Best In Show 2014 - Dralion

Dralion

As one of the world’s best-selling touring productions, it’s fitting that ‘Dralion’ is this year’s winner of IQ’s Best in Show award, just as it begins its countdown to closure. Christopher Austin discovers just what made this Cirque du Soleil show such a success.

The huge international success of Dralion has never been as obvious as in this, its final year. Although creator, Cirque du Soleil, is winding down the show, it is going out with a bang – marking the company’s debut in yet another new market and meaning that while the Dralion set will soon be mothballed, the cast is working as hard as ever to wow an audience that has never before seen a Cirque production.

An enchanting blend of Eastern philosophy and acrobatic tradition with contemporary Western circus, Dralion has proved a huge hit in no less than 31 countries.

After 15 years on the road, which has seen Dralion sell nearly 11.5million tickets across 3,853 big top and 1,101 arena shows, the production’s remarkably successful run will finally come to an end in Anchorage, Alaska, in January 2015.

Fittingly, Dralion’s final arena show will see it break new ground for Cirque du Soleil; it is the first time the company has visited Alaska.

Over the years, Dralion has continually acted as an ambassador for Cirque in previously uncharted territories, such as Guatemala and Panama in Central America; Spain’s Gran Canaria; and Wroclaw in Poland.

Rock-it Cargo has been providing logistic support to Cirque du Soleil since 2002, moving its touring shows around

the world. Senior logistics manager Anne Cecile Croucier recalls Dralion’s visit to Venezuela as being particularly challenging. The show was due to play Caracas in April 2013 amid widespread street demonstrations following the death of former president Hugo Chavez. With the two main ocean ports hugely congested, the ground support system was sent in three weeks early. “Finally, we were able to retrieve the containers and bring them to site the day before the load in,” says Croucier.

Production Manager Mikey Newnum also has lasting memories of the Caracas show, which was attended by freshly appointed Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.

“They literally had to build a tunnel so that we could get the equipment into the venue. Then Maduro announced that we would stay for an extra show, which would be free. We had little choice but to do it,” says Newnum.

Dralion premiered in 1999 under the big top and toured around the world before its transition to arenas in October 2010. Company manager Clare O’Connell has been with Cirque du Soleil for the past seven years and following a long stint with Alegria, began overseeing Dralion’s international progress in January 2014.

O’Connell looks after 100 people including 63 artists and a technical team of 24. In each show location, 80 local stagehands

PasdeDeux © Joshua Mowczko

IQ Magazine January 2015

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Best in Show Jongleur © Ryuichi Oshimoto

“[Siberia during the winter] was a difficult leg that was tough on the troop, but it is an incredible team – I’ve never seen a team work so beautifully together.”

Clare O’Connell, ‘Dralion’ company manager. are employed to help load in and out from the tour’s 20 trucks.

The Cirque du Soleil arena tour model consists of ten weeks on and two weeks off. But O’Connell was straight in at the deep end with Dralion. “We did a 30-week leg where nobody went home and in that time visited some amazing markets including Venezuela, Dubai, Doha, Beirut, South Africa and finished up in Siberia, Russia during the winter.

It was a difficult leg that was tough on the troop, but it is an incredible team – I’ve never seen a team work so beautifully together,” says O’Connell.

Every territory brings unique challenges and in Russia it was the local’s lack of enthusiasm for Chinese circus.

Dralion is a portmanteau of ‘dragon’ and ‘lion’, with the symbols combined in the title to represent a fusion of Eastern and Western circus. “Chinese circus does not have the greatest reputation in Russia. While we have a troop of 26 Chinese, it is just an element of the show and it was up to the Russian team to really sell the performance as a highend production. They did an incredible job in marketing it,” reports O’Connell.

Dralion outsold Alegria in Russia, one of the highest selling Cirque du Soleil shows in the region. Its two-month

Best in Show Clown © Joshua Mowczko

“ We examine the particularities of each market and in Majorca that meant focusing on the high population of second home-owning German and UK nationals.”

Paco Martinez, Live Nation Spain.

Russian run commenced 21 January in Saint Petersburg and culminated 16 March in Moscow. Visiting Kazan and Chelyabinsk along the way, Dralion sold 170,000 tickets.

Overseeing operations in Russia was Natalia Romanova, director of Cirque du Soleil Russia. “Elsewhere in the world, the show was positioned as East meets West, which was not going to work for a Russian market still cautious about everything ‘made in China’. So we positioned it as an ethnic show that presents a battle of the elements that ends harmoniously,” reveals Romanova.

In Belarus, local promoter Andrey Alekseev of LLC Atom Entertainment was hugely impressed by Dralion’s result at the Minsk Arena in March. “We sold 40,000 tickets, it was incredible,” he says.

Tor Nielsen at Live Nation Sweden has worked on Cirque shows since 2008 and continues to be amazed by the way its team helps to overcome issues. “They are always professional,” notes Nielsen. “Although there are always challenges with a Cirque du Soleil production, they make it fairly easy for us.”

In Spain, Live Nation’s Paco Martinez has been promoting Cirque shows since 2007. Dralion’s 12-week Spanish run

Best in Show

Dralion © Daniel Desmarais

“ We adhere very strictly to the integrity of each show as it was originally produced, both from a technical and creative standpoint.”

David Pitman, Cirque du Soleil. included 14 shows in Barcelona and a visit to the island of Majorca. “We examine the particularities of each market and in Majorca that meant focusing on the high population of second home-owning German and UK nationals,” says Martinez.

Cirque du Soleil director of arena tour planning, David Pitman, joined the company in 2010, at the time Dralion was transferring to arenas. When considering taking Dralion to a new city, Pitman first assesses the quality of the local arena and whether the population is sufficiently dense and affluent. “The biggest challenges are found in the logistics and handling of transport expenses when visiting the more remote places. Even if you think you will get a strong result in a new market, if it is expensive to get to, it can present a real problem,” says Pitman.

Despite demands to stage the show outside arenas, the original creative vision has remained unaltered. “We often get asked to present our shows in a big theatre or open air environment, both situations would require us to adapt the show technically and artistically, which we have chosen not to do,” Pitman tells IQ. “We adhere very strictly to the integrity of each show as it was originally produced, both from a technical and creative standpoint.”

Every major arena production has its own technical challenge and for Dralion it is two huge set pieces rigged over the main performance stage. Designed by Tate Towers,

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Dralion’s metallic set piece is 60 feet wide and 26 feet tall and features a giant wall spanning the length of the stage.

Meanwhile, three concentric aluminium rings are suspended above the stage, with each being used in interesting ways to transport performers and set elements. “They are two heavy pieces but we can either hang both at the same time or we can build one first, drop it, and then build the other. That gives us the additional flexibility to go to venues that are not able to hold our full weight,” says Newnum.

Aside from rigging issues, Cirque du Soleil has become adept at shifting kit swiftly in and out of venues. Newnum says it usually takes ten hours to load in and build, three hours to load out.

Caterer Red Radish worked simultaneously on the European tours of both Dralion and Quidam and its owner Wayne Brown admits to being astounded at the speed and efficiency with which Dralion’s stage and equipment was rigged and de-rigged. “It was a bit of a worry in the first few weeks when they were packing their 20th articulated lorry within hours of the show finishing and we were still packing our one small truck. They are really a company to aspire to when it comes to organisation,” says Brown.

After 15 years and having played 114 distinct markets in North America alone, Dralion’s last arena show is drawing closer. O’Connell says the show is being wrapped purely because it has literally played everywhere. “There was a time when we ran the risk of cannibalising our own shows.

That has settled down and we carefully examine how many shows each territory can support,” she says. “We have been everywhere with Dralion; the Middle East, Europe, South America, North America, South Africa – there is nowhere left for us to go.”

IQ Magazine January 2015