Cirque du Soleil Braves the Japanese Earthquake
Cirque du Soleil Artistic Director Adam Miller in Japan. By Lizzie Simon
March 17, 2011
Sometimes the show really can’t go on.
This was the case for Cirque du Soleil’s production of “Kooza” which was playing in Tokyo when the earthquake struck on March 11.
The troupe, which has over 130 cast, crew, and family members affiliated with it, is under the leadership of Artistic Director Adam Miller. When the tremors began, he was in the middle of a production meeting in a trailer adjacent to their venue, the Big Top. An elaborate tent, it was constructed to feature the show’s chair balancers, contortionists, and other high risk aerialists and acrobats, but also to withstand earthquakes (and it did).
The troupe, which has over 130 cast, crew, and family members affiliated with it, is under the leadership of Artistic Director Adam Miller. When the tremors began, he was in the middle of a production meeting in a trailer adjacent to their venue, the Big Top. An elaborate tent, it was constructed to feature the show’s chair balancers, contortionists, and other high risk aerialists and acrobats, but also to withstand earthquakes (and it did).
When an alarm rang, he said that people knew it was the seismic detection devices, because they had had two mandatory earthquake preparedness sessions when they first came to Japan to begin performances in January. Though they had been instructed to stay in place, Miller said that he and others drifted from the offices to a catering area outside, where standing on the ground began to feel like standing on an undulating raft. “It felt fluid, “ he said, “and the buildings were shaking.”
More unsettling were the aftershocks. “Things just start moving, you know? It was very unnerving.” More disturbing still were the videos from Sendai that were easily accessible because the WiFi connection remained unperturbed. “We were telling people, ‘You have to stop watching CNN’,” he said, “’they are going to point their cameras at whatever is most drastic.’”
Miller stressed that people were calm—his cast and crew were, their families were, and the Japanese they encountered were, too. One acrobat had been separated from the group due to a routine surgery, and couldn’t return because he couldn’t find a cab. So another acrobat walked two hours to the hospital, found a wheelchair, and wheeled him two hours back.
“We felt completely safe, but we figured that the Japanese authorities had much more important things to do than look after our welfare,” he said. They also couldn’t run high-risk acrobatics with the looming threat of power outages. And so, within four days of the first tremor, in an impressive feat of logistics involving the coordination of visas, transfers, airfare, and hotel, they were all evacuated to Macao along with two hundred and fifty other people affiliated with “Zed”, a Cirque production at Tokyo Disney. Now the casts of the two shows are united, living and training together. “It has that camping out feel to it,” he said.
As a group of peripatetic performers who tread in the surreal, with some flinging themselves into death-defying acts on the regular, they’re fairly accustomed to the challenges of change, risk, chaos, and resilience. Miller said that the children of a six-generation family with a high wire act were adapting nicely to the new set up. “Everyone would be envious of how circus children behave when they travel,” he said brightly, before describing a group of Mongolian contortionists who were “now enjoying a country they never expected to see.”
Miller said the company is still taking things one day at a time, but hopes to return to Japan and resume performances as soon as possible. “The artists are extremely conscious of wanting to do something for the victims,” he said. “We are certainly the lucky ones.”
More unsettling were the aftershocks. “Things just start moving, you know? It was very unnerving.” More disturbing still were the videos from Sendai that were easily accessible because the WiFi connection remained unperturbed. “We were telling people, ‘You have to stop watching CNN’,” he said, “’they are going to point their cameras at whatever is most drastic.’”
Miller stressed that people were calm—his cast and crew were, their families were, and the Japanese they encountered were, too. One acrobat had been separated from the group due to a routine surgery, and couldn’t return because he couldn’t find a cab. So another acrobat walked two hours to the hospital, found a wheelchair, and wheeled him two hours back.
“We felt completely safe, but we figured that the Japanese authorities had much more important things to do than look after our welfare,” he said. They also couldn’t run high-risk acrobatics with the looming threat of power outages. And so, within four days of the first tremor, in an impressive feat of logistics involving the coordination of visas, transfers, airfare, and hotel, they were all evacuated to Macao along with two hundred and fifty other people affiliated with “Zed”, a Cirque production at Tokyo Disney. Now the casts of the two shows are united, living and training together. “It has that camping out feel to it,” he said.
As a group of peripatetic performers who tread in the surreal, with some flinging themselves into death-defying acts on the regular, they’re fairly accustomed to the challenges of change, risk, chaos, and resilience. Miller said that the children of a six-generation family with a high wire act were adapting nicely to the new set up. “Everyone would be envious of how circus children behave when they travel,” he said brightly, before describing a group of Mongolian contortionists who were “now enjoying a country they never expected to see.”
Miller said the company is still taking things one day at a time, but hopes to return to Japan and resume performances as soon as possible. “The artists are extremely conscious of wanting to do something for the victims,” he said. “We are certainly the lucky ones.”
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