The cirque is in town

Marisa O’Neil

Outside the blue-and-yellow big top of Cirque du Soleil, Helen Ball

stood holding an ice pack to her mouth.

Rehearsal for the new production, “Varekai,” which opens in Costa

Mesa on Friday, turned into a full contact sport for Ball and fellow

performer Zoey Tedstill. Ball, 26, took the ice pack off, saying that

she and Tedstill collided while practicing an act nicknamed,

appropriately enough, “Slippery Surface,” leaving her with a bloody

lip and wobbly tooth.

“Things like this happen,” “Varekai” publicist Chantal Blanchard

said. “You’re lost in your thought process, and ‘Bam!’”

Wobbly teeth, twisted ankles and sprained shoulders are all

occupational hazards when you dangle upside down, balance on one hand

or catch people flying through the air for a living. But it’s all in

a day’s work for the 54 performers in “Varekai.”

They work six days a week, defy gravity and possibly death in nine

shows a week, move to a new city every two or three months and get to

work in a giant tent.

“It’s good to see different places,” said 28-year-old Cinthia

Beranek, a Brazilian native. “In a way, you have your own community.

You work with these people 10 hours a day, every day.”

The community includes a new 2,600-capacity big top, two tents for

selling concessions and another for the backstage area, offices, a

school and a full kitchen and cafeteria built on flatbed trucks

parked side-by-side. It also includes artists from 14 different

countries who speak nearly as many languages.

Beranek performs on the triple trapeze with a fellow Brazilian,

21-year-old Juliana Coutinho, and British natives Ball, Tedstill and

26-year-old Sophie Oldfield.

“We’ve had a lot of changes [in our act],” Beranek said. “If you

looked at it at the premiere and look at it now, it’s a totally

different act.”

As with most Cirque du Soleil shows, “Varekai” is a constant work

in progress, tweaking acts, cues, the running order, anything for

maximum effect. Beranek, one of the original performers on the

apparatus, helped develop the act, which is performed on a long

trapeze that holds three performers side by side and two hanging

below. The women climb on, hang from and dangle one another from the

trapeze, 18 feet above the stage.

They don’t use a net or safety lines.

“But we do have two big blokes to catch us,” Oldfield said.

All five of the women started out as dancers, then got jobs with

other circuses, where they learned the technique and built the

upper-body strength necessary for trapeze.

“I always was kind of a boy,” Beranek said. “I liked hanging from

things, climbing from trees, I wanted to be in the air. This is still

like dancing, but I’m in the air, so it’s a very good match.”

Though some people might scoff at the idea of running away with

the circus, Oldfield and Beranek said their parents are proud and

supportive of their jobs with Cirque du Soleil. Given the choice, all

four of the women said they would prefer working for the circus to

sitting in a cubicle, doing a conventional, 9-to-5 job.

“It’s so hard when you’re used to being physical to then do

something mundane,” Oldfield said.

Coutinho and Oldfield are replacing Raquel Karro and Stella Umeh,

who were prominently featured in the Bravo television series “The

Fire Within,” which chronicled the conception of Cirque du Soleil’s

newest touring production, which debuted in 2002 in the company’s

hometown of Montreal.

Besides the trio trapeze act, “Varekai” includes an aerial hoop

act, Russian swing and aerial straps, where a set of well-chiseled

twins -- Andrew and Kevin Atherton -- fly high above the stage. As

with all Cirque du Soleil shows, it has clowns but has no animals.

“Varekai” is one of five touring shows -- “Alegria” on the East

Coast, “Saltimbanco” and “Dralion” in Europe, “Quidam” in Asia and

four permanent shows in Orlando and Las Vegas. This will be the

Canadian circus’ first time in Orange County since “Dralion,” which

ran in Irvine five years ago.

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at [email protected].