Creative control | 5 years ago | August 3, 2001 | Carolyn Clay sat down with Cirque du Soleil costume designer Francois Barbeau.
“One of the key colorists, costume designer Francois Barbeau, is … eager to explain his art. Created by director Guy Caron, Dralion is the first Cirque show to be designed by a new team of which Barbeau is a part. The veteran designer has taught at Montreal’s Nationale Theatre School and has created threads for theater, film, and ballet. Dralion’s nearly 100 costumes, however, presented a particular challenge: not only do the duds have to dazzle, they have to flex, since 37 of the show’s 56 performers are Chinese acrobats. ‘The creation was more technique than pure creation,’ says Barbeau. ‘I’ve learned a lot from what I’ve done, but the circus was just like a test — how to get the ideas through and keep the acrobats free for all their movements.’…
“Each of Cirque du Soleil’s elaborate shows, including those ensconced in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas and at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, has a succinct moniker and a concept … According to Barbeau, Dralion revived ‘an old dream of [Cirque founding director] Guy Laliberte and Guy Caron to travel in China. They had the idea of doing a Chinese show, or a show with a lot of Chinese people.’ Dralion’s name, he explains, sprang from an ancient Chinese entertainment. ‘The lion act is one of the Chinese classics. Within one costume there are two men; one is the head and the other is the bottom, and they do all kinds of acrobatic numbers. When I was in China, Guy Caron gave me a little Chinese dragon; it’s like a good-luck charm. And that little dragon was half dragon, half lion. So we had the idea of ‘dralion.’ Usually the traditional Chinese lion costume is like pajamas they both wear, and they have a blanket for the head. But we wanted to be more sophisticated, and we really went to town with it. It’s quite spectacular in a way. And the number is quite breathtaking too.’ ”
Ghost town | 10 years ago | August 2, 1996 | Joe Bonni reported on heroin use in the Boston music scene.
“You’ve probably already heard that heroin is once again the scourge of rock. Less than three weeks ago, Smashing Pumpkins’ touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin overdosed on the stuff while shooting with Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlain in a hotel room. Many others have fallen: Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, Hole’s Kristen Pfaff, Stefanie Sargent of Seven Year Bitch. Now, in the wake of the popularity of the novel and film Trainspotting, we are told that a new “heroin chic” has taken hold.…
“What you probably aren’t hearing is that the supposedly ‘sudden’ resurgence of heroin in rock and roll is hardly sudden. Resurgence stories have been popping up for years.
“What you also aren’t hearing is that in its own way, Boston is a leader in the sorry world where music and the needle intersect. Heroin use here has been on the rise since at least the mid 1980s. It has grown into a problem of such serious proportions that Morgan’s story [of moving to New York and returning to find almost all her friends using] begins to seem disturbingly familiar.
