...At the time that I was studying, I was also working in the industry as a stagehand, so I had an idea of how it was outside in the real world. Mostly I was working in the English theatre in Montreal. I was also a stagehand for loading in rock-and-roll tours that pulled into town.

The thing I like about rock-and-roll gigs was that there were almost no sets. I was fascinated by how lights could completely redefine space. You pretty much decide the image--the vision the spectator is going to have. It's an incredible power--to take a complete space, a piece of scenery or an action, and decide that this is the vision that people are going to have, and this is how I am going to try to influence them. Because you are obviously trying to evoke something. And I thought that this was pretty exciting.

But the moment that I got out of university, I went to work for Cirque du Soleil. What happened was that I graduated in 1984, which coincided with the 450th anniversary of the discovery of Canada, by the French at least. The government at the time was looking for ways to mark these celebrations and was open to suggestions. The founders of Cirque du Soleil, who had been doing some theater on stilts for some time, applied for a grant and--poof--voila. One of the guys who had been working with them was also studying with me at university. He asked me if I wanted to go out and tour with them. I had already sent out a few applications but had gotten no response, so I said, "Sure, why not!"

Of course this was the cherry on the cake for my parents--initially, their son dropped psychology to go do theater, and the first job that he gets upon graduation is to tour with a circus, pitching a tent in the Quebec countryside! What happened?! You know, it was funny, because the first few years while I was working in the industry, I remember my dad kept on saying, "What about psychology?" Keep in mind that the first Cirque tour was only three months. In any case, at one point, I had to put my foot down as they say, and that was the last we heard of it. That also coincided with my first lighting design. It was really important to my parents that I not just be...I want to be careful, because I don't want this to sound...how do you say, perjoratif... They didn't want me to be pitching tents or pushing road cases around too long. There needed to be some creativity involved. I tried to get them interested in my lighting. I guess when they saw it for themselves, things changed.

When I started designing Cirque du Soleil, I had already been touring with them for two years as their board operator. They tried two designers originally. Both were from theatre, but every year they were considering new designers, because I guess they weren't happy. So I told them, "Look, you're not going to find a circus designer in Montreal, and the person who's got the most experience is me." I said, "Why don't you let me try it?" And they said, "OK."

We opened the show in Vancouver in '86, and we got really good reviews. The '86 tour was also the tour that put us in contact with the people at the Los Angeles Art Festival, which was our first show in the U.S. We took a gamble with the Art Festival, which was our first show in the U.S. We took a gamble with the Art Festival, because we told them, "We'll go, but there is only one condition--we want to do the opening night, the gala." And they agreed. We took all the money that we had and bought airline tickets. If it didn't work, there was no money left to bring people back home. We would have all been stuck. So that is why the gala opening was so important.

The Festival was great. We were headlining with acts such as the Mahabarata and the Lyons Opera Ballet, and a bunch of companies like that. So all of a sudden, it took circus and elevated it. And it worked, it just sold out. From that moment on, it was sold out for a year and a half. We toured places like New York and San Francisco, and everywhere it was the same story, sold out. Then in '89, we made a mistake. We went out with the same show in places where we'd already been, with a new cast, and that didn't work. The show had been developed around the personalities of the actors and the acrobats. They had been as much a part of the creative process as the designers. I don't think you can substitute actors so easily.

I feel that working with Cirque du Soleil, I am one of the luckiest designers around, because it allows me that flexibility. The artistic designer and I talk about the show a lot. We don't talk about scenario or blocking or anything like that. We talk about the action. We talk about the intention. We talk about our motivation, what it is we are trying to say. What's our gut feeling about the show. And once we share a clear vision we go into rehearsals. The rehearsal process is a bit ad hoc, it's very intuitive. We still don't have any idea about who is going to enter at what time, on stage right or stage left. We still don't know that. We know what the set is going to be, we know who the characters are going to be and how they relate to each other, but that's it. All that's left is to write the show.

It's also interesting, because we try not to confine ourselves to a scenario. So we don't have the obligation of justifying a scenario or an action throughout the whole show. You know, as you walk into a theatre and your characters inhabit the set for the first time, you start finding out things that otherwise you never would have known. When we first go into rehearsals, there are a few lights hanging. I prefer to just sit in the house and look at what's happening, and then make propositions to the artistic director: "Well, I could do this, or I could do that, and then that would give you the possibility of doing something else." The thing that happens though is that during the day I just sit there and let the director do his thing, and try to get a sense of where all this is going and design as we go along. It makes for rather long days, though, because of course while the director is working, we can't really go onstage and start hanging. So instead we wait and hang at night, a little here and a little there, and eventually things fall into place.

Of course there are drawbacks in the way we work, because we are always up against impossible deadlines. Nouvelle Expérience was rough. One week before we opened we still had problems taking what we had discussed as our intentions and translating them onto the stage. It got really tense at one point. You could feel the tension and the pressure, but eventually things fell into place. When the show opened, it wasn't quite ready, but it evolved quickly. I guess opening night was no longer a concern. It seems that our shows constantly evolve, from the moment they open to the moment they close, which is very exciting. It keeps the show fresh. And I have a very tolerant crew--they don't mind that too much.

Also if everything is canned and cued, it can create a problem because of the nature of the show. We need to be able to override real quick. People onstage get hurt and, because we do up to ten shows a week, some of the acts move around. The actors don't just do their act, they also participate in the action and they will maybe personify three or four characters, so that there is quite a lot that's asked of them. But it's also very exciting.

With Cirque du Soleil we all contribute to the show through our lighting, costumes, sets and music, and choreography. We all write the show together. Our shows really are a succession of images. The downside of having so many contributors is that at one point you have to make it all fit, to blend all these elements together. The "filtering," as we call it, allows me to go up to the musical director and say, "Well, that's not quite the vision I had" of this act--and we discuss it and start moving things around. And it's not to say that it's necessarily the lighting that's going to be last to adapt to the music or to the scenery. It's pretty flexible.

I'd like to do architectural lighting--and that also comes from Cirque du Soleil, from lighting the space, the sets and the tents. I'd like to do a kind of architectural performance lighting, with huge cranes and movement that evolve--not just lighting a static building. I'd also like to go back to theater now--but something with an edge, something more experimental or avante-garde. I'd like to do it in a setting where people are not afraid of darkness.

I remember on Nouvelle Expérience there was one period that I came home at night and just cried all the time. And I don't know how come it came to that, but that was it. That was the extent of my involvement in that production. And I don't know if that would happen working with other people.

I'm interested to see where the lighting is going to go in the next ten years. I'm interested to see if the turn of the century is going to affect our perception of lighting. It's going to be such a dramatic moment for everyone, the twenty-first century. And I wonder if it's going to have an influence on us.