Cirque Du Soleil Troupe

The Romantic poets would know what I'm trying to say here. What I want to say belongs in an ode, not a newspaper column. The poets understood that aesthetic beauty in whatever form had a power that went beyond a momentary treat for the eyes. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," Keats wrote, and I wish I could write a line to capture my thoughts after attending Cirque du Soleil this week.

The inspiration for Cirque du Soleil's new show, "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour," began in the late 1980s when Michael Jackson hopped into a van (sans security) with his longtime attorney John Branca to see the French Canadian performance troupe for the first time in Santa Monica. The mega-pop star was fascinated by the avant-garde circus and asked to meet the cast backstage, said Branca, who was named co-executor of Jackson's estate along with music executive John McClain in accordance with Jackson's 2002 will.

Anton Tchelnokov is living an adventure most kids only dream of. He attends school two hours a day and spends his afternoons practicing gymnastics and acrobatics. He earns his own money without having to take out the trash or walk the dog, bounces on a trampoline whenever he pleases, and has swapped autographed photos with his hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Before the Cirque du Soleil performers pranced onto the outdoor stage in the sweltering heat Sunday, bushels of ice cubes were flung across the wooden floor to cool the surface for the hands and feet of dancers. A crowd of hundreds, hot but patiently watching at the Grove shopping center, cheered as if this safety step was part of the show. Onstage, Sebastien Coin, encased in a yellow striped unitard, balanced his body horizontally on one hand and languidly eyed his rapt audience.

Looking like a star is one thing. Acting like one is something else entirely. And so when Cirque du Soleil's very own Flying Fabio, more prosaically known as Vladimir Kekhayal, and his chair-balancing compatriot Vassily Demenchoukov arrived from Russia with all the attitude they could pack in their bags, their star quality was considered, well, a bit de trop . "It was like 'If I'm here, I'm the star, so you have to treat me as a star,' " says Gilles Ste-Croix, Cirque's artistic director.

Cirque du Soleil will offer to rehire an acrobat fired by the Montreal-based circus last year because he is HIV-positive. The circus also plans to draft an anti-discrimination policy with help from the San Francisco Human Rights Commission that protects the rights of all qualified HIV-positive athletes to perform, company and commission officials said Friday. Cirque announced its decision to rehire 32-year-old Matthew Cusick in a brief statement shortly after the U.S.

The first time Cirque du Soleil pitched its sky-blue-and-goldenrod-yellow big top on California soil, it was in Little Tokyo. The year was 1987; the targeted occasion, opening night of the Los Angeles Festival. According to Cirque founder-director Guy Laliberte, the entire future of the Montreal-based troupe was riding on that single show.

There is a moment early in "Saltimbanco," Cirque du Soleil's latest show, which trumpets the fact that this shimmering, 2 3/4-hour extravaganza under a Big Top is neither pure circus, nor vaudeville, nor theater, but a different entertainment animal altogether. That moment comes when an acrobat walks on stage carrying what looks like a domed, stained-glass cake plate, illuminated from the inside, its panels glowing the same blue and yellow as the stripes of the circus tent.

The inspiration for Cirque du Soleil's new show, "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour," began in the late 1980s when Michael Jackson hopped into a van (sans security) with his longtime attorney John Branca to see the French Canadian performance troupe for the first time in Santa Monica. The mega-pop star was fascinated by the avant-garde circus and asked to meet the cast backstage, said Branca, who was named co-executor of Jackson's estate along with music executive John McClain in accordance with Jackson's 2002 will.

If you amuse yourself by tracing the Latin roots of words, you'll recognize how apt the word "circus" is to describe that form of entertainment. "Circus" means "circle" -- and describes the ring of townsfolk that would inevitably gather around any street performer who chose to juggle, swallow fire or leap through space without a net. The French word for circus is "cirque" -- but the word seems to have taken on a meaning all its own since Montreal's Cirque du Soleil entered the scene in 1984.

The Los Angeles City Council is weighing a plan to issue a $30-million loan that would allow the owner of the Hollywood & Highland shopping mall to retrofit a theater so it can house a decade of performances by Cirque du Soleil. CIM Group, which owns Hollywood & Highland but leases the Kodak Theatre within the mall, hopes to bring the acrobatic performances to the venue starting in 2011.

Just about every tourist-related business in Santa Monica sees dollar signs in Cirque du Soleil's return to a beachfront parking lot near the pier this fall. Everyone, that is, except the company that runs the Pacific Park amusement center. The 2-acre park, with a freshly renovated Ferris wheel and a roller coaster, has emerged as a major draw for the pier, city officials acknowledge. But now, it's squaring off against an even more powerful draw: Cirque du Soleil.

Cirque du Soleil is returning this year to the Santa Monica Pier, where the troupe first pitched its tent in 1987 but hasn't performed since 1999. Saying it had resolved traffic and parking issues, the Santa Monica City Council voted this week to allow Cirque to return to the Pier Oct. 16 through Dec. 20 with its touring production "Kooza." Daniel Lamarre, Cirque du Soleil's president, said, "It has long been our desire that Santa Monica be the site to which Cirque du Soleil returns with its touring shows when we visit the greater L.A. area."

A bit more than a year from now, the hot-air balloon ride may not be all that's going up, up and away at the Orange County Great Park. The park's board of directors wants to make the Irvine site the Orange County home for Cirque du Soleil's touring tent shows, envisioning a new acrobatic extravaganza from the Quebecois company every two or three years, starting in January 2010. Steve Larsen, spokesman for the Great Park, says Cirque initiated the dialogue in August -- word having apparently made its way to Montreal about the park's summer-long "Night Flights" dance-concert series.

In a move to fill the Kodak Theatre's often-empty stage between the Academy Awards shows for which it was built, the theater's owner has committed to a 10-year, $100-million agreement with Cirque du Soleil to create a permanent show for the Hollywood venue. The new production featuring a movie industry theme, announced Monday, is expected to open in 2010.

MICK JAGGER and Bono headlined the summer's top-grossing concert acts, followed closely by a character named Bill, who spends most of each performance suspended from a red balloon watching Senegalese drummers, whirling dervishes, floating chanteuses, trumpet players and men on stilts pumping out New Age melodies to a driving urban beat.

MICK JAGGER and Bono headlined the summer's top-grossing concert acts, followed closely by a character named Bill, who spends most of each performance suspended from a red balloon watching Senegalese drummers, whirling dervishes, floating chanteuses, trumpet players and men on stilts pumping out New Age melodies to a driving urban beat.

Two of the Fab Four -- Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr -- and the widows and children of John Lennon and George Harrison got a little help from their friends at the opening night of "Love," Cirque du Soleil's Beatles show. An estimated 5,000 people came to Friday's star-studded shows and the after-party that didn't end until many hours after the 10:30 show ended.

CKX Inc., the parent company of Elvis Presley Enterprises, announced a long-term joint venture with Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian-based acrobatic troupe known for its extravagant theatrical and acrobatic productions. Cirque du Soleil will produce a series of shows focused on Presley's life and music and help design interactive, multimedia museums called "Elvis Experiences," CKX said.