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Cirque du Soleil: "Alegria" and HIV Policy

My wife and I went to see Cirque du Soleil’s “Alegria” today (yes, it’s “Alegria”, not “Allegria”), up in San Francisco near Pac Bell Park. Got first dibs at tix as one of those perks of being a SF Giants season ticketholder (of course, the perk that really mattered to us were the playoff games, and unfortunately there were only two of those this year — call us spoiled for being disappointed with that). It’s the third Cirque du Soleil I’ve seen. I caught “Dralion” when it hit San Jose on its tour several years ago, and then “O” twice in Vegas (my wife has also seen “Mystere”).

“O” is clearly the best of the three that I’ve seen (it’s the one with all the water — French word for water is “eau”, get it?), but it’s not really a fair comparison, since it was the only one I saw that wasn’t on tour, and there’s a lot more you can do on a real stage, especially like the one at the Bellagio. That, plus I’m probably a bit biased towards a show based on water. :)

As for “Alegria”, the show did get off to a bit of a rocky start. The first trapeze act seemed to have some sort of issue with his safety line or something, and he apparently completely blew a trick near the end and then passed it off as his dismount. And in the act with the trampolines, a couple of tumblers didn’t nail their landings. And then the girl with the ribbon and the hula-hoops got the ribbon caught on her foot. But each of these minor mishaps were dealt with smoothly; the performers were clearly total pros and didn’t miss a beat moving on, playing it all off as if it were part of the show.

The rest of the show went without a hitch, and all of it was very breathtaking (I almost wondered if the early mishaps were intentional to make the audience a little more on edge when the real dangerous stuff went on… naah). I was amazed by how much they could do in the air, given the relatively small confines of the tent. The only real letdown of the show was the strongman (I don’t know how that act fools anybody in this day and age), but our favorite part was definitely the girl with the hoops, ribbon mishap notwithstanding.

There’s not too much I can say about the show. Cirque du Soleil is one of those things you either love or hate, and they’ve been around long enough that if you really wanted to see one, you’d probably have done so by now, and nothing I’d say would probably make a difference either way. Obviously, I like them enough to have seen several of the shows. The performers really go the extra mile to really put on a great show and try to immerse you in the experience. There are plenty of times where several performers are doing a lot of complicated things in the background. Plus, the live music and the elaborate costumes lend a surreal quality to the proceedings.

Of course, you may not have heard, but there’s a bit of controversy surrounding Cirque du Soleil lately regarding their firing of HIV-positive gymnast Matthew Cusick from “Mystere”, claiming he posed a danger to other performers. The company counters that Cusick would have been welcomed in other jobs at Cirque du Soleil that involve less physical contact. Apparently there was a protest at the San Francisco show on November 6th, and my wife, who’s very active in the GLBT community (here’s a bit of an explanation, in case you were wondering why), was aware of the case and was on the lookout for protesters today, but we didn’t see any.

Of course, we’d already bought the tickets months ago, so not showing up wouldn’t really accomplish all that much, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on how this pans out. It seems to me that Cusick has a valid complaint. This additional article on Cusick from the Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network notes that “there are no documented cases of HIV transmission between two athletes during a sports event,” which isn’t too much of a surprise. Even in contact sports, open wounds coming into contact are extremely rare, except perhaps in boxing (and really, if they cut down on the ear-biting, that’d go a long way). And as the CDC points out, even if “an open wound came in contact with an HIV-positive athlete who is bleeding, the odds of transmission would be less than 0.3 percent”, and of course, that’s a big if anyway.

I’d figured most people understood all this by now after the whole Magic Johnson deal, but I guess I was wrong.

Update 12/23/03

Anyway, not too much has changed (the San Francisco Human Rights Commission will make a decision early next year), but there’s a new story in the San Francisco Chronicle noting that Cirque du Soleil “categorically denies that it discriminates against any individual on the basis of HIV status,” but claims they are legally entitled to decide what jobs are available to its HIV-positive employees.

Update 5/16/03

Alls well that ends well. The two sides have reached a settlement.