Why Cirque du Soleil circus show Kooza, back in Hong Kong, is ‘edge-of-your-seat stuff’

It has been seven years since Cirque du Soleil last graced Hong Kong with its stunning acrobatic acts, cheeky clowns and death-defying stunts. This month the global entertainment company is back with its circus production Kooza. Running until July 13 – the family-friendly show has extended its stay in Hong Kong from its original end date of June 22 – Kooza will be presented at the Central Harbourfront Event Space, where the Cirque team has set up its signature big top. The show tells the story of the Innocent, a clown pulled into the zany, dynamic world of the Trickster. Thus begins a two-hour spectacle of gravity- and death-defying acts. Duncan Fisher, the chief show operations officer at Cirque du Soleil, calls Kooza “the most ‘circus’ of all our circuses”. “I just love the acrobatic nature of Kooza, and it’s all edge-of-your-seat stuff,” he says. “I’ve probably seen Kooza 100 times, and I’m going to love it when I watch it again tonight, because it’s always different, it’s always suspenseful.” Although Kooza was staged in Hong Kong in 2018, audiences can look forward to a refreshed production featuring new performers and acts, such as Mizuki Shinagawa’s aerial silk routine and Sante D’Amours Fortunato’s hoop manipulation routine. For many performers, the circus is a family affair – the latter’s husband, Alexandr Yudintsev, plays the Innocent, having joined the show with his wife last year after both were part of the Cirque du Soleil show Corteo. Fisher spent his early years as a gymnast and acrobat before moving into circus operations, and now manages Cirque shows around the world. The company has five big-top shows travelling globally, he says, with some 120 to 130 people working on each of them. Around 50 of them are artists, while the rest include the crew, technicians, management and kitchen staff. “We’re really moving our own city,” Fisher says – the team typically travels with around 100 cargo containers. “We move with our own electricity, our own water supplies and all the tents that we need.” The most difficult part of setting up a show like Kooza is making sure it is ready on time, he says. Typically, a skeleton crew will arrive at a given site three to four weeks in advance to prepare the grounds and ensure they are levelled. They might also begin installing the fence that will enclose the big top. When the cargo containers arrive, typically anywhere from a few weeks to eight days before the first show, everything kicks into high gear. Fisher says: “There’s always the unknown. A truck is late, or we have bad weather, or we’re not able to find enough local help to set up. Those things happen, but the crew still needs to make it happen and get ready for the first show.” He is especially excited to show Kooza in Hong Kong because of its location at the Central Harbourfront on Hong Kong Island. “There’s never any space any more in the city centres, so we’ve been kind of pushed out to the outskirts of the cities, or we end up in one of the football stadiums. There’s very few cities left in the world where we are in the city, downtown. And here in Hong Kong, it’s beautiful. We’re next to the water, we have City Hall right here.” Having partnered with South Korea-based Mast International and Hong Kong-based Great Entertainment Group for Kooza, Fisher hopes to continue bringing more Cirque shows to the city and elsewhere in Asia. “There’s certain cities around the world that we want to be in all the time. We want to be in London. We want to be in Madrid. We want to be in Sydney. We want to be in Hong Kong. “This is one of the best sites that we play in in the entire world.”

Why Cirque du Soleil circus show Kooza, back in Hong Kong, is ‘edge-of-your-seat stuff’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza, back in Hong Kong, is the most ‘circus’ of all its circuses, its chief show operations officer says. Find out why

Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza, back in Hong Kong, is the most ‘circus’ of all its circuses, its chief show operations officer says. Find out why