CIRQUE DU SOLEIL’s CORTEO
Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, 1925 Blanshard St.
When: Jan. 11-14
Tickets: $55-$170 from the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre box office (250-220-7777) or selectyourtickets.com
Michael Ocampo of Cirque du Soleil is attuned to his job in a way like few others.
He was an acrobat for his first 10 years with the Montreal-based company, appearing in both Alegria and Saltimbanco on worldwide tours. He moved into the coaching realm in 2005 for Quidam, before being named head coach in 2007.
“I know how lucky I am to have fallen into this,” Ocampo, 51, said. “I never aspired to join Cirque du Soleil — I didn’t even know it that well back then. When they asked me to join, I figured I would do it for a few years and then go back to university. But here I am, 30 years later.”
He likens his current position on Corteo, the Cirque du Soleil production booked into the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre for seven performances this week, to that of a gymnastics coach. He works with the acrobats in a variety of capacities, pre- and post-performance. With many hung via ropes from the rafters, safety is a huge aspect of every Cirque du Soleil performance.
“As an acrobat, it’s very physical,” he said. “It’s a high-end sport, if you want to compare it to something. The artists are doing very high-level acrobatics, on a nightly basis. It gets pretty demanding.”
The days leading up to a performance are more stressful for stage technicians and riggers working on a Cirque du Soleil tour than they are for Ocampo; the weeks and months of pre-production are his time to shine. Ocampo has been with the Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group since 1993, and knows what is required to keep a production like Corteo, with more than 100 cast and crew assigned to Victoria for performances tonight (at 7:30 p.m.), Friday (7 p.m.), Saturday (11 a.m., 3 p.m., 7 p.m.), and Sunday (1 p.m., 5 p.m.), on the rails.
“[Cirque du Soleil] always wants to maintain a certain standard, and to make the new creation better than the last show,” he said.
Corteo, written and directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, who also directed the closing ceremonies of the 2006 Turin Olympics, was performed for the first time in Montreal in 2005, and has been seen by more than 10 million people, in 20 countries on four continents, in the years since. It is a contemporary circus based around Mauro the Dreamer Clown, who looks back on his life from his the vantage point of his own funeral — a carnival which exists in the space between heaven and earth, with the audience seated around a centre stage and acrobats hanging from chandeliers, ladders and giant balloons above the stage.
“It’s a period piece, which makes it quite theatrical,” Ocampo, who was born in Windsor, Ontario, but currently lives in Hatley, Quebec, said. “Some shows are less about the acrobatics, and are missing that. This is the whole package. It is one of my favourites.”
The version of Corteo arriving in Victoria is one of 20 in-progress Cirque du Soleil productions touring worldwide at the moment. The company is a behemoth, with thousands of employees and contractors needed to maintain the level of quality longtime supporters are accustomed to seeing. The Corteo show in Victoria features cast and crew from 27 countries, 52 of which are musicians, clowns, acrobats and jugglers, Ocampo said.
The remainder are support staff, ranging from technicians and stage managers to artistic directors (also on the payroll are two physical therapists, whose role can’t be understated when a production runs for seven shows over a four-day period, he added.)
Ocampo and his husband, Michael Veilleux, a company manager with Cirque du Soleil and senior tour director for Corteo, will be on the road with the production for the majority of 2024. It has been that way for the couple over the past two decades. “I have been around the globe three or four times and to 43 countries,” Ocampo, who joined Cirque du Soleil when he was just 21, said.
“I cannot complain how my adult life has turned out.”
