Raphael Cruz | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | September 5, 1986 |
| Died | January 26, 2018 (aged 31) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Acrobat, clown, actor |
Raphael Cruz (September 5, 1986 - January 26, 2018) was an American acrobat, clown and actor. Cruz is known for having played the lead role of Buster, a Buster Keaton inspired character, in the cinema themed Cirque du Soleil production Iris . [1] [2] [3]
Cruz died in Paris on January 26, 2018, from heart and lung failure. [4]
Cirque du Soleil is a Canadian entertainment company and the largest contemporary circus producer in the world. Located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, Montreal, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul on 16 June 1984 by former street performers Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix.
Guy Laliberté, is a Canadian billionaire businessman, and poker player. Along with Gilles Ste-Croix, he is the co-founder of Cirque du Soleil in 1984. The Canadian circus company's shows have since been seen by more than 90 million people worldwide. Before founding the company, he had busked, performing as an accordion player, stiltwalker, and fire-eater.
Corteo is a Cirque du Soleil touring production that premiered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on April 21, 2005.
Kà is a show by Cirque du Soleil at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Kà describes the story as "the coming of age of a young man and a young woman through their encounters with love, conflict and the duality of Kà, the fire that can unite or separate, destroy or illuminate."
Philippe Decouflé is a French choreographer, dancer, mime artist, and theatre director. As a child he travelled extensively around Lebanon and Morocco before learning his skills as a teenager at the Annie Fratellini École du Cirque and the Marceau Mime School. While frequenting Parisienne nightclubs he discovered and was attracted to contemporary dance, and he eventually moved to the Centre National de la Danse Contemporaine in Angers to study under choreographer Alwin Nicolais. After briefly working as a solo dancer, he formed the Découflé Company of Arts in Bagnolet in 1983, moving it to a former electrical works in the Parisienne suburb of Saint-Denis in 1995.
The Cirque Medrano is a French circus that was located at 63 Boulevard de Rochechouart, at the corner of rue des Martyrs, in the 18th arrondissement at the edge of Montmartre in Paris. It was originally called Cirque Fernando. The title "Cirque Medrano" is still active today: it is now a successful French traveling circus.
Olga Pikhienko is a circus performer who specializes in handbalancing and contortion. Pikhienko started in rhythmic gymnastics at the age of five. When she was eleven, she started performing with her father, Sasha Pikhienko, at the Nikulin Circus based in Moscow. Olga's act with her father won them a gold medal in 1992 at the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris. In 1993, they won a silver medal in Beijing, China at the World Festival.
Iris was a resident Cirque du Soleil show based in Los Angeles, California. It premiered on September 25, 2011, after preview performances which began on July 21, 2011. The cost for production of the show was nearly $100 million, which included the cost of renovating the Dolby Theatre in which the show was housed. Iris was written and directed by French director-choreographer Philippe Decouflé. The show explored images from the history of cinema and featured elaborate choreography, acrobatics, and a variety of contemporary circus acts. The name of the show, Iris, comes from the camera diaphragm as well as from the colored iris of the human eye.
Cirque du Soleil: Fire Within is a 2002 Canadian reality television mini-series. The series follows eight Cirque du Soleil performers during the creation and production of the Cirque's touring production, Varekai. Stress ensues as several newcomers try to learn new acrobatic acts for the show, while the subplot also follows the crew behind the show trying to cast new performers, advertise the production, create the stage set, costumes, and make-up, and manage the show under the direction of newcomer Dominic Champagne.
Eric Davis is an American actor, comedian, director, writer and clown.
John Gilkey is an American actor, director, comedian, juggler and clown.
Gilles Ste-Croix is a Canadian entrepreneur and the vice president and co-creator of Cirque du Soleil. He started Cirque du Soleil with co-founder Guy Laliberté. His son, Olivier Rochette, a technician with Cirque du Soleil, was killed by a blow to the head from an aerial lift in an on-set accident in November 2016.
Mathieu Laplante is a producer, director, choreographer, and former circus performer. He was a world-renowned gymnast from the age of 8 through 15 before joining Cirque du Soleil. He has worked on stage with artists such as Michael Jackson, Peter Gabriel, and Janet Jackson. He is best known for his work with Cirque-style shows. He began performing with Cirque du Soleil at the age of 16 and directed his first Cirque-style show at the age of 26.
Sarah "Sasoun" Guyard-Guillot ; was a French acrobat and aerialist who fell to her death during a performance of the Cirque du Soleil show Kà at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 29, 2013.
Paramour was Cirque du Soleil's first resident musical theatre show at the Lyric Theatre on Broadway, New York City. Paramour was themed to the "Golden age of Hollywood" and followed the life of "a poet who is forced to choose between love and art". It had similar elements to Cirque du Soleil's retired Los Angeles resident show in Iris written and created by Philippe Decouflé, and had a 38-person onstage cast with actress Ruby Lewis in the lead as Indigo. Paramour began preview shows on April 16, 2016, with an official premiere on May 25, 2016. It closed exactly one year after its first preview show, on 16 April 2017.
Volta was a touring circus show by the Cirque du Soleil and was based on extreme sports; the principal character is a game-show host named Waz.
Le PeTiT CiRqUe(Fr, The Little Circus) is an all-youth professional circus company based in Los Angeles, California. LPC was founded in 2012 by Nathalie Yves Gaulthier, a former child actress and competitive gymnast. LPC consists of a wide array of cirque specialists, including acrobats, aerialists, contortionists, hand balancers, and foot archers, and other performing specialists, such as vocalists, dancers, hoop dancers, and martial artists. The troupe has performed in the United States, Canada, Norway, and the United Arab Emirates.
Andrea Conway, also known as Andrea Conway-Doba, is a former Canadian gymnast, acrobat, actor, tap dancer and clown from Pointe-Claire, Quebec.
Drawn to Life is a Cirque du Soleil show at Disney Springs' West Side at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. It is a contemporary circus performance featuring acrobats, gymnasts, and other skilled performers. A collaboration between Cirque du Soleil, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Walt Disney Imagineering, the show is inspired by Disney's animated film productions and the process of animation. The show is performed in a custom-built, freestanding theater originally built for its predecessor La Nouba, which closed in 2017 after performing for 19 years.
Stefan Haves is an American actor, director, comedian and clown.