Cirque began its journey in 1984, inaugurated by a merry band of penniless street performers who had joined forces two years earlier to entertain the crowds of Baie-Saint-Paul, a small town near Quebec City, with a colourful mix of juggling, stilt walking, fire breathing and music. Back then, the troupe members, including Guy Laliberte, Cirque's visionary founder and chief executive, and the pioneering Gilles Ste-Croix, had no idea of the incredible journey they were about to embark upon; a voyage that would take their unique human circus around the world and, along the way, make them wealthy beyond their dreams.

Twenty-one years have passed and Ste-Croix is now in his mid-50s. The legendary stilt walker is still with Cirque, where he is the vice-president of creation, new project development. He's seen Cirque balloon from a group of 73 people, who relied on government grants to bring their distinctive brand of entertainment to the masses, to a multi-award-winning global business that generates an annual gross revenue of US$500 million, 85 per cent of which comes from ticket sales, and employs a staff of more than 3,000.

Today, he looks like a cross between a cowboy and a beach bum. Sporting flip-flops, blue jeans, a short-sleeved cowboy shirt, a chunky silver bracelet and a thumb ring, his choice of attire could have been swayed by the weather. Or it could be a reminder of his hippie days, spent on a commune in the 1970s. Then again, he's renowned for a love of horses, which could explain the cowboy influence. Whichever way you look at it, Ste-Croix is not your typical company executive; as one of the founding members of Cirque, his life has been far from ordinary.

'At the beginning, we were people on the street and we were just trying to make ourselves a job. We were trying to make it as a new type of artist - street players - and [we had] no ideas of 'circus' because a circus seemed so big and unattainable for us,' he says. 'The government gave us a grant to create a travelling fair, which was our first formula. That was 1984. It was limited because it was a seasonal project, but it was really through the commitment and the belief of Laliberte to make it stronger and to establish it as a style and a form of circus [that we got off the ground].

'But the first time we got the tent, in 1984, we felt this could be a circus with no animals. It was almost theatrical because we were playing with the public; the relations were really intimate. It could have stopped right there, but Laliberte pushed it to get more money [through] loans from the bank. He was always trying to make it happen.

'It didn't happen overnight, but we got our big chance to play in Los Angeles and Cirque was the taste of the month for the celebrities there; everybody wanted to see it and invite the artists to their place. That made the news and when you make the news in LA, you make it in America. After that, it opened the road to San Francisco, New York and all the big cities.'

INSIDE CIRQUE'S sprawling C$60 million ($399 million) modernist complex, security is tight. Secrecy surrounds the development of its latest work, a musical extravaganza based on the Beatles, which will premiere in Las Vegas next June. A few visitors are milling around the foyer as performers painted in white float by, almost as though they are ghostly apparitions. The interlopers stop and stare, seemingly enthralled by a minute slice of the inner workings of Cirque, a sight rarely seen by outsiders.

Natural light floods into the space, highlighting the modernist paintings that dot the walls. There is a sign in Chinese, which translates as, 'May peace and security be with you always', above a door that leads to the cafeteria. According to Cirque's senior publicist, Chantal Cote, this is a remnant from pre-production Dralion days, when the show's Chinese performers came here in droves for training. It has remained above the door since, serving as a reminder of Cirque's multiculturalism - among its staff, 40 nationalities are represented and 25 languages spoken - and global reach.

A few metres from the foyer, Studio E is buzzing with activity. The spectral artists are human after all, jostling for space in front of a mirror in an adjoining room, where they are learning the finer points of

how to apply theatrical make-up under a blaze of lights. Just outside, music is blaring as a handful of performers work on their routines with coaches. They are surrounded by countless pieces of apparatus; long shiny wires and hoops hang from the soaring ceiling, a huge trampoline leans on its side against a wall, padded blue mats abound and blocks of foam fill long, rectangular boxes on the floor to protect performers in case they fall.

AERIALIST JONATHAN COLE is a stocky 31-year-old American with muscular arms and a blonde buzz cut. A talented gymnast, he was competing at an elite level when he began debating what to do with his life. For gymnasts, careers are typically short. A native of Los Angeles, he was considering a move into television until a friend took him to see Mystere, one of Cirque's resident productions in Las Vegas. 'Dance, theatre and acrobatics were all in front of me and I thought, 'OK, this is the direction I would like to go',' he says. 'So I ended up auditioning in 1998 and from there, it has pretty much been all Cirque du Soleil.'

Cole recently left Quidam (pronounced key-dam) and has been in Montreal for nearly three weeks to train for a role in O, Cirque's spectacular water show, which is also based in Las Vegas. Cole is keen to settle down after three-and-a-half years on the road with Quidam, which took him around North America, Japan and Australia.

'I'd never experienced anything like that before. Being on the road, living out of a suitcase and seeing different cultures were different experiences for me. The adjusting part of it wasn't so hard because we basically carry everybody around with us, so it was like your own village on tour. The adjusting part was when you were outside of your environment.

'[But] my focus was to get on the permanent tour.

I have another five years of being an acrobat. I need to be in the air still. I need to point my toes and look pretty and hang around and be crazy. I am [also] ready to settle down, have a house and a car and live a 'normal' life. It is going to be weird.'

Fellow artist Donna Stevens is one of the few performers at Cirque who hails from a circus background, albeit a contemporary one. Growing up in Albury, on the border of New South Wales and Victoria in Australia, Stevens joined the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, a performing arts company set up for children in 1979, at just eight years of age. She left the youth circus at 18 to begin a successful freelance career, which saw her wow audiences around the world at gala dinners, casinos, nightclubs and shopping centres.

Now 29, Stevens' powerful arms are incredibly toned; a testament to the years she has dedicated to her specialist rope routine. She gave up the freelance life two-and-a-half years ago to join the cast of Quidam and will arrive in Hong Kong later this month as part of the show's tour of Southeast Asia. Talent scouts scour the world for Cirque performers, but some, such as Stevens, send the circus a video tape of their acts.

'My character doesn't actually have a name,' she says. 'It is the second-last act before the Russian number, which has lots of men in it. So it's there to give a balance between the female and the male. Below me are five veiled girls. On the rope, my movements are quite strong and it shows the strength of women; that women have broken free from the male gender, I suppose.'

While some cast members find the daily grind of life on the road difficult after an extended period, Stevens is a tour veteran, having been on the move since she was a child. And after having had to hustle for work as a freelancer, she finds life a lot easier these days. 'The touring life is great, although some people find it hard. You don't have to worry about a thing. The shows become easier the more you do them and the lifestyle is good; you travel a lot and you are looked after really well.'

The Grand Chapiteau - Cirque's distinctive blue and yellow Big Top - travels the world with six shows: Saltimbanco, Alegria, Quidam, Dralion, Varekai and Corteo. Of its resident shows, Mystere, O, Zumanity and KA are based in Las Vegas, while La Nouba has found a home at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. There are 150 people on every tour: 60 of them are performers, while the rest include administrative support personnel, technicians, chefs, musicians and physiotherapists. Alegria has the most children on tour - 40 - so schoolteachers, who teach the Quebecois education programme in either French or English, travel with them to ensure they keep up with their studies.

AT 32,000 SQUARE metres, Cirque's headquarters houses everything needed to produce a show. Very little is outsourced - or wasted for that matter. In one wing alone, there's a cafeteria, a gym, numerous offices, a shop that sells Cirque memorabilia and three acrobatic training facilities. The newest wing, built in 2001, is where 300 artisans gather daily to create the shoes, hats, costumes, accessories and textile designs that are required for all of Cirque's shows. With 4,000 costumes requiring regular maintenance and the creation of new outfits for the four shows that are currently in development, they have their hands full.

In one room, thousands of bolts of colourful material are stacked ceiling high. Each show is assigned a colour for easy identification. Each bolt carries a coloured identification tag; dark orange for Dralion, green for Quidam, brown for La Nouba, yellow for Saltimbanco and light orange for KA . The pattern is repeated in other departments within the atelier wing.

In another room, hundreds of plaster-cast heads sit on shelves in silent rows, eyes closed as though asleep. Exact replicas of the heads of every one of Cirque's 800 performers, the casts are used by the craftsmen to replace costume pieces; milliners, for instance, whip up replacements for worn-out hats while the artists remain on another continent. The head-moulding process, which uses alginate, a powder used by dentists, takes about 40 minutes. The most excruciating part of the procedure is when the performer's head is completely covered. For 10 long minutes, their eyes, ears and mouth are sealed and they are cut off from the world; the only sound being their own breathing, which is facilitated by two holes cut in the mask below their nostrils.

While creativity is the backbone of Cirque's success, its future lies in an aggressive development policy that will see it intensify its presence around the world, not only with touring shows, but also with the establishment of five to eight resident productions outside North America. According to Cirque's chief operating officer and president, Daniel Lamarre, the company is targeting permanent bases in cities such as Shanghai, Macau, London and Hamburg, while it recently signed an agreement with Disney to have a permanent show in Japan.

'Macau is going to grow at a very rapid pace and we would like to be part of that, based on our expertise in Las Vegas, where we have become the most important content provider,' he says. 'It will be more than natural for us to have a very strong presence in Macau in the future.

'We are looking at Macau first because we know how the business model works, so that will be our key priority. Having said that, we are also a good partner of Disney; all the possibilities with Disney are there, but in that neighbourhood [Asia], I would say Macau.

'In terms of importance of the development of our organisation, we still believe there is a huge potential of growth for us in live shows. We think we can cover more markets; we are now up to about 80 different markets and we hope to be in 100 different cities around the world in the next five years.'

THE FIRST FEW months at Cirque for 'apprentice' performers can provide a daunting experience. Leaving the disciplined environment of their sport - whether they are gymnasts, synchronised swimmers, trampolinists or divers - and entering a world where creativity, chaos and emotion rule is an extreme, alien experience for many of them.

While their technical skills are world-class - Cirque boasts a number of former Olympians - teaching novices how to take their abilities to another level is one of the key challenges for acrobat trainer Marshall Garfield. 'The athletes we get here are already well-established. We are adapting their skills; we are shifting their expertise into a new area. That, to put it succinctly, demands a lot more strategy and psychology than physical coaching,' the former Canadian national team gymnast says. 'It is adapting the mindset of the individual to a new environment. That is the challenge [and it involves] playing with the psychological comfort they have been used to.'

A native of Montreal, Garfield has the typical, disciplined stature of a gymnast: stocky with powerful arms and shoulders. He is clearly passionate about his work and despite having not performed for a number of years, stays in shape through his close work with the acrobats.

Since retiring from international competition, Garfield has worked in various film, theatre and opera productions, but was lured to Cirque seven years ago because he believed it was reinventing acrobatics as an entertaining medium. 'The creative process is what really drew me here,' he says. 'And as long as the projects are interesting, my involvement is at the level of my personal expectations and I can give everything I can, I will stay here.

'There is creativity in everything; a lawyer can be creative, even a dishwasher if they can get past hating their job. What happens here is concentrated orange juice. So many people are here to create an environment that will draw people in. We are sharing our little piece of the world with many people around the world; that is what globalisation is today. And that mixture creates something of a new dynamic.'

According to Ste-Croix, Cirque does not take anything for granted and it is this element that has played a major part in its success. 'We start from a white page; there is no recipe,' he says. 'It all depends on the people you work with and the people you work for. Fifty per cent of what we do is for our public. This is what we chose to do; this is what we are good at and this is what we will keep on doing.'

Quidam opens in Hong Kong on November 3. Tickets are available through HK Ticketing, tel: 3128 8299.