Claudio Carneiro had just three
minutes to impress the "Varekai" casting team. He was a clown who
worked off and on in Brazil, and a job with Cirque du Soleil would
mean success beyond his dreams.
"Varekai" is one of eight circus productions created by the
20-year-old Montreal-based circus company. Years before, Carneiro
had watched and thought himself ineligible. "It was so beautiful, I
almost cried," he said. "But I'm not an amazing acrobat. Those guys
train from the age of 5. I had nothing special. I forgot about my
humor."
Now, he realized, things were different. The lanky dark-haired
clown had refined his natural capacity to make audiences laugh.
Heartbreak had taught him to improvise. Carneiro had fallen in
love with a young Frenchwoman and left Brazil to find her. He
traveled to Paris, but the relationship didn't work out. Carneiro
had to support himself in a strange country.
"I had to work on the streets and in small theaters," he said.
"Every day I wondered – how will I eat? But it was one of the
richest experiences of my life. If you are open to the universe, you
will find opportunity."
After returning to Brazil, Carneiro learned that a casting team
for Cirque du Soleil's "Varekai" would stage auditions. "I didn't
have any job and I needed money," he said. "I had to come up with a
mime. I put on a CD, 'Chariots of Fire.' It was like a pop and I
started timing the gag."
The gag made casting scouts double over with laughter. The wiry
Carneiro, looking ridiculous in a Lycra bodysuit, started the
"Chariots of Fire" theme song. He mimed an Olympic runner who gained
a competitive edge by tripping and pushing his fellow racers.
Casting scout Carmen Ruest knew she had found a clown. "It was in
slow motion," she said of Carneiro's runner bit. "That act was so
funny, we were crying because we were laughing so hard. We said to
each other, 'We need to call Montreal and tell them if they don't
hire this guy right now, some other circus will.' "
A member of the "Varekai" cast since the show premiered in 2002,
Carneiro will perform today when the production opens under the
Grand Chapiteau at Qualcomm Stadium.
He is teamed with Mooky Cornish,a pleasingly-plump female clown
with a movie-star face. Her character is both clumsy and amorous,
and she and Carneiro provide comic relief during a show marked by
jaw-dropping acrobatics, costumes and visual drama.
"I never thought they would come to Brazil to hire a clown,"
Carneiro mused. "But they did."
The fire and the fit
Cirque du Soleil's casting team travels the world to find
increasingly diverse artists performing in a variety of disciplines.
"Varekai," loosely based on the myth of Icarus, is staffed with
about 50 performers. There are jugglers from Mexico, aerialists from
Switzerland, trapeze artists from England and musicians from Canada.
"You go inside so many cultures," said Carneiro. "We all have our
own accents. I have my Latin accent. Russians have their accent.
When we all speak together we have amazing bad English."
Acrobat Anton Chelnokov, who plays Icarus, was discovered in
Russia. Wrapped like a cocoon in an unraveling net, he falls from
the sky and lands in a mystical forest. His journey of discovery and
survival is filled with colorful creatures. Skintight bodysuits
sprout snakelike appendages. Head ornaments are shaped like gigantic
marshmallows or towering coils and some performers wear gauzy wings
or fantastic feathers.
Young acrobats from China, Water Meteors, are dressed in
bodystockings colored with graduated shades of purple and turquoise.
Visual effects capture the eye, but because Cirque du Soleil
shows don't rely on language, artists must be able to convey
emotion. And they must mold their talents and attitude to work
within the microcosm of a touring production.
While some auditions uncover extraordinary talent, not everyone
is cut out for a Cirque du Soleil show. "They may have the fire and
put on a beautiful performance, but they don't make it with us
because we need the fit," explained Ruest, who started with Cirque
du Soleil as a performer in the 1980s.
"It's personality, open-mindedness and never knowing perfection.
Not every personality can maintain this. The magic word is to be
constant."
Another magic word
Timing. Some artists wait years before they are contacted. Others
are sent to Montreal within weeks. A contract offer is a matter of
being ready and in the right place at the right time.
Dergin Tokmak was in Berlin performing as a break dancer when a
colleague called him and told him about the opening for Limping
Angel. The "Varekai" character inspires Icarus with a dance on
crutches and Tokmak was filled with a mixture of anticipation, hope
and nervousness.
"They sent me a tape of the show," he said. "After I saw the
crutches number I was more relaxed. I danced my whole life on
crutches."
Tokmak contracted polio when he was a baby and spent a lot of
time in German hospitals, trying to recover the use of his legs. He
said many people develop a skill to survive – his survival skill was
learning to walk on his hands. When he was 12, a cousin brought him
a video of "Breakin' " featuring a break dancer on crutches. From
then on, Tokmak used crutches to dance. By the time he was summoned
to Montreal, he had superior upper body strength. In two months, he
perfected Limping Angel, a part that took his able-bodied
predecessor eight months to master. In his solo dance, he moves
crutches and legs simultaneously in a graceful flurry that makes him
appear to be flying across the stage.
He said that when he fell during practice, he took it as a sign
to give more of himself.
There is a common saying among the artists of Cirque du Soleil:
If you wake up and you aren't sore, it means you are dead.
The performers make a commitment that feeds the whole Cirque du
Soleil community. "When I started nine years ago, we were five
people in the casting department," said Ruest. "Now we are 35. We
have close to 2,400 employees.
"What motivates me? I do this job because no one should forget.
Cirque du Soleil is one thing. Artists performing every night on
stage, sweating and risking their lives is another. Everyone in this
company, as big as it gets, gets a check because of them."
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