Lydia

So, obviously, it’s based on the movie Avatar by James Cameron. We all played Na’vis, which are the blue people with the tales. So, my job was… basically, I was different Na’vi clan members. So, I was in four clans, and each clan had a different circus skill, basically. And there was a really nice story about these three teenagers going on a quest to save Pandora, which is the planet. And on the way, they would meet these different clan members. So, I did rope as part of the Omaticaya Clan. I did some aerial harness as part of the Tawkami Clan, who were in charge of flowers, and it was very beautiful. As part of the Anurai Clan, I did this, like, weird balancing skeleton structure. And then Tipani was the warrior clan, and I did Chinese pole in that. I also did a bit of wall-running at the end to save the day. There was a lot of lava, and they needed some Na’vis to climb a wall and break it down, and that was my job as well. It was a really big show. There [were] 35 cast members. Everyone had a completely different role. There was no one kind of doubled-up, which made it really interesting and fun because you could really make it your own. There was a lot of physical theatre and acting involved, lots of movement. So, it wasn’t your average Cirque du Soleil show, it wasn’t just about the tricks. There was a narrative that informed everything you did. You’ve got to save Pandora! A lot of people watched the show each night. Arenas are the venues where big rock concerts take place. I think the most we had was 12,000 audience members, but it would kind of regularly be about 8,000 in a crowd each night and, obviously, that’s a lot of seats. So, the show had to be huge, had to be very visually impactful so that everyone could see it, even if you were really, really far away at the very, very highest seat, you could still see what was happening. To help that, we had these video projections that were mapped to the set. It brought the set alive. One scene, we’d have a river and that was made by the projections, and in another scene a load of flowers would appear, and that was the projections. So, it was really like stepping on to the planet. You were fully immersed, the audience as well.