Timber Brown demonstrates his flexibility during auditions for new Cirque du Soleil performers in the “O” Theater at the Bellagio.
Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011 | 2 a.m.
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Beyond the Sun
Maybe the bubbles got to her. A year ago, Hilary Sweeney was a scientist for Pepsi — and performed aerial acts at nights and on weekends. She came to love it so much that on Monday, she swapped her business suit for a tan leotard and dangled upside down from a rope in the middle of the Bellagio’s O Theater, hoping to make this a permanent gig.
Rebecca Freund, on the other hand, has long had circus in her blood. Her aunt and uncle rode elephants under the big top, and her cousin performs as a trapeze artist on the East Coast. Although Sweeney jokes that she “ran off to join the circus,” Freund seems to have prepared for a role as an aerialist all her life.
Despite their divergent paths, both women share a similar goal: to become a featured performer with Cirque du Soleil. Sweeney and Freund were among a handful of aerial artists who auditioned Monday for the French Canadian production company that has redefined circus entertainment from clowns and cotton candy to theater-quality dancing and acting.
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Two performers contorted around hoops. Two more twisted between fabric swaths billowing from the ceiling. Several performers climbed, then gyrated and swung from ropes, while a trio of acrobats balanced in the nooks of a hollow, hanging cube.
They came from as far away as Canada. Women outnumbered men five to one. Some had attended circus school from the time they could walk, while others only recently made the decision to abandon more typical jobs for a chance to soar onstage.
All agreed that working for Cirque would be the pinnacle of their careers.
“It’s the biggest and the best,” silk performer Danielle Rueda-Watts said of the Quebec-based company.
Acrobatic talent scout Stacy Clark sat quietly in the audience as performers twisted and turned. One by one, she thanked them for their effort. Unlike the harsh and often degrading judges seen in movies and on TV, Clark was a warm and gracious critic, so much so that even the performers were surprised.
“We are not the nasty ‘American Idol’ panel,” Clark said. “We want to have an exchange.”
That isn’t to say she isn’t picky. Having toured the world looking for performers, Clark has seen it all. There’s rarely an act that surprises her, she said. What catches her eye is a particular artist’s telling of a story or his take on a trick.
The first aerialists to perform Monday delivered. Clark invited all nine of the acts to a callback Wednesday. If they pass that test, an all-day audition of dancing, acting, tumbling and strength exercises, they’ll have succeeded. They’ll be deemed worthy of casting for a Cirque show. But their time onstage may still be a way off.
Instead, they’ll be entered into a database of “artists of caliber,” where they’ll wait for a call from an artistic director with a hole in his show’s lineup. It could come in weeks or years. They could end up in any of Cirque’s dozens of productions around the world.
As the performers filed out of the theater carrying their hoops and ropes, they stepped over and around a second group of aerialists stretching in the lobby. Their auditions were Wednesday afternoon.
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Cirque du Soleil regularly hosts auditions in Las Vegas. The city is home to seven, soon to be eight, Cirque shows and artistic directors know the city has a solid slate of talent. For performers, that can be a blessing and a curse. There’s a community to learn from and rely on, but there’s also an abundance of artists hungry to perform.
“My expectations are elevated here because we are in a place where we have a great deal of competition and exposure,” Clark said.
And the circus world is growing more competitive. The popularity of Cirque, along with shows such as “America’s Got Talent,” have brought acrobatic arts into the mainstream. More people are training in the field. Artists’ techniques are improving, and the talent pool is growing.
“Before, it was this obscure thing. It seemed so inaccessible,” silk performer Sarah Romanowsky said. “Now when I tell people what I do, everyone knows what I’m talking about.”
That’s not to say anyone can grab a rope and hope to replicate the performers. Most have been training for years, if not as aerialists, as gymnasts and dancers.
So who showed up for the Cirque du Soleil audition? And how did they learn to do what they do?
Meet some:
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Photo by Steve MarcusSidonie Adamson, hoop
Adamson, 23, of Vancouver, British Columbia, excelled at gymnastics as a child but was missing the competitive streak she needed to succeed at the sport. Her scientist parents decided to enroll her in circus school instead. She earns a living performing as an aerialist and working as a personal trainer.
“People think you need to run away to join the circus,” Adamson said. “You don’t. You just need to work hard.”
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Photo by Steve MarcusMarshall Amey, trapeze
Amey, 29, of Colorado, works as a dancer in Cirque du Soleil’s “Love.” He’s looking to be promoted as a trapeze artist with the company.
“I want to transition,” he said. “It’s so fun to be in the air and fly.
Amey toured the world as a cruise-ship dancer before landing the “Love” gig. He fell into dancing after taking a hip-hop class as a theater major in college. Now, he’s fallen in love with the aerial arts.
“I’ll always be a dancer, but I want to take the moves from the ground into the air,” he said.
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Photo by Steve MarcusTimber Brown, rope
Brown, 26, of Las Vegas, was in the police academy five years ago when an agent made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“An entertainment company saw a video of me jumping off roofs and asked me if I wanted to get paid to do it,” Brown said.
He did, and he now earns a living performing a rope act. He has appeared in “Peepshow” and regularly travels across the country for events.
Brown impressed the judges Monday, but said he improvised his audition.
“Sometimes I don’t make a plan because things don’t go according to plan anyway,” he said. “I just climb things.”
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Photo by Steve MarcusRachel Stewart, hoop
The art school dropout got her first dance and gymnastics training when she enrolled in circus school three years ago. Today, she can hang from a hoop from the tips of her toes and extend her legs into splits across a dangling ring. A job as a fire performer in a show with aerialists piqued her interest in the art.
“I just started playing with them,” she said. “I never expected to get called for a show this big and complex.”
In five years, Stewart, 22, of Boston, hopes to run her own circus school and touring production.
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Photo by Steve MarcusSarah Romanowsky, silks
Romanowsky, 28, of West Hollywood, Calif., teaches and performs aerial stunts seven days a week. She started dancing as a young child and parlayed those skills into her aerial act.
“I wanted to be challenged in a new way but in a place I could still use my dance,” she said.
She has been performing her silks act for five years and last summer appeared as an aerialist in a “Glee” commercial for Chevrolet. Still, she feels she has room to grow.
“There’s always further to go,” Romanowsky said. “You’re never done learning. You can always be more flexible, stronger, more artistic.”
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Photo by Steve MarcusThe Cube Trio: Nikki Blakeslee
At 41 years old, Blakeslee was the oldest performer to audition Monday for Cirque. Nobody would know it watching her stretch inside a hollow cube as part of the three-woman contortion act.
“When people learn my age, they probably wonder what it’s going to look like,” said Blakeslee, a former professional dancer and instructor. “Let’s just say I’m a late bloomer. I just keep going until I can’t go anymore.”
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Photo by Steve MarcusThe Cube Trio: Rebecca Freund
In Los Angeles, where the Cube Trio perform, aerial arts have become fairly prevalent, the performers said. Freund, a trained gymnast, and her partners show off their skills in a Hollywood nightclub show.
The women decided to send an audition tape to Cirque on a whim. Friends suggested their act would be a good fit for the production.
“It was a last minute thing,” Freund said.
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Photo by Steve MarcusThe Cube Trio: Laura Sheehy
Sheehy, 38, was always drawn to the stage but started her career as a dancer and actress. She performed on Broadway for four years in “Cabaret” and danced for the New York Knicks.
Transitioning to aerial felt natural, she said.
“Having been a dancer, aerial became a huge interest,” Sheehy said. “It’s like dancing in the air.”
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Photo by Steve MarcusHilary Sweeney, rope
“Just going through the process of preparing for this audition has been self-transformative,” 30-year-old Sweeney, the Pepsi scientist-turned-aerial performer, said. “It has boosted my self-confidence and helped me with feeling out of my element.”
Although she has been dancing since she was 5, Sweeney took up aerial arts only a few years ago.
She works as a freelance performer and teaches at a circus school for children. Science was certainly the more straightforward career route for the chemistry major, but as she says: “What a better way to spend your life.”
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Photo by Steve MarcusDanielle Rueda-Watts, silks
Rueda-Watts, a gymnast and yoga enthusiast turned aerialist, makes a full-time living dangling and dancing on fabric. But it isn’t always easy, she admits.
“It’s hard when you’re not in a show and you’re on the outside, working gig to gig,” the Las Vegan said. “You’re a specialist. In Las Vegas, with so many conventions and corporate events, you can survive but it’s spotty. I try to fill it out with club work.“
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Photo by Steve MarcusLaura Sheehy, double rope
Sheehy doubled down on her audition and performed both as a member of the Cube Trio and as a double rope aerialist. For her second act, she swung and contorted from two looped ropes hanging from the ceiling.
The audition presented her with new challenges, such as trying to stretch her body into unfamiliar positions during a flexibility exercise.
“I don’t know if I can dislocate my shoulders,” she said. Turns out, she can.
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