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Cherie Hoyles oversees the set-up of Corteo, Cirque’s travelling tent show now touring Japan.
scared to death.” But did she get hired? “Unfortunately, no. We don’t work with animals,” Monson deadpans. “Still, she was very good.” Until she accepted her first position with Cirque in 2004, Monson was still teaching dance and dancing professionally and admits that she never expected to be doing work that was, so, well, corporate. “I said to my husband — literally, this morning — that I’m now doing what I never thought I’d do: I get ready in the morning, I drive my son to Montessori School, and I go to work all day in an office,” she laughs. “But, on the other hand, I’m very involved in the action, just in a different way. And I find it very, very creative. I’m working with 700 different roles, and so when I need to find a drag queen for Zumanity, for instance, I’m literally throwing myself into the drag queen world. Then when I’m
looking for a headspinner, I become an expert in headspinning, and I have to learn all I can about what it takes and who’s out there in the headspinning world making waves. And sometimes I’m doing that all at once.” Of course, despite the magic that Cirque evokes of the old-fashioned European tent circuses, it has travelled a long way from its genesis as a small band of Quebec street performers and is now, with more than 4,000 employees worldwide, not unlike any multimillion-dollar global corporation. “There’s certainly a machine part of it,” she admits. “You’re always working with management and administration and politics. But the good thing about Cirque is that we never lose sight of our core. I feel like the foundation of Cirque is really strong: the live performance, the humanity, the wow, is never far away.”
eanwhile, half a world a way, another U of A grad is doing her part — a very essential part — to making sure that the wow audiences have come to expect from Cirque du Soleil always makes a grand entrance. As the assistant technical operations director for Corteo, Cirque’s travelling tent show currently on tour in Japan, Cherie Hoyles, ’98 BFA, ’99 MFA, is responsible for moving the entire show—one of the biggest travelling shows in the world, with some 130 cast and crew members, 29 trucks and one big top tent that is 52 metres in diameter — from town to town, and all in under 26 hours. What some might call a logistical nightmare, Hoyles merely calls a “challenge.” As she explains the myriad details of her role coordinating that move, you get the sense that this is a details-oriented woman who totally thrives on a technical challenge. “Once we’ve arrived in a new city, it takes us about 10 days to set up and get ready for a premiere,” she explains. But there’s no rest for Hoyles on the 11th day. Once the show is up and running, she’s already planning the next move, in addition to doing equipment inspection and maintenance before and after each show and occasionally running a show track — the hundreds of unique tasks, per person, that must happen back stage to keep the show running, from putting the artists in their harnesses to pushing massive set pieces into place. On the Japanese tour, she works one-to-two shows per day, six days per week, up to 12 hours each day. Not that Hoyles is complaining. “Life on tour is pretty great,” she says. “Sure, we work a lot of hours, and you have to get used to living out of two suitcases. But we get to live in a new city every month or two — long enough to really get to know an area instead of just seeing the sights. And Cirque provides us with housing, food and transportation — they take really good care of us.” Indeed, Cirque provides professional chefs so that its performers and staff eat well on tour, and the company rents apartments for its employees near the big top, which is Winter 2010
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