
Hideto Okuzawa

Brazil:
Gustavo Lobo da Fonte: National team member, 1994-2002; 1st Brazilian to win a world championship gold medal on vault in 1998
Camila Comin: National team member, 1994-2004; 2000 & 2004 Olympic team member

At Corteo, about half of the artists had careers as gymnasts before circus and many come from other acrobatic backgrounds like trampoline and acrosport. We are a group made of established gymnasts, including national team members, NCAA gymnasts, and Olympians. Although our gymnastics backgrounds are those of high esteem, it takes more than talent to make it into the cast of a show within Cirque Du Soleil. We are considered for our talent, but we are chosen for our personalities, stage presence, and, in general, our overall ability to transform from sportsmen to artists.

Interested in Cirque Du Soleil? Check out the casting website here!

Comment below and let me know your favorite act or show!
 

Related: 
Read Beams, Dreams, and Circus Themes post 1 here