Cirque du Soleil expansion looks to tap into Asian demand for shows

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At least once a week since Normand Latourelle brought his horses to Hong Kong, his phone has pinged with a request from mainland China: Can you bring your show to our city?

Mr. Latourelle is the founder of Cavalia, the big-tent equine ballet that is part rodeo, part Cirque du Soleil.

Hong Kong is the fourth stop on an Asia tour that started in Singapore in the fall, before hitting Seoul and Taipei. In Hong Kong, he's charging more for tickets than ever before. But the show keeps getting extended and the crowds keep coming.

So do the requests. The next stop – already confirmed – is Shanghai. Then, perhaps, Beijing. After that he's not sure, but he has travelled to Guangzhou and Wuhan to speak with promoters there.

"It's amazing how hungry they are for entertainment. I can't believe it," said Mr. Latourelle.

It's that hunger that the buyers of Cirque du Soleil, which include China's Fosun Group, hope to feed with plans for a major Asian expansion of the Canadian company's dazzling shows.

But it's not clear that Cirque will find a reception as warm as Mr. Latourelle's. In China, a country with centuries of its own acrobatic traditions, history has not been kind to the colourful insanity that has been the Quebec company's trademark.

Cirque staged its first mainland Chinese show in Shanghai in 2007, which chief executive officer Daniel Lamarre then called a "major, major breakthrough." At the time, he expected to open a permanent show in Beijing or Shanghai within four years.

It did not happen; in 2008, Cirque opened a permanent show in Macau instead, with a 10-year contract and a $150-million (U.S.) custom theatre.

Three and a half years later, it was shut down after seats went 60 per cent empty and money was bleeding away. Cirque has blamed its misfortune on Macau, which draws Chinese intent on gambling rather than family entertainment. Mr. Lamarre told The Globe and Mail in late April that "no show has worked so far in Macau."

But the House of Dancing Water, a fountains and motorcycles extravaganza, has been wowing Macau audiences since 2010. Its creator, Franco Dragone, directed 10 Cirque du Soleil productions before leaving in 1998.

"Why has one worked while the other has not? Because one used water. Chinese have never seen a water show," said Mr. Latourelle, himself a Cirque du Soleil co-founder.

He believes that explains Cavalia's popularity, too – horses are not only rare in China's concrete jungles, they have mythic importance as one of the signs of the Chinese Zodiac.

Cirque's Chinese outings, on the other hand, have all so far "failed. It didn't work," he said.

"The Chinese have the best acrobats in the world. How can you beat the best in the world? It's not with makeup, music and costumes. That's not enough. You have to come with a very original product that is totally different."

There's no doubt that China offers a potentially lucrative market, after a years-long performing arts boom. The country has privatized state-run performance troupes and required developers to build cultural spaces inside shopping malls and apartment complexes. It has unleashed a wave of new spending: From 2008 to 2011, national performing arts box office receipts grew 15-fold, with big-name performances such as Mamma Mia! staging runaway successes.

But it can be a tough place for performers. In 2013, amid a corruption crackdown and accompanying frugality campaign, the performing arts box office take actually shrank – to $2.5-billion – and the number of employees in the sector dropped by 15 per cent. Last year, the China Association of Performing Arts said 40 per cent of the country's theatres are either unused or dedicated to only amateur shows.

Alison Friedman, founder of Beijing-based producing and consulting agency Ping Ping Productions, likes to call China's performing arts market undeveloped, rather than untapped. It is short on professional programmers and established touring circuits. Staging a performance requires not just coming up with a great show, but also building some of the infrastructure necessary to put it in front of audiences.

She is, however, hopeful that performing arts will become "as much of a gold rush as with tech and other industries" in China.

Cirque, she said, has an advantage as a well-known brand.

"China's a little bit obsessed with Cirque," she said. "There's a bit of an inferiority complex about Cirque in China because there's a feeling that: 'Darn you, acrobatics are our thing. How dare you take it and do it bigger and better and more creatively than we did?'"

And acrobat-weary China may not be as tough to crack as it might seem. Chinese acrobatic shows are more akin to athletic performances – high on technique but low on story, said Zhu Ning, the international liaison officer for the International Association of Theatre Critics.

Cirque's "performance combines acting with theatre. It is very unique. I think it will work for some Chinese audiences."

The acrobats may, however, have to compete with the horses.

Mr. Latourelle hopes Asia will work out well enough that he won't have to take his horses across the Pacific. Like Cirque before him, he has his eyes on a permanent presence in Beijing or Shanghai. Both cities draw crowds of tourists, meaning there's a steady flow of fresh audiences. And China looks appealing next to declining ticket sales in Vegas.

"That's one of the goals," he said. "If we could have a permanent show somewhere, it could be China."