A quarter century on, the Cirque has performed in 271 cities in 32 countries, employs 4,400 people from 40 different nationalities, and expects 15 million people to see its shows this year from Montreal to Las Vegas and Nagoya, Japan.
Fuelling the success was the visionary ability to redefine the circus. Out went the animals, in came the high-end artistry.
“The Cirque really changed the popular perception of circuses and created standards that others have tried to live up to,” said
Ernest Albrecht, author of books
The New American Circus and
The Contemporary Circus .
“The circus used to be seen as somewhat tawdry. Now we see it as an art form rather than a bunch of gypsies travelling around in a caravan.”
The Cirque has also turned Quebec into circus-arts capital of North America and inspired a generation of youngsters to view swinging from a trapeze as a viable career choice. Quebec has about 60 circus troupes, from the Cirque to seasonal outfits that snag contracts to do street shows, and scores of high schools offering circus training to aspiring jugglers and contortionists.
The National Circus School in Montreal, which trains professional circus artists, graduated 21 performers this year from places such as the United States, Spain, Italy, as well as Canada.
A lot of former top stars of artistic, rhythmic, trampoline acrobatic or wheel gymnastics started a second career under the roof of the world famoust cirque - so for instance the former German gymnast
Toni MEVIUS from Berlin or the former Hungarian
Vice world champion on high bar Zoltan SUPOLA.
