Cirque du Soleil's "Ovo" will move to San Jose from San Francisco soon and Svetlana Belova who plays the Spider Woman will be taking a vacation for a week. It’s Svetlana’s first time in the United States, she’s been in the US for a month and a half. She’s also going to Las Vegas. She’s leaving her microcosmic tiny traveling tent world to travel the California coast with her boyfriend. He’s German and works on the oil rigs in Norway.
Cirque du Soleil's "Ovo" gave me butterflies. My friend Holly wanted to know how Cirque comes up with their concepts, meanwhile. She has seen Ovo and liked the all-trampoline show Ka. I had Valerie Wiland with me to take some backstage pictures, with nobody in costume or makeup while they warmed up for the show that evening. Svetlana let Val and I join her and we ended up spending an hour and a half Wednesday afternoon in the tent at AT & T Park.
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My guess would be it’s the synergy created by all of them getting together in Montreal. Ovo in particular, about an insect world of biodiversity, seems to elaborate on Cirque’s international culture and microcosmic world where they eat, work and play together. On the other hand maybe it was inspired by a childlike view of an ant farm. For a slideshow from "Ovo", click here: Ovo promises world of ladybug love and biodiversity.
Ovo evokes color, sound, audaciousness of Brazil
Svetlana the Russian contortionist joined me on one of the couches set up around the monitor of the stage, a big screen television. She wore her black and gray leotards and her dark brown hair was pulled back smoothly. I could smell the faint aroma of mentholatum. She seemed earnest and modest, quite down to earth with no air of diva or pretense, chatting one on one as the other gymnasts and some Russian trampoline men warmed up. She definitely has never gone Hollywood, a working woman, a seasoned professional not given to putting on airs.
The 32 year old has been a performer since she was six. She was an artistic gymnast for 14 ½ years but about that time it gets dangerous for women. Women aren’t strong enough for gymnastics. She trained with the Circus Studio for children. She says American children play soccer, European children play circus. Svetlana began to rely more on her flexibility as she got older rather than on her strength. The circus school liked her and said she should be in rhythmic gymnastics not artistic since she can do handstands and tricks.
It was not her dream to be a gymnastic artist but it was something with a future but without the financial demands of a formal education. Svetlana was born in the Ukraine. You don’t need to study if you are good, she said. If you are good, no diploma is necessary. Svetlana moved to Moscow and lived under the wing of her mother’s sister, who was like a mother to her. Svetlana performed in small shows and restaurants. She didn’t have the internet to find work. Computers had just started with no mobiles in Russia. Only the rich had them.
The length of a career in Cirque depends on the genre. Clowns are the oldest, then the magicians.
Svetlana likes to sleep on her one day off. She’ll do paperwork. She does have friends in San Francisco, a magician named Paul who she worked with in Berlin. She has a friend in Berkeley. Russians.
She went on about contortion. It’s the oldest genre in circus, from when it was street circus. You see it in paintings. She talked of her discomfort with the fan sites on the internet for contortionists. It’s disturbing, she doesn’t know them, they are mostly men.
In the future maybe she will be a circus school teacher. She said happily she's usually she’s a starfish with fluid movement, which is original, it’s her art.
Acting as the Spider Woman in Ovo she has props. It’s different, a lot of changes. She usually has a 2 x 2 meter prop. It takes a lot of time. It takes ten minutes to put on the costume and she applies her own makeup. It takes 45 minutes to make-up; If in a hurry, 30. Less is not so nice she laughs.
The white takes a lot of time. It’s a cream base white and fixed with powder. While she applies it herself the designer did it at first until Svetlana got professional.
When I work I don’t practice but I warm up, she said. It’s an hour. She tries to save her back for working longer. She will practice if there is only one show. She used to practice four to five hours, working on her handstands.
It’s not possible to have a special diet. She will have a little chocolate, a little meat, everything, just not much. She also separates her food—she will only have fruit, or she feels not so good.
She says, some party you eat a lot, you feel not so good. Food is also to be enjoyed.
Frederique Gagnier the publicist from Montreal
Frederique the publicist says the Cirque tent takes three days to tear down, seven days to set up. It’s always the same and feels like home. Cirque performs six days a week, with six to eight weeks of shows, up to ten shows a week. We move every two months, so we have friends. It’s different from a rock tour where you wouldn’t see anything.
She and I observed the Chinese troupe of Cirque Fleas working with their head coach. One girl is fourteen, two others seventeen.
We have thirteen nationalities. English is the official language. Ovo has been together over a year so Ovo performers learned English from friends. The Ovo performers had classes in Montreal but not on the tour.
Nobody in Frederique’s hometown spoke English, she lived two hours from Montreal. She learned English as an exchange student in Portland, Oregon. It was her last year of high school. The official language in the head office is French.
She mentioned the new show is opening, Viva Elvis. Cirque has seven shows in Las Vegas currently.
"Audiences don't laugh at the same places"
Frederique has been in Japan and Australia. She travels to Northern California for shows out of Montreal. 150 traveled together in Australia. The troupe eats, works, plays together. Australians are a lot more outgoing says Frederique. Screaming. Japan only claps at the end, the performers wonder if the Japanese liked the show. The performers were worried. Audiences don’t laugh at the same places either.
Olympians
Two Olympians perform on the trampoline. Most come from sports, some circus. Casting scouts search the world. The American actress from Washington state who plays the LadyBug in love sent in her resume years ago. It’s Michelle’s first Cirque. She was a one woman show in New York, with her Mammy Project.
Frederique continues, Cirque has a different composer for each show. Each year Cirque dedicates itself to one show and everybody gets together in Montreal. Twenty five originals are still with Cirque. Guy Liberte started Cirque with a street festival and invited friends to perform. The festival went for two years. Quebec then celebrated and Guy hired all his friends. He kept investing. He sees all the shows. He breathed fire for the 25th anniversary.
Frederique saw her first show at seven years old. It’s still running. It’s special once you get to know the performers and know how it works.
She walked me into the main stage area and the Ovo was folded and crumpled into a big box. It feels like canvas tent fabric. There are two. It takes seconds to inflate.
She said the kiwis which the ants juggle with their feet weigh ten pounds.
The caterpillar who meringues is also one of the crickets. He is on stilts inside the caterpillar costume. It’s Lee Brearley, one of the Olympians—trampoline. 
Here are the crickets, which are . . . interactive with the audience, springing to the very edge of the stage and making cricket eye contact with ya'll.
Frederique showed me the costume area. Costumes are washed each night by normal washing machine and hung to dry. The colorful plugs on the ladybug hat are doorknobs. Here's Letranger in costume and then the costume hanging ready to wear.
Michelle Matlock walked by, the ladybug herself. Her Mammy Project show is about the stereotype of Mammy in America. She says, it comes from slavery and minstrel shows. Nancy Green was the first American to play Aunt Jemimah, at the 1893 World’s Fair. Michelle makes fun of Gone with the Wind stereotypes in cinema and television. All the monologues linked together, her monologues about trying to survive in the industry. I asked her if she sings. Yes but that's another stereotype. She admits she does have a big voice and can sing.
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Auditioning for Cirque
Michelle’s family is in Seattle and she auditioned there for two days, five years ago. She auditioned two minutes with original material from Mammy. It’s a two day weed out and four were left after. No idea how or when but Cirque created a tape and she would get submitted to different directors. She got a call for Ovo in 2008. She had been in New York for fifteen years with Big Apple, Bindlestiff Family Circus. It was off the track theater in New York.
In San Francisco Michelle went to Clown Cabaret at Climate, she got invited to perform. She saw Wicked—“cool”. Her day off she will see Kooza on their double dark, but her next day off she will sleep.
Michelle brought out her ladybug hat for a picture I requested and she let me wear it. It actually fit even with my enormous head.
Frederique and I walked back to the couches set up around the monitor which showed the activities on stage. Trampoline warm ups. I stepped over the long white silk a tiny young woman with pixy blond hair had stretched out over the warm up area. The silks are not silk.
Frederique walked Val and me outside the tent to the security gate. It was still light and the audience for the evening's performance had yet to arrive. I still have the orange and gold butterfly confetti in my jacket pocket from the performance, which left me energized, full of a childlike joy and renewed spirit. Butterflies indeed.
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"Ovo" runs through January 24, 2010 in the parking lot of AT&T Park in San Francisco then goes to San Jose, California.
For more info: Cirque du Soleil
For more stories by this writer check out the San Francisco opera blog at http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2366-SF-Opera-Examiner
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Comments
Thank you so much for that wonderful and special day! I am so glad I didn't miss out on it! Let me or Heather know if you need a photographer again and hopefully I can be there!
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