Cirque Du Soleil returns to Auckland this week with one of its longest touring shows: Corteo. Mitchell Hageman finds out what it’s like to run away and join the circus.
Anyone walking through the backstage labyrinth of Spark Arena this week would be forgiven for thinking the Olympics were in town.
Rooms usually decked out with beer cans and buffets for rock stars are instead full of exercise machines, massage tables, and more aerobics gear than you can shake a stick at.
Thanks to 24 shipping containers full of equipment, the arena is now home to 53 top circus performers who make up the 120-strong contingent of the Cirque Du Soleil Corteo crew.
“We actually have two people with us who have performed or competed in the Olympics,” Corteo’s artistic director, Olaf Triebel, notes.
Corteo has been on the road for over 20 years. The show celebrated its 20th anniversary in April and still has some of its day-one cast members in tow.
“The majority have been here for, I would say, between three and seven years or so,” Triebel says.
“Some just joined last year. So, it’s a nice mix of really experienced people with new energy. That keeps the show alive.”
Alive is an understatement for the atmosphere backstage.
It’s simmering with precision and professionalism, but also humour, heart and collegiality. Artists teach other artists their respective disciplines, spot them on training devices and share a bite to eat.
“It is definitely a family. Sometimes a little dysfunctional, like a real family is as well,” Triebel laughs.
“We spend Christmas together and birthdays together and New Year’s together and Thanksgiving together and all those holidays. While it’s not possible to be best friends with everybody, you find your groups. Like you would do in high school, or when you create your own friendships.”
To be part of a machine like this, combining theatre, magic, and stagecraft, takes a lot of practise. Besides the countless hours of training in their specific craft, many are graduates of various circus schools and hold degrees, including Triebel.
“For someone who has never trained in their life, yes, it seems challenging because you do physical activities for probably five hours every day, and then you also do dance lessons and acting lessons, and you get makeup training because all the artists do their own makeup,” he says.
But for those who are used to the grind, it’s just like any other high-performance sporting environment, one that comes with personal satisfaction as well, attests acclaimed Cyr wheel artist Justin Buss.
“You get to see the world unlike anybody else really gets to, because instead of paying for a vacation, you get paid to vacation in a sense,” he says.
“The work, training, and staying healthy are a huge commitment, but it’s nice to be able to see places like New Zealand, which I’ve never been to before.”
WATCH: A taste of Cirque Du Soleil’s Corteo
Buss attended his first Cirque Du Soleil performance at the age of 14, and he knew from that moment he wanted to get onstage.
“I was doing musical theatre and martial arts as a kid, and then I saw a Cirque du Soleil show. [I realised], ‘Oh, you can combine athletics and performance and drama in the same stage, and you also get to juggle fire and do backflips and all kinds of just wild stuff’,” the now 32-year-old says.
After leaving high school, he attended a circus college in Canada, where he got a degree. He majored in the Cyr wheel and minored in trampoline.
“And luckily, that’s brought me here to Corteo.”
The touring life is “definitely not all picnics,” he admits.
“You don’t spend a lot of time at home, so having a strong family connection is important to maintain over distance. You also can’t have a garden or pets because you’re always on the road. You also have to get used to small, confined spaces and living in hotel rooms.”
Buss also sees the physical aspects the same way any other athlete would.
“It’s super tough. But it’s like any other athletic endeavour. You train for MMA or Muay Thai, it’s a commitment to the athleticism and the physicality of the thing. Circus is no different, and it has some pretty severe consequences if you’re not on top of your game.”
Consequences, as Buss has discovered during his decades mastering the Cyr wheel, include a ripped shoulder, smashed meniscus, and a finger bent so much that it touched the back of his hand.
Cirque Du Soleil has an extensive team of medical professionals on hand, and a balanced and well-organised training schedule.
“It’s not like a boot camp, and they don’t run us to the ground here. We have really good training schedules, and they feed us really, really good food. We also have a full sports therapy team, and they give us massages and make sure we have ice in all the right places,” Buss says.
“If you’re going to work in a kitchen, you’re probably going to get your fingers burnt and cut, and if you work in the circus, you’re going to have a boo-boo or crash from time to time, or some, you know, good old tendonitis, but they take care of us. No matter what, we always have the tools we need to succeed.”
Watching a Cyr wheel artist work is an incredible sight. Almost like a magnetic wave, the solid metal rings, with performers inside, dip and dive in rapid succession, miraculously without crashing into each other.
“Back in the day, in the late 90s, there was this guy named Daniel Cyr, and he was from Les Iles-de-la-Madeleine in Quebec," Buss, who won the 2016 World Cyr Wheel Championship for Team Canada, says.
“He pioneered the technique that we use on these today, where you’re spinning around. People had done the human coin before, and they’d done the cartwheel before, but he really turned it into a poetic device.”
With that explanation, it was finally this journalist’s turn to find out what it takes to perform with the best.
My hands gripped the cold metal ring tightly; I tried to muster up all the core body strength I could.
“They do break. Like any metal, it has stress fatigue. I’ve had one snap on stage. Actually, I’ve had a couple snap on stage,” Buss says, ominously.
“There’s also been a couple of close calls where the stage was wet. There had been some moisture left on it, and the wheel would skid out, just like you’re hydroplaning on your car.”
Not that I would be picking up enough speed to experience that, but I was spun around and picked up some momentum.
Balance was paramount to the success of the flow, and I had very limited amounts of it.
However, slowly but surely and with immense concentration (see the photo above for an illustrated example of how hard I was working), I managed to do one miraculous unassisted rotation.
I was shattered by the end of my lesson.
“We’ll have to get you into one of our training programmes,” Buss says.
While a life on the road with Cirque is an appealing prospect, I think I’ll leave it to Buss and Triebel, cheering them on tonight, during opening night instead.
Corteo at Spark Arena runs from October 30 to November 9, with final tickets available via Ticketmaster.
Mitchell Hageman joined the Herald’s entertainment and lifestyle team in 2024. He previously worked as a multimedia journalist for Hawke’s Bay Today.