Clown of the billionaires

You probably have seen clowns in your life while you were laughing in a circus tent. But if you were asked if clowns can change the world what would you answer? Probably you wouldn't believe in ordinary clowns with super power. Sounds ludicrously? I'd like to introduce you Mr. Guy Laliberte, a man called the clown of the billionaires.

He was born in 1959 in Canada and as a young boy he was taken by his parents to Ringling Brothers and to the Barnum & Bailey Circus show, and he just fell in love with the circus. It's how he started dreaming about becoming a circus star. He started as accordion player, stilt walker and fire-eater, finally founding out his own business – Circus du Soleil in 1984.

He started with a small group of talented artists and his friend - Daniel Gauthier. Quite original was the fact that Laliberte quit engaging animals into shows and every next show was amazingly created with theatre and artistic casing.

Originally Cirque du Solei was prepared for one-year project – a Holiday Festival – supported by the government on the occasion of Canada's 450th anniversary, but after a great success the government wanted Laliberte to show performances in other parts of the country. During that time Gilles Ste-Croix assisted him and from their cooperation a phrase appeared that Lalibere became the father of Cirque du Soleil, and Ste-Croix is the grandfather.

Since that time this Circus have been seen by more than 90 million people worldwide and its popularity grows each year.


The name „Cirque du Soleil” means circus of the sun. Laliberte came up with this idea being in Hawaii and observing their culture. He was inspired how Hawaiian people and their interpretation of the sun. He realised that he understands a spirit of circus just like they see the sun, and it is contained in two words which are „energy” and youth”.

The organization performs on five continents using mobile cirques. Of course they have stationary circus too, however if you want to see the show, you should buy a ticket a few years earlier.

One of the element of their show is „The Wheel of Death” - one of the most dangerous and spectacular circus machine.



After success Laliberte didn't turn into the ordinary entrepreneur, but he participated in the creation of every Cirque du Soleil show.

Laliberte became also the first Canadian space tourist, which cost him around 35 billion dollars, but it wasn't just a pleasure trip. This space flight was aimed to focus people’s awareness and eyes of the world on world water issues, poverty and organisations that help people, just like (his own) OneDrop Foundation or Oxfam.
He connected with 14 countries that time. He called this 120-minute performance a „poetic social mission” in space, which surely was a big event.



What does he do in the meantime? He founded an anti-poverty One Drop Foundation as I mentioned before, which cares about access to water in the poorest parts in the world. He has already donated over 100 million dollars.

„Dreams can come true, if we all engage in their creation, our will, energy and creativity. One drop, one step, we all can change the world” - says Laliberte and as we can see on his example, we can.

He is working with James Cameron to produce 3-dimensional motion picture, cooperating with Reebok in fitness program called „Jukari Fit to Fly”, and works on the project „Safewalls” which is an affair with artists.

Guy Laliberte doesn't want to retire his artistic life and prepares a lot of projects for the future, for example Cirque du Soleil is developing its third show based on music of Michael Jackson on October 2011.

At the end I'd like you to see the short show „Alegria” which means „joy”:



What do you think about Guy Laliberte?
Do you like circus or maybe you are afraid of clowns?
How did you like the „Algeria” show?


You can read and watch more here:

Here you can read more about types of shows in Cirque du Soleil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Cirque_du_Soleil
http://www.onedrop.org/en/foundation/guy-laliberte-dream.aspx
I reccomend their official homepage: http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/welcome.aspx
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/theatre/story/2009/10/01/f-guy-laliberte-backgrounder.html
http://www.onedrop.org/en/default.aspx
http://www.safewalls.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Lalibert%C3%A9
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cirque+du+soleil&aq=0