History
Cirque du Soleil (French for "Circus of the Sun,") is an entertainment company founded in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy Laliberté and Daniel Gauthier. Laliberte and Gauthier began touring and performing in Quebec in 1980 under the name Les Échassiers, but soon found themselves facing financial difficulties. Fortunately, they received a government grant thanks to the 450th anniversary celebrations of Jacques Cartier's discovery of Canada in 1983.
By 1984 they had found success with their Le Grand Tour du Cirque du Soleil , and after securing a second year of funding, Laliberté hired Guy Caron from the National Circus School to help create the show it is today. Cirque travels around Quebec offering a theatrical show which mixes the arts of the circus and the street performers, and features original music, light effects and costumes. Cirque du Soleil gained its popularity without rings or animals to become “Cirque Nouveau”, the modern day circus. Even without the three rings or any animals, each Cirque du Soleil show is a compulation of circus styles from around the world – each with its own central theme and storyline.
In 1986, Cirque du Soleil starts to travel further from Ontario to Vancouver to California the following year. Due to its great success, a tour in the US takes place and then in Europe. Through the 1990s and 2000s, Cirque du Soleil grew quickly going from one show with 73 employees in 1984 to producing 15 shows with approximately 3,500 employees. From ZED introduced in Japan to ZAIA in China Cirque touches every continent except Africa and Antarctica and brings in over $600 million US each year.
Las Vegas is a permanent home to many Cirque shows including LOVE, KÀ, Mystère, 'O', Zumanity, and CRISS ANGEL Believe™ which play to more than 9,000 people a night adding to the 70+ million people who have experienced Cirque du Soleil. Cirque du Soleil also performs numerous touring shows including Alegría, Cirque 2009, Corteo, Dralion, KOOZA, Quidam, and Varekai.
All these Cirque shows are created in Montréal, in the Studio. In this magical building, there are, but not limited to, practice rooms, a decoration workshop, and a costume workshop. The purpose of the circus is to get past the traditional rules and to defy the reality limits. The goal is to show a dream that reinvents the circus world to make it brand new. This brand new circus, Cirque du Soleil, is due to the fact that Canada had no fun fair tradition at all, so the roots are different from the conventional ones, with some elements dating back to the Middle Ages.
Source for this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirque_du_Soleil