Toruk: Cirque Du Soleil's Avatar-inspired show ready to wow Kiwi audiences

Cirque du Soleil / YouTube
Based on the Avatar film, Cirque Du Soleil's latest hits New Zealand in September.

It's more famous for acrobatic feats of marvel than for parading blue-skinned performers.

But that's all about to change for Cirque Du Soleil, whose new show Toruk – The First Flight has been inspired by film director James Cameron's sci-fi movie Avatar.

Written and directed by Canadian creative director Michel Lemieux and his long-time visual artist partner Victor Pilon, with whom he's been working since the 1980s, the show's arena spectacular has been touring since 2015.

While that means it's taken the show nearly two years to head down under, it's been even longer in the planning and preparation stakes.

Cirque du Soleil's Toruk - The First Flight is scheduled to be performed next month at Christchurch's Horncastle Arena and Auckland's Spark Arena.
Cirque du Soleil's Toruk - The First Flight is scheduled to be performed next month at Christchurch's Horncastle Arena and Auckland's Spark Arena.

READ MORE:
Toruk - The First Flight: The 18-date Cirque du Soleil Avatar-inspired show heading our way
Cirque du Soleil returns with inspiration from James Cameron's Avatar
Avatar sequel starts shooting in New Zealand
Avatar language 'based on Maori'

On the phone from Canada, with his French accent lighting up the crackle of the international line, Lemieux is surprisingly animated about the show, revealing that they first met with James Cameron in 2008, a year before Avatar was even released.

Toruk – The First Flight itself though has its foot even more firmly further in the past. It's set 3000 years before events in the film when the Marines even touched down on Pandora and Sam Worthington's Jake Sully became a fighter for the indigenous race the Nav'i and the natural order of things.

Toruk - The First Flight meshes a strong narrative with Cirque du Soleil's familiar and trademark visual spectacle.
Toruk - The First Flight meshes a strong narrative with Cirque du Soleil's familiar and trademark visual spectacle.

But despite that, the Cirque du Soleil show still manages to incorporate the film's themes of environmentalism into its wider story and proceedings – without sacrificing anything of the Cirque Du Soleil's trademark visual spectacle.

There's a binding element that ties the film to the stage show – that of the Toruk, a giant creature that eagle-eyed fans of Cameron's film will remember Sully managed to commandeer late in the film.

In the show, the Toruk is largely the work of puppeteers visibly darting around the stage, and while it was already a creature in existence, Lemieux says not everything around it was written in stone.

"James Cameron said, 'you're free to go and do what you want, but everything has to make sense, a kind of biological sense'. He invented new animals – that was one of the things James wanted."

In the show, the Toruk is largely the work of puppeteers visibly darting around the stage.
In the show, the Toruk is largely the work of puppeteers visibly darting around the stage.

Lemieux believes while the creative freedom was a bonus, they still had to refer to myriad documents that set up the wider world of the Nav'i created by Cameron. But given there are four sequels being filmed currently, he's optimistic some parts of the show will make it to the big screen.

"Maybe one of the animals will be in a following movie, probably very different from in the show though," he says, before laughing, "It will be great, I am not sure I'll have rights though!"

Toruk - The First Flight is also a first for Cirque du Soleil, a meshing of a stronger narrative with their familiar and trademark visual spectacle.

But Lemieux maintains the show isn't a complicated affair. At its heart, it's still just a kind of fable.

"It's a very simple story, a children's story, a bit like a bedtime story, a legend, something that is so old really, it became simplistic."

And he says that push to employ more of a narrative within, rather than simply to throw in some impressive juggling tricks, actually forced them to scrutinise the whole thing a lot more than they would normally do.

FLEUR MEALING/STUFF
Cirque du Soleil - Toruk The First Flight acrobats Jessica Ward and Daniel Crispin talk to Stuff reporter Glenn McConnell.

"Every time there is an acrobatic, we ask ourselves 'why, what purpose does it serve? Does it fit with the customs of these tribes in the show?' So we call it narrative acrobatics, not just acrobatics for the sake of it, but as a language to express storyline and emotions."

Whilst the story had to be fitted into what audiences would expect of a Cirque Du Soleil show as well, equally, there were no fears from Lemieux that the die-hard fans of Avatar wouldn't embrace it.

"For us, as big fans of the movie, we wanted them to like the show of course and James to like the show. There's enough for fans, big fans of the movie, the ones that speak in Nav'i! Some people, normal people are fans of the movie that they speak the language fluently now. When I said to James Cameron there was a guy that saw the movie like 200 times, James told me 'Get a life, there's something else to do in life than watch this movie!'"

Cirque du Soleil's Toruk will appeal to fans of both Avatar and Cirque, believes creative director Michel Lemieux.
Cirque du Soleil's Toruk will appeal to fans of both Avatar and Cirque, believes creative director Michel Lemieux.

While the show's embracing of multimedia elements mean most of the arenas where it's played are turned into giant projection screens to display the action, or set the scene, Lemieux is fairly optimistic the basic art of stage is here to stay.

When asked how he feels about people going to concert arenas and venues to watch a show only to sit behind a smart phone trying to capture the whole thing instead of actually enjoying the moment, he's fairly pragmatic.

"As a performing artist and director, for years people told me 'Oh performance, it's going to die, they're coming out with TVs, movies etc'. But it's not dead, it's not dead at all! They want to make shows and we want to see shows."

Toruk creative director Michel Lemieux says he first met with James Cameron a year before his Avatar movie was released.
Toruk creative director Michel Lemieux says he first met with James Cameron a year before his Avatar movie was released.

Fired up, but still jocular, the amiable Lemieux believes the passion for any kind of spectacular or intimate performance will triumph in the world of streaming and smartphones.

"I really love to see one actor in a very small theatre doing the beautiful text with a chair and then that's it. And I like to see big extravagant show with a lot of visuals and a lot of poetry. Everything can co-exist."

Signing off from our wide-ranging and long chat, the confidence is brimming in Lemeiux's voice.

"Performing art will never die."

Cirque du Soleil's Toruk is filled with what creative director Michel Lemieux calls "narrative acrobatics".
Cirque du Soleil's Toruk is filled with what creative director Michel Lemieux calls "narrative acrobatics".

Cirque du Soleil's Toruk – The First Flight will be performed at Christchurch's Horncastle Arena from September 1 to 10, before heading to Auckland's Spark Arena from September 15 to 24. For more information, see cirquedusoleil.com

Stuff