White Big Top Photo credit: Guy Deschênes
The white big top began to rise weeks ago – you come upon it suddenly if you rattle through Burbank on Metrolink – as Normand Latourelle once again prepares to open his horse-dominant show Cavalia.
And, like the other franchise he helped found, Cirque du Soleil, with its 22 unique productions around the world, Cavalia has remained profitable. “Shows on Broadway have a lot of competition. You have to rely on tourists there. All these shows are sharing the same public. But shows like ours are going to the public. People travel less but still want to be entertained. Since we are going to their hometowns with our big top, it becomes local entertainment. After a few weeks we leave, so nobody wants to miss it.”
Latourelle’s big top is said to be the largest in North America, 110 feet tall, with more than 71,000 square feet of canvas and seating for 2,300. But the most notable number, really, is 49 – the number of horses that represent 13 breeds.
“Doing a show with animals was a challenge,” he says. “We were proud of saying that Cirque was a circus without animals but when I began doing Cavalia, I had to learn about horses. I knew nothing about them.”
Director and founder of Cavalia Normand Latourelle Photo credit: Robert Zucherman
For Latourelle, the big question was how to make horses be happy on stage. “How can you work with animals without the traditional trainers you have for lions and tigers and elephants? When the horse comes on stage, it steals the attention from the performer, which we want. A lion wants to eat you; a horse wants to escape. So it is very dynamic when a horse comes to you.” It will only do so, he notes, if it likes and trusts you.
The individual horses themselves are what make each Cavalia unique. “We’ve been in LA three times [since 2004] and the show you’ll witness this time around is different from previous ones.” Of the original stable, only four horses remain. “We consider them the artists. We build the show around them and their personalities. One horse won’t do the same thing as another horse. This is the discovery we had. From one to another, each show is different.”
Cavalia is planned and choreographed yet borders on improv. “When the horse gets stubborn and wants to stay longer, we just play with that. We have acrobats and trampoline and dancers, but it’s a very moving show because of the relationship between the two-legged and four-legged performers.”
As with any new production, Latourelle and his entourage dealt with a learning curve seven years ago. Among the more difficult challenges, he remembers, was discovering how to combine horses with acrobats. “At first, if a horse sees something over his head, he’ll be spooked because he sees it as a predator. It may be months before we let someone fly over a horse.”
Trick Riding Laura Baubry Photo credit: Lynne Glazer
This is an ongoing concern as horses eventually move in and out of the production. In his French-Canadian accent, he describes putting the “flying person” or acrobat atop the grid. “And the horse sees something is moving there. Over several days, the girl – most of these performers are girls – comes lower and lower until she comes to the horse and gives him a carrot. And now, in the show, it might sound a little silly but when the horse sees something flying overhead, he thinks it’s a carrot and he’s very happy to see that trapeze.”
It’s a matter of time and comprehension, notes Latourelle, discovering ways to make the horse feel comfortable. “In nature, horses are very curious. If they are afraid, they want to escape. They are very powerful. But they come to trust our trainer and feel she is going to protect them so they remain curious and willing.”
The relationship between trainer and horse rightfully becomes the centerpiece of the show. You’ll never hear the crack of a whip to get an animal’s attention, he says. “If people ask me if it’s all right to have a lion or tiger in a show, I would say no. But the horse is a domesticated animal. I learn from the horse.”
Nonetheless, letters of concern or protest arrive and Latourelle, now accustomed, says he understands. “We just tell them to come and visit. They don’t need an appointment. They can just come and visit; very quickly they become supporters.
“There is no violence toward the horses,” he adds. “We don’t force them to do anything. Most of the time, we follow them. We have the luxury of time. We adapt our training to them. It’s not the opposite way.”
Each animal’s personality is unique and when you bring several on stage at once you risk something going awry. For that reason, Latourelle admits, some horses have a bit in their mouth. “There are hundreds of kinds of bits, some of which can hurt. But the one we use is called a snaffle and it doesn’t hurt the mouth. The tools we use could very fast become a weapon and we never cross that line.”
Grande Liberté Sylvia Zerbini Photo credit: Jean-François Leblanc
Horses enter by breed and serve certain purposes. “You don’t take a quarter horse and use it for dressage, for example. You need an Iberian horse for that, from Spain, France or Portugal. You don’t take a dressage horse and use it for jumping. We have a warm blood for that. That’s why we have so many types of breeds: 13 in all. And we adapt the show for them.”
By example, Latourelle points to the quarter horse. “They are the fastest in the ¼ mile race. They’re sprinters. We use them for trick riding. They run at full speed. The stage is 150′ wide and they have room to run and they love to run. We have acrobats doing tricks on them upside down.”
By contrast, “The Arabian has liberty on stage. They come to play as a herd with the trainer. When [the trainer] is coming on stage, they see her as part of them because she spends so much time in the stable with them. They’re confident she’ll make them have fun. They’re like big dogs that want to cavort.”
Big dogs that prefer carrots to kibble, anyway. Cavalia also features Lusitanos, Percherons, a Comtois, Criollo and an Andalusian plus two Mustangs.
A nonscientific poll might conclude that most southern Californians learn about horses from Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards describing the New Year’s Day equestrian teams in the Tournament of Roses Parade.
What Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard cannot offer is the technology that gives Cavalia its zing. Latourelle says this show, like Cirque du Soleil’s, finds ways to inspire the imagination through imagery and sleight-of-hand. “First, there’s a lot of top technology in the show with virtual projections. The backstage is a screen of 210′ wide.”
He also likes to play with the elements. “You get to see snow, rain and leaves falling as though you are going through the seasons. We work with a special projection system.”
Reminiscent of Cirque du Soleil’s aquatic show O, Latourelle employs water effects that come on stage. “We have a pond in the show so we have a special type of sand that can drain water. It looks simple but it’s very complicated. You really enter into a very colorful world of images. It’s an artistic, poetic approach to storytelling.”
Bungee Cavaliers Photo credit: Lynn Glazer
He sits at a microphone in a studio, seemingly confident of a show that more than 2.5 million people have seen in nearly 40 cities in North America and Europe. His smile undoubtedly comes more easily today than in 1987. “We opened Cirque du Soleil in Quebec, then brought it here under the umbrella of the Los Angeles Arts Festival. We had enough money to come but not enough to go back.”
All they could do was hope for the best, he says. “In our first week, we needed to sell 30,000 tickets but we had sold only 3,000. We were 99% certain we were going to fail. Thankfully, we had great reviews and two days later, there were scalpers selling Cirque tickets and we just never stopped.”
Cavalia, he says, came from a desire to create something different. “It has the same type of modernity but it’s with horses. I like challenges. I like to bring to the world things nobody has seen.”
Cavalia opens Jan. 19; plays daily except Mon., through Feb 6 at 777 N. Front St., Downtown Burbank. Tickets: $69-$139 with children, senior, VIP and discount packages available. 866.999.8111 or www.cavalia.net.
