6 replies to this topic

[scielle]

Somehow we have no specific thread re. Gilles Ste-Croix.

Anyway, I just finished reading his book, Ma place au soleil.

What a story, what a life! Seriously, having read this, I'm so very glad Celine hired him.

Clearly a supremely creative guy. A hippie. An innovator. A risk taker, both in art and in life. He's the one who walked 90km on his stilts as a publicity stunt to raise funding for the first Cirque shows (though it wasn't called that yet). He hired Franco Dragone and many of he other creative geniuses that made Cirque such a phenomenon. And he himself was the creative brains behind some of the best things to come out of Cirque.

Aldo makes a few appearances in the book (he was the first to revamp a Cirque show into the arena format), as do a few others from the Celine universe.

Lots of good anecdotes - especially his early life and creative work - and worth a read.

I suppose the tragic death of his son a few months ago must have thrown him off the rails. But I hope his collaboration with Celine is actually active in practice, not just on paper, and that we do see something come to fruition, whether it be in the form of a revamped Vegas show, or something else.

Here's a great radio interview with him: http://ici.radio-can...8-novembre-2016
And an old one in English: http://www.ocregiste...lles-ste-croix/


I do hope his collaboration with Celine is actually active in practice, not just on paper.I do hope his collaboration with Celine is actually active in practice, not just on paper.






He spends part of the year living in a small village in Mexico, where he started a circus school for local kids (so this is for the Spanish speakers) -

[Davey84]

I wonder what the status of the collaboration is. I wonder if his son's passing and Aldo's leaving changed anything.

[scielle]

Davey84, on 14 May 2017 - 03:57 AM, said:

I wonder what the status of the collaboration is. I wonder if his son's passing and Aldo's leaving changed anything.

Yeah, wondering the same thing since we've heard little since he was brought on board.
I suspect he was hired to generally help on the creative side since Aldo didn't really have Rene's artistic sensibilities. It's pretty clear from his book that he's retired though, and has no plan to go back to full-time work, so his involvement might extend merely to giving his creative 2 cents when called upon. I doubt he has any real day-to-day responsibilities. I believe he still acts as an on-call "creative guide" for Cirque, and seems he's been hired to do the same for Celine.

[angelil78]

I think it means that they do want to make changes to the Las Vegas show.  Now they just need to find time to do so

[scielle]

angelil78, on 14 May 2017 - 06:21 AM, said:

I think it means that they do want to make changes to the Las Vegas show.  Now they just need to find time to do so

I wonder if maybe he was hired to do something like what Cirque did with the Beatles, Elvis & MJ - a dance / circus show built around the body of work of an artist. I can totally see Cirque doing something with Celine's music one day, but seems silly to stage something like that in Vegas when you can cross the street and still see the real thing!  Or maybe - as the initial pres stated when he was hired - he's there to develop a musical a la Beautiful or On Your Feet. In a way that seems more likely, but he doesn't really have any Broadway experience so who knows.

[angelil78]

scielle, on 14 May 2017 - 06:43 AM, said:

I wonder if maybe he was hired to do something like what Cirque did with the Beatles, Elvis & MJ - a dance / circus show built around the body of work of an artist. I can totally see Cirque doing something with Celine's music one day, but seems silly to stage something like that in Vegas when you can cross the street and still see the real thing!  Or maybe - as the initial pres stated when he was hired - he's there to develop a musical a la Beautiful or On Your Feet. In a way that seems more likely, but he doesn't really have any Broadway experience so who knows.

Yeah might be. Since honestly I can't see the Las Vegas show changing any time soon. And there has been a lot of mention of Broadway lately.  ok not a LOT but some

If I can be a little selfish, I do hope it has something to do with the summer tour. Since I can't go to Las Vegas any time soon and I don't think Céline will star at Broadway. I would like to see something cool at the tour. But still doubt there will be. I know that Céline is inspired by Pink and her tour, like how Pink is up in the air and very artistic.
Céline can't do that anymore since she got injured at A New Day but maybe she wants the tour to be more artistic this time.  Just a thought.

But I love Cirque du soleil even though I've only seen it on tv. Most of my money have gone towards Céline in Las Vegas so I haven't had the change to see any of the shows live.

I really need to find a rich man to support all my travelling and Céline stuff so that I can see other shows   or win a lottery

[scielle]

For the interested, here's another nice documentary / interview with Gilles.
It's actually a show about him and Gilbert Rozon (founder of Juste pour rire / Just for Laughs comedy festival). The Gilles segment starts at 23:30
And the interviewer? A certain Joselito Michaud.

http://zonevideo.tel...ais-a-quel-prix

(You'll probably need a VPN; it seems geo-blocked for Canada.)