Table Of ContentContents
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Copyright Page
To Guy and the multitude of artists, artisans,
technicians, employees, and managers of Cirque du Soleil who live each day
creatively and in so doing
have inspired me immeasurably.
—Lyn
Foreword
By Guy Laliberté, Founder and CEO
The Spark is not only a whirlwind tour of Cirque du Soleil’s operations and
activities, it is above all an intimate encounter with its employees who live each
day creatively. And, although it tells the tale of one man’s voyage of self-
discovery, The Spark unveils a variety of simple ways by which anyone can
become more creative, see greater possibilities, and create his or her own vision
for the future.
With more than 3,000 full-time employees, artists, artisans, technicians, and
managers around the world, it would be impossible to recognize each and every
creative contribution individually; therefore many of the unique characters in
this book are composites of the generous, passionate, and talented men and
women who have shared the Cirque du Soleil experience. Their stories, however,
are real. From their great expectations and “magnificent dreams,” creative
products have emerged. They have learned to surrender to their senses, trust their
instincts, take risks, and meet new challenges in an artistic and nurturing
environment. They work alone and they work together learning to connect with
and touch people in new ways, endeavouring always to reinvent themselves.
And they aspire to give back to the world in the endless continuum of change,
exchange, and renewal; they are catalysts.
From a tiny spark a great fire was kindled and its flames warmed the world . .
.
Through the White Doors
If You Have No Idea
What You’re Looking For . . .
When people ask where my remarkable journey began, I tell them it was
somewhere between the first and seventh doors. At least, that’s where I found
myself after I left behind the cacophony of the casino, with its blinking lights,
rolling dice, and excitement around every corner. As fascinated as I was with the
land of chance, I needed to give my senses a brief respite from the spinning
wheels of fortune.
I was searching for something, though for what, I didn’t know. Something
extraordinary. Something beyond the mundane world of marketing and money
that had brought me to Las Vegas in the first place. Something beyond the grind
that had become my life. Of course, if you have no idea what you’re looking for,
it’s pretty hard to find it.
I was about to escape to my hotel room for a moment of tranquillity, when I
saw two men dressed in black work outfits walking away from the slot machines
toward a quieter part of the casino. It was in an almost dreamlike state that I
followed them. They disappeared through a plain white door—perhaps the only
portal in the casino that didn’t seem to announce what was on the other side.
Intrigued, I pushed on it, and it opened, leading me into a completely silent,
perfectly white corridor, lit so well it almost glowed with energy. A few feet in
front of me was another door, just as pristine, every bit as beckoning. I opened it,
though more tentatively than the first, for while I could surely pass off
wandering through one wrong door as a mistake, opening the second seemed a
more serious offense.
Behind the second white door was a third. Who were those men and where
were they going? And what would I do when I found them? What kind of Alice-
down-the-rabbit-hole adventure was I getting myself into? As I passed through
the next door, I noticed a security camera above and a security desk to my left,
and I felt my shoulders tense up. What were they trying to protect here? But
there was not a soul in sight, so I kept going. By the time I reached the sixth
door, I had accepted that I had no idea where the corridor was leading me—but I
had the unmistakable sense that, as each door closed behind me, I was one step
closer to what I was searching for.
As I pushed through the seventh door, I realized I had reached the end of the
corridor and the beginning of my journey. The final door opened into a vast
theatre. Rows of plush blue seats arced to my left. The ceiling soared a hundred
feet above me, and I resisted the urge to call out and hear the sound of my voice
echoing, if only to prove to myself that I wasn’t dreaming.
To my right was the strangest stage I’d ever encountered. I watched as a
mysterious monolithic structure, maybe forty by eighty feet, moved left and
right, forward and back, and finally stood straight up and down, as if defying
gravity. I couldn’t determine its purpose—surely it wasn’t part of the stage?
You’d have to be Spiderman to scale such a precipice!
On the other side of the theatre, I could see the men who’d unwittingly led me
through the doors. They were tinkering with equipment on the revolving column,
which was perched precariously behind a stage floor that opened into a
seemingly bottomless abyss. Though they were a good twenty yards away, I
could hear their voices; the acoustics of the theatre were that crisp. I could detect
several distinct accents among the half-dozen people around the stage—Scottish,
Russian, Texan, and French Canadian.
They were so focused on their work that no one seemed to notice I was there.
My curiosity was aroused in a way it hadn’t been since college, when every
experience was a new adventure and I didn’t have to worry about the
consequences of my actions the way I did now; my mind seemed alive to the
possibilities my surroundings presented. I sat down in one of the theatre seats, in
the middle of everything, and took it all in.
The enormous theatre was less a stage than a cavernous aviary, framed by
huge catwalks constructed of aged wooden planks and copper railing, an
intriguing contrast to the ultramodern style of the MGM Grand Hotel. It
possessed a timeless quality, as if I’d stepped foot in an edifice that had been
built long before Las Vegas existed.
I might have sat there for ten or twenty minutes, just watching and listening.
Eventually, someone noticed me: a friendly-looking woman who seemed to
appear out of nowhere—slender, middle-aged, with short, dark red hair and a
stylish suede jacket. She made her way along a row of seats toward me. While I
was no doubt somewhere I shouldn’t be, she seemed more curious about my
presence than upset.
Normally, I would have apologized profusely for trespassing, and jumped up
to leave. But something held me back.
“Hello, there,” she said when she was only a couple of rows away.
“Hello,” I said with a small nod. I assumed I was going to get kicked out; I
didn’t see any point in attempting to fight it. But instead of asking me to leave,
the woman offered her hand.
“I’m Diane,” she said.
“And I’m Frank,” I responded. She settled in a couple seats to my right, taking
in the scene before us. Had she fallen into this alternative universe the same way
I had?
“Pretty breathtaking, isn’t it?” she asked, gesturing outward with her hand.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” I said.
