Behind the scenes of the amazing ice acrobatic show, Crystal


Cirque du Soleil’s Crystal made its way to London for the first time and the Interrobang got a behind the scenes look of the production that was performed at Budweiser Gardens this past weekend.

Cirque du Soleil has been a purely acrobatic show that’s amazed audiences around the world for years. The troupe’s new ice show is a testament to how committed Cirque du Soleil is to entertaining and awing the audience with new spectacles no one else has achieved.

“We did a lot of research and development to see how we could implement acrobatics onto the ice with skating experts like Kurt Browning, Benjamin Augusto and a lot of acrobatic coaches. Lots of workshops, several workshops, after and the cast arrived in June 2017 for an intense three months of rehearsals and trainings, and here we are in London with Crystal,” Julie Desmarais, publicist for Cirque du Soleil, said.

Desmarais explained that it takes a number of hours just to set up the stage and all the equipment for the performances.

“There are a lot of pieces, the equipment travels in 17 semi-trucks. We hang approximately 75,000 pounds of equipment on the roof on the ceiling so this process takes close to 12 to 16 hours. We have a team of 24 technicians that are responsible of carpentry, rigging, sound, lighting, video and together with the help of 80 to a hundred local stage hands they build the stage in 12 hours,” Desmarais said.

For some of the performers like Danica Gagnon-Plamondon, Canadian acrobatic of Cirque du Soleil, Crystal will be their first time skating at such an extreme.

“It was a big challenge just to skate, just actually skate and then obviously to do trapeze with the skates. At first I thought it was going to be impossible, but I’m always down to try challenges so I did want to try it and it ended up working. It was a really good surprise,” Gagnon-Plamondon said.

The Canadian performer played as the main character of the show, Crystal, when she was high up in the air swinging on the trapeze.

According to Gagnon-Plamondon, the performance has a bit of everything to please fans of both ice skating and acrobatics.

“The storyline is understandable so and clear and nice to see for the families for anyone really. The range of age is really big and it’s poetic, it’s acrobatic, there’s a lot of action to the extreme skaters. There is a little bit of everything really to please everyone,” Gagnon-Plamondon said.

PHOTO CREDIT: SAMANTHA KACZALA Click on the thumbnails below to view a larger version of each image.
Behind the scenes of the amazing ice acrobatic show, Crystal photos
Behind the scenes of the amazing ice acrobatic show, Crystal photos
Behind the scenes of the amazing ice acrobatic show, Crystal photos
Behind the scenes of the amazing ice acrobatic show, Crystal photos