Rock and Roll! We’re celebrating 25 years of Cirque Bijou. Each month we are looking back on some of our favourite projects from over the years…
Cirque Bijou have had the pleasure of creating work for major recording artists and music awards shows over the years. We’ve shared stages with Taylor Swift, Muse, Take That, Katy Perry, Alicia Keys, Mika, Travis Scott and Pitbull.
The brief for these types of shows are always quite unique. It’s about bringing a highly visual and unexpected element to wow large audiences. They usually have to be relatively self contained, tourable, durable and of course very safe. From designing new props, structures and special effects to selecting the right makers, performers and other artistic specialists, we have learnt so much along the way and had many unforgettable moments.
Prop and SFX
An unparalleled project for Cirque Bijou was creating this giant robot Charles for MUSE. We toured Europe with Muse, Charles, a giant flying lightbulb, a spouting ‘petrol’ pump and actors who played parts in the flamboyant stage show. For other Muse shows we created huge shimmering silver flying UFOs with real live aliens suspended beneath them!
We made some pyrotechnic backpacks for Katy Perry. These contraptions create a human ‘Catherine wheel’ effect, and were worn by our dancers onstage flanking the pop star. No prizes for guessing which song that was for! We also commissioned a flock of beautiful bird puppets from carnival specialists Mahogany for Katy Perry’s headline slot on X factor final. They lasted beautifully and we’ve been able to reuse them many times for private and public events like Countryfile Live and Bristol Harbour Festival.
For Alicia Keys at MTV EMAs, the brief was to add some sparkle and fire to her performance. With very little time to rehearse with the artist herself, we needed to be sure that our spectacular performance was technically rehearsed and ready to perform whenever she was ready. It got a bit hot in the studio that day – but the results were worth it – see below!
It’s always an amazing opportunity to work on projects of this scale. It has taught us a lot about playing to huge audiences and making tour-proof props and effects.
Take a look at our Vimeo Showcase, highlighting our favourite shows from the past 25 years…
Photo credit: Thea Payne, Jeff Kravitz/Film Magic