I don’t know if you know this, but I’m kind of a big deal (sarcasm). Whether you think I’m cool or not, I did have the opportunity to go behind the scenes with Cirque du Soleil at the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids today. And that, my friends, is actually a big deal. You guys! This show is going to be amazing and I can’t wait to see it tonight!
If you follow me on social media, you may have seen that one of the aerialists in the show, Erin Cervantes, grew up in Cedar Rapids. Like how I casually slipped that in there? MIND. BLOWN. We have a lot of local talent, but it’s not every day Cirque du Soleil comes to town with a Cedar Rapidian performing in the show. I had the pleasure of interviewing Erin before she arrived in Cedar Rapids and learned that her journey to joining Cirque du Soleil wasn’t at all what you might expect.
Erin Cervantes has been a dancer since age 4 and grew up knowing she wanted to be involved in the theatre in some way. She has been interested in performing and acting most of her life. Her love for theatre runs in her family as her dad was a former theatre director at Theatre Cedar Rapids. After graduating from Washington High School, Erin found her way to Los Angeles via Columbia College in Chicago. She applied for a ‘semester in LA’ program and moved there to attend a 5 week program where she worked in production. She then moved to LA full time and was pursuing an acting career. Erin started taking ballet classes as a way to stay active and met a girl who was taking circus classes for fun. On a whim, she decided to give these circus classes a try and quickly realized she had a talent for it. She was 30 years old at the time. In 2013, she sent videos to Cirque du Soleil of her choreography and was invited to Las Vegas to audition. They kept her videos on file and in 2017 was offered a contract to start rehearsals for the Corteo show. They rehearsed for 5 months and opened in March 2018. Erin said several times during our call how happy she is to be performing in her hometown and how nice it will be to go home and see her family during their time in Cedar Rapids. She doesn’t get a chance to visit home very often as Cirque is always on the road touring. Erin, if you’re reading this: WELCOME HOME!
I also had the opportunity to go behind the scenes before the show. Check out my Instagram story to see allll the details, but here are a few fun facts about the show to get you jazzed up.
Fun fact #1: Cirque du Soleil performers, they’re just like us! They do laundry too! 🙂 In fact, they do up to 20 loads of laundry per day.
Fun fact #2: the only music in the show is live. They do this so that if adjustments need to be made, they can extend the music and carry on like the pros they are.
Fun fact #3: there are 52 performers in the show. Each performer can play multiple characters in the show and each character can change up to 6 times. Kinda makes your head spin, right?
Fun fact #4: each performer does their own make-up for the show. They do not staff any pros to do hair/make-up. The case below is the make-up case. Basically every beauty blogger’s dream.
Fun fact #5: this is the only show happening in Iowa, so get your tickets! The show runs until May 5 and tickets range from $48-$118. Children’s tickets start as low as $39. If you go to the show, I’d love to hear from you!
Stay tuned on my social pages for more live event giveaways!
See ya on the next post.
-Megan
