Varekai: Cirque Du Soleil - Hardcover

Veronique Vial, internationally famous for her photographs of celebrities, has contributed work to numerous magazines, including Vogue, Vanity Fair, Elle, Glamour, Self, GQ, Esquire, and Premiere, as well as documenting Cirque du Soleil's shows for many years. She lives in Los Angeles. Kerry Fleming, writer and poet, has worked in children's education and advertising and has written screenplays, theater pieces, a children's book, and several projects for Cirque du Soleil. He lives in Montreal.

The dazzling Cirque du Soleil has raised the art of circus performance to a new level and embellished it with eye-popping visual splendor. Varekai is its latest production; the word means "wherever" in Romany, the language of the Gypsies. Fleming's brief poems evoke the production's plot ("enter the forest/abandon your fears/everything possible happens right here....") and longer texts explain events, based on the legend of Icarus, in greater detail. But the real draw are the images taken by noted magazine photographer Vial: they feature Cirque du Soleil's extraordinary acrobatics (artists suspended midair from nets and piled upwards in defiance of gravity) and elaborate costumes and props with huge gold wings and plantlike outgrowths. Some photos take readers backstage, where artists discuss the experience of mounting a work. Says co-founder Guy Laliberte, "the dream is always about bringing a new baby to life." This is a treat, an entrée into the fabulous, for fans and prospective fans of Cirque du Soleil.
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