0
Interview
10 April 2022 2.00 h

Daniele Finzi Pasca

Director of Cirque du Soleil’s show ‘Luzia’

“Cirque du Soleil goes beyond theatre”

The world’s largest contemporary circus producer has returned to Europe for the first time since the pandemic began with a show in L’Hospitalet

Magical realism lends itself to the language of acrobatics THE CIRCUS HAS A LOGIC OF STRONG MOMENTS AND RELAXED TRANSITIONS

Daniele Finzi Pasca lived in Mex­ico for a decade, so when Cirque du Soleil pro­posed he di­rect a tour­ing show he turned to the light and colour of Mex­ico, and its darker world of spir­its and rit­ual. ’Luzia’ is cur­rently play­ing in a big top in L’Hos­pi­talet de Llo­bre­gat near Barcelona until May 15.

How is a Cirque du Soleil show born?
In my case they made a pro­posal and asked me a ques­tion like: “If you cooked us some­thing at home, what would you cook?” Of course, if they go on to make you an offer, it’s be­cause they know your work well. Then there are the wishes that must be agreed upon: if they want you to work with a par­tic­u­lar cre­ator, or the in­gre­di­ents you’re al­lowed to choose. I pro­posed Mex­ico, with its depth, its sounds and smells, and they liked the idea. We have to keep in mind that in a cir­cus, ac­ro­bat­ics is at the fore­front and that there must be nov­elty and clas­sic el­e­ments that are re­newed.
There are many Mex­i­cos. How do you re­late the el­e­ments that every­one knows with those that are more per­sonal?
If as an opera di­rec­tor you’re asked to di­rect Aida with Zubin Mehta, then your start­ing point is Verdi’s score. But in cre­ative the­atre you start with a blank sheet. You need to lis­ten to your in­tu­ition. If you talk about Mex­ico you have to choose a way to go about it. Know­ing I was di­rect­ing it, they guessed it wouldn’t be folk­loric.
How did you choose the ac­ro­batic num­bers and fit them into Luzia?
When we were asked to di­rect the show, I thought about Mex­ico and a pos­si­ble nar­ra­tive using its colour and shapes. I lived there for 10 years. I thought of Juan Rulfo’s nar­ra­tion in Pedro Páramo [an in­flu­en­tial novel in Mex­i­can lit­er­a­ture], the mag­i­cal re­al­ism of that world is quite ab­stract and con­crete at the same time, it lends it­self to the lan­guage of ac­ro­bat­ics. Then you need to work with cre­ators who know you well and who know how to build dreams. For ex­am­ple, Eu­ge­nio Ca­ballero [a Mex­i­can pro­duc­tion de­signer praised for his work on Guillermo del Toro’s film Pan’s Labyrinth], who is a friend from my time in Mex­ico. Or Ital­ian cos­tume de­signer Gio­vanna Buzzi, with whom we did some opera. Then you have to forge a con­nec­tion with the gym­nasts. I was one and so I know what they are like.
Were you a pro­fes­sional gym­nast?
Only at a basic level. But it’s a world I know. That’s why it’s easy for me to talk to ac­ro­bats. Whether it’s Cirque du Soleil or my com­pany Éloize, I’ve been work­ing with gym­nasts for 40 years. We look at what the tra­di­tion is and how we can renew it. We had to look at how to in­cor­po­rate water, which is beau­ti­ful on stage in a big top, but which pro­vides a huge chal­lenge. And doing un­der­wa­ter stunts is very com­pli­cated and very dan­ger­ous.
And why was water so im­por­tant?
We wanted to ex­plain Mex­ico through its light but also its water, to avoid stereo­types, which are very easy to fall into.
Yet cliché can be use­ful be­cause it sums up a spe­cific idea.
Yes, but we have to de­cide if that stereo­type is just for tourists or whether be­hind it are the orig­i­nal de­signs of painters and mu­ral­ists. You have to man­age the colours so that those who know Mex­ico will recog­nise it, while sur­pris­ing and se­duc­ing those who don’t know it. We have a giant disk on stage be­cause of the very strong re­la­tion­ship with the sun, which we turn into golden light and use as a back­light that comes and fades away. It is the Mayan con­cept that every time night comes it could be the end of the world.
In this metaphor­i­cal meal, how do you es­tab­lish the order of the dishes and deal with the tech­ni­cal as­pects?
To stick with the cook­ing anal­ogy for the mo­ment, be­fore cook­ing you have to make sure that you have all the in­gre­di­ents you need. To pre­pare this ban­quet you first need to know if you can do all the cook­ing in the kitchen you have. You need a very large oven to cook a whole cow, and there’s no way you can cook it at a low tem­per­a­ture. This is ob­vi­ous in a kitchen, but also in ar­chi­tec­ture or in music. In an opera you know that you have to put in arias for the so­prano but you have to space them out. The cir­cus also has this logic of strong mo­ments and more re­laxed tran­si­tions, of mo­ments of great emo­tion shown in a pow­er­ful ac­ro­batic ges­ture and also mo­ments that catch the au­di­ence out and make them laugh. In a cir­cus en­vi­ron­ment, the artists do many dif­fer­ent things, and you need to know how to space out dif­fer­ent ac­ro­batic num­bers if one artist is in­volved in both. The whole con­struc­tion of the piece is de­ter­mined by these com­bi­na­tions. The re­hearsals are where you see every­thing com­ing to­gether and where you learn how to avoid major prob­lems. You don’t want to be miss­ing a key in­gre­di­ent when the time comes to cook. My grand­mother used to say that to make good Ital­ian food you need qual­ity in­gre­di­ents and then all you have to do is make sure you don’t spoil them in the cook­ing. If the ideas and the artists are good, then just take care not to spoil them when you com­bine them.
Cirque du Soleil’s suc­cess is built on ac­ro­bat­ics and the drama it can cre­ate.
The idea is to go be­yond the­atre, to give ac­ro­bat­ics a the­atri­cal form so that the ac­ro­batic ges­ture makes sense. In the com­pany we talk about act­ing. It’s now com­mon for cir­cus peo­ple to en­list the help of play­wrights to take ac­ro­bat­ics fur­ther. We try to imag­ine the whole set within a dra­matic con­cept. For ex­am­ple, for Cor­teo we were in­spired by Chartres Cathe­dral. With­out mak­ing it ex­plicit, we in­cluded ref­er­ences to the cathe­dral, such as the wardrobe de­sign, which was based on stained glass win­dows.
Cirque du Soleil has artists from all over. How has the Ukraine con­flict af­fected the com­pany, and the de­bate about “ve­to­ing” Russ­ian per­form­ers?
War causes pain and its ef­fects are felt in the cir­cus as in so­ci­ety. We’ve all been touched by it. I’ve worked at the Mari­in­sky The­atre [in St Pe­ters­burg]. I have friends who are Russ­ian or Ukrain­ian. How can this pain and this sit­u­a­tion be re­solved? De­bate and leav­ing bridges open. When it comes to ve­to­ing, you have to be care­ful be­cause these artists are al­ready hav­ing a hard time. We need to show em­pa­thy and to put our­selves in the place of the per­son this af­fects, and then to think about what you would do. Put your­self in their shoes.
If these artists are ex­pected to con­demn the war, some will refuse.
It’s very del­i­cate. I be­lieve that who­ever can should pub­licly call for peace. At Cirque du Soleil, where there are artists and tech­ni­cians from all over the world, we know how to get through a tense sit­u­a­tion like this.
Mex­ico is sun and water, you say in Luzia, but there are also dark episodes, drama and mis­ery in Mex­ico. Is there no room for this in the show?
Ob­vi­ously all of Mex­ico doesn’t fit into one show. There are sto­ries that cre­ate light and oth­ers that go deeper to cre­ate mem­ory. Luzia is about light­ness, but it could lead you to go fur­ther and dis­cover the coun­try in more depth. We know there are dra­matic sit­u­a­tions in Mex­ico, and that there were be­fore, when it was not so vis­i­ble to the world.

in­ter­view per­form­ing arts

Second time in L’Hospitalet

This is the second time that Cirque du Soleil has put on a show in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. The company’s big top venue for the show ’Luzia’ was up and ready days before the opening night on March 17. The local authority agreed in 2016 to provide the circus producer with a spot for its shows next to Bellvitge Hospital. The first show performed on the site was Totem, in 2018. The company is now back in Catalonia, with a rerun of the 2016 show ’Luzia’ in what is the companys’ first time in Europe since the pandemic began. ’Luzia’ takes its name from the fusion of the Spanish words ’luz’ (light) and ’lluvia’ (rain), two elements central to the show. As well as spectacular lighting effects, water is an integral part of the show’s set. Under director Daniele Finzi Pasca, ’Luzia’ has a cast of some 50 artists from 25 countries as well as a creative team of 16 creators.

Sign in. Sign in if you are already a verified reader. I want to become verified reader. To leave comments on the website you must be a verified reader.
Note: To leave comments on the website you must be a verified reader and accept the conditions of use.

Published on

Most Viewed