Rethinking the Circus

The thought of Cirque du Soleil would possibly invite pictures of extravagant stay exhibits with clowns, acrobats and hearth breathers. The firm is attempting to alter that.

Cirque du Soleil got here out of the pandemic in tough form. So it determined to construct a extra expansive, catastrophe-proof model — aiming to promote not simply exhibits but in addition sun shades, perfumes and video video games, as my colleague Emma Goldberg wrote in a narrative documenting its transformation.

“Cirque is a funny example of an attempt at cultural reinvention because I don’t even think of circuses as trying to be relevant,” Emma instructed me. “They were asking the question, ‘Why isn’t Gen Z interested in the circus?’ That almost feels rhetorical. It’s because 5-year-olds are into the circus.”

The choice got here after months of conferences with consultants. Because they have been speaking in regards to the circus as an alternative of, say, banking, folks dropped phrases like, “I think there’s a real opportunity to elevate the art of clowning” and “Don’t focus on the Cirque, focus on the Soleil.”

Still, the conferences succeeded in giving Cirque du Soleil a sweeping plan to rework itself. This week, the corporate will launch a online game on the favored gaming platform Roblox. It produced a present final month for Motorola to introduce a brand new cellphone. It is engaged on a line of dwelling items (assume psychedelic curtains) and a tv documentary sequence (present title: “Down to Clown”).

“They’re saying: ‘Forget the circus. Forget the red-nosed clown and the big tent and the popcorn. Think about this as an artistic statement,’” Emma mentioned. “And they’re trying to channel that into selling consumer products.”

Read Emma’s full story, which incorporates extra dazzling pictures of Cirque du Soleil performances, to see how the modifications are faring.

NEWS

Politics

Israel

• Benjamin Netanyahu had an unplanned coronary heart process to implant a pacemaker. Doctors mentioned afterward that the Israeli prime minister was “doing very well.”

• Netanyahu was anticipated to remain within the hospital for at the very least a day, casting uncertainty over his authorities’s deeply contentious plan to move a legislation tomorrow to restrict judicial energy.

• A far-long column of demonstrators marched into Jerusalem to protest the proposal. Follow our updates.

International

• In Spain’s elections at present, mainstream conservatives might come out on prime, however they might almost certainly want hard-right allies to manipulate.

• Mismanagement and U.S. sanctions devastated Venezuela’s oil business, abandoning leaking pipelines and polluted neighborhoods.

• Belarus’s chief, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has additional cracked down on dissent since crushing protests three years in the past.

• A person who was kicked out of a bar in Mexico as a result of he was harassing girls, witnesses mentioned, returned later and threw a firebomb on the membership, killing at the very least 11.

Health

Other Big Stories

FROM OPINION

Algorithms on social media are denying younger folks the thrill of exploration and discovery, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut argues.

Many males battle to make new mates. One thought to alleviate this loneliness: Go play pickleball, Michelle Cottle says.

Smartphone apps and QR codes have been imagined to make journey less complicated. Instead, they’ve made it extra annoying, Jessica Grose writes.

The Sunday query: Should No Labels discipline a presidential candidate?

The group is successfully a surrogate for Trump as a result of it could siphon voters who aren’t passionate about Biden, David Faris writes in Newsweek. But Democrats are making the case in opposition to a third-party candidate so strongly that they might insulate Biden from its impact, Aaron Blake writes in The Washington Post.

Magical creatures: The eccentric, enchanting animated movies of Studio Ghibli, theme-park-style.

Hollywood’s secret weapon: Ann Roth is the costume designer behind iconic seems to be in “Midnight Cowboy,” “Working Girl” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

Wheels of fortune: Cheese is a part of Switzerland’s id. So why is it importing greater than it’s exporting?

Vows: She dreamed of discovering love at Whole Foods, however she found it on Twitter as an alternative.

Lives Lived: Richard Barancik was the final surviving member of the Allied unit referred to as the Monuments Men and Women, which preserved European artworks and cultural treasures that Nazi Germany had looted. He died at 98.

TALK | FROM THE TIMES MAGAZINE

Joyce Carol Oates, one in every of America’s best dwelling writers, is the creator of the brand new short-story assortment “Zero-Sum.” I spoke with Oates, who’s 85, in regards to the legacies we go away behind.

In your e book “On Boxing,” you might have a line about how, for fighters, life is in regards to the combat and the remainder is simply ready. Do you are feeling that method about writing?

That’s query. It factors to a philosophical problem of what’s important in our lives and what’s existential or incidental. My husband was a professor, and we talked about books on a regular basis. Though we talked and talked for years, I don’t actually do not forget that dialogue. All I’ve left of all that happiness is my writing of that point. It’s a type of devastating reality. Everything that you just assume is strong is definitely fleeting and ephemeral.

Does it provide you with any solace to know that you just at the very least have these books that you just wrote throughout that interval of happiness?

I suppose it has some solace to it; in any other case, issues would all be misplaced. If you learn Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” Ovid writes about how, in case you’re studying this, I’m immortal. You see that theme in Shakespeare’s sonnets: You’re studying this, so I’m nonetheless alive. In reality, they’re not alive, they’re gone. But whereas they have been alive, they did have that additional dimension of their lives. That just isn’t nothing.

So having a physique of labor to depart behind ameliorates the sensation of issues being gone out of your life?

I don’t know the right way to reply that. We begin shedding folks. That’s the human expertise, and also you all of a sudden understand that the human expertise goes to be your expertise. When that begins to occur to you, it’s fairly gorgeous.

Read extra of the interview right here.

More from the journal

BOOKS

Read your method by: To take in life on the streets of Salvador, Brazil, begin with Jorge Amado, the author Itamar Vieira Junior says.

Our editors’ picks: “My Hijacking,” a memoir, and eight different books.

Times greatest sellers: “Beyond the Story,” an oral historical past of the Okay-pop group BTS, debuts on the prime of the hardcover nonfiction checklist.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Fortify your self with the correct gear for touring with kids.

Help garments last more with a number of laundry methods.

Stop excited about work at 2 a.m.; attempt distracting your self or these different ideas.

Set your wedding ceremony date with assist from a rising development: astrological steerage.

THE WEEK AHEAD

What to Watch For

• Besides Spain, Cambodia can also be holding elections at present.

• Israel’s Parliament was anticipated to vote tomorrow on a divisive proposal to overtake its judiciary, although Netanyahu’s hospitalization might alter that plan.

• The Federal Reserve is predicted to lift rates of interest on Wednesday.

• The president’s son Hunter Biden is scheduled to plead responsible on Wednesday to tax-related misdemeanors.

• President Biden will host the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, on the White House on Thursday.

• Iowa’s Republican Party will maintain its Lincoln Dinner on Friday. Trump, DeSantis, Scott and different candidates are scheduled to talk.

What to Cook This Week