Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net

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 pliés.

Six, seven, eight.

You gotta plié.

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.