Jamie is a bright, open-minded young boy with a boundless sense of curiosity.

Always willing to meet all sorts of characters, he encounters someone who will

change him profoundly. With courage to spare, Jamie doesn’t hesitate for a

second to embark on a perilous journey to rescue the young girl when she is

kidnapped by formidable ice giants.

Wimpy is a timid young man so afraid of his own shadow that he seeks refuge in

a trash can. But he is destined to discover his own courage.

The Shaman is our narrator and guide in the world of Wintuk. She lives in an

imaginary city with her loyal dogs. Stories are whispered of her strange magic

powers: She has magical powers and can predict the future! Like Jamie, this

brave woman proves to be a true friend when she pulls all the stops to help her

companions in need.

The Young Girl is the same age as Jamie and spends her time taunting him with

silly games. She also has a special relationship with the Shaman and her dogs.

But danger lurks over the horizon where the ice giants hatch their evil plans.

Impervious to the cold, the People of the North are swift and agile. Under the

watchful eye of the High Priestess, they welcome the Shaman and her whimsical

dogs back to their icy homeland.

one is a full-fledged character in its own right:

loyal to the Shaman and become good friends with Jamie and his

companions.

Jamie’s mission and guide the young boy in his magical quest.

A group of young people take an alley and its ramp and hill by storm to present

an acrobatic charivari act. Trial riders mesmerize the audience with their

technical twists, acrobatic turns and one-wheel spins. One of the riders pushes

audacity to the point of executing figures over and around the head of an artist

who lies on the ground. Skateboarders and inline skaters tear up and down the

fide acrobatic discipline.

Can you walk on a clothesline? An acrobat shows it can be done. He stands on

one of the clotheslines transformed into circus apparatus. He performs a series of

striking moves and about-turns as he walks to and fro on a slack wire, showing off

his incredible balancing skills.

A young girl—a street dancer—demonstrates her remarkable juggling skills and

invites everyone to take part in the dance.

A city worker is dispatched to a park where a lamppost is on the blink. The

acrobat performs an astounding balancing act using the countless props his

coworkers toss him—pipes, panels, boards and globes. He piles up the assorted

objects on top cylinders on which he balances. But will he manage to turn the

light back on?

A life-size rag doll tumbles out of a strange package. A thief and a businessman

fight over the seemingly lifeless toy, spinning it around and bending it in

impossible positions. But is it really a rag doll?

A madcap cops-and-robbers-style chase leads into an electric power track

performance featuring precision acrobatics and split-second timing. When

policemen, thieves and even the dogs get caught up in the fun, it’s anyone’s

guess how this heart-stopping trampoline routine will end.

In their icy cold homeland, the People of the North make a buoyant entrance as

they bounce up and down frantically on inner tubes.

Artists representing the People of the North slip inside metallic rings and perform

a surreal "Cyr wheel" act. Jamie discovers that he is a quick learner.

The High Priestess appears at the top of the hill, greeted by her people below.

With the flexibility of a contortionist and the skill of a tightrope walker, the artist

performs a hoops act in which she folds her arms and legs in mind-boggling

positions.

A surprising duo of acrobatic clowns hiding in the land of Wintuk springs into

action to present a high-energy act in which they bounce up and down on Swiss

balls like springs.

Two artists perform an aerial straps act—an acrobatic ballet full of grace and

elegance that symbolizes rebirth, the coming dawn, and the Sun’s victory over

the Shadows.

The hunters’ spears suddenly turn into Russian bars during this unprecedented act

in which the artists leap into the air and land on the bars—on their stomachs or

their hands. The difference between this act and its traditional version is the fact

that several jumps are executed horizontally rather than vertically.

– Simon Carpentier, Composer

lyrical and melodic ride to a land of ice and frost.

From the imaginary urban setting of the first half of the show to the magical

wintry realm of the second, the music blends multiple instruments and genres to

create a riveting and decidedly joyful soundscape. While the audience will

recognize the various musical styles most commonly associated with New York

City—urban rhythms, jazz, hip hop and rhythm and blues, they will quickly be

carried away by the otherworldly rhythms of a fantasy world in which the natural

elements stake their claim.

The world music-infused score features rarely-heard instruments, such as the

mouth harp and the harmonica, to create a mood of infectious high spirits that is

light-years away from the somber tones one might normally associate with the

darkness of the polar night.

The audience will be pulled into a magical world filled with strange noises: stones

scraping against each other, the tinkle of chimes, and breath blowing through a

hollow bone—makeshift instruments that go back to the dawn of time.

narrator and the protector of the young girl—sings in an invented language with

a voice that can "shatter glass."

"The music serves the story and the images and not vice versa, as is the case

the magical setting of the story. "I wanted to create original, evocative music

that would put a smile on people’s faces," adds Simon. "Music that captures the

essence of what the show is all about."

which are oversized marionettes embodied or operated by live artists.

To breathe life into these fantastical creatures, Cirque du Soleil called upon two

experts in their field: René Charbonneau (for the lampposts and ice giants),

cofounder of Théâtre de la Dame de Coeur (Quebec), and Michael Curry (for

the dogs and birds), who is also the puppets designer of KÀ, LOVE and CRISS

ANGEL Believe.

The lampposts and the ice giants are designed and engineered to move as

naturally as possible, and they are finished in materials, colors and textures that

endow them with distinct, individual personalities, capable of expressing a full

spectrum of emotions through their movements and facial expressions.

The human-sized puppets—the five canine characters and the birds—are

costume hybrid devices worn by the performers. They are designed to

accentuate the acrobatic proficiency of the artists while maintaining the

animals' natural movements.

necks, turn their heads and even bat their eyelashes. Their movements are

powered by compressed air.

dynamic union between acrobat and puppet. Fusing form and function,

the body puppets were designed to help the acrobats truly feel the

animals they embody.

light because they are built on armatures made of aluminum and cloth.

snowstorms are very familiar to anyone from Quebec, but I'd never had the

opportunity to work with them in the theatre before," says Set Designer Patricia

Ruel. "The brilliance of ice and the appeal of its luminosity have given me a

whole new atmospheric and visual vocabulary to explore. One of the challenges

I faced is the inescapable fact that snow is white – and that was quite a

challenge for the lighting and the projection designs too. The theme of winter

gave rise to new concepts and encouraged me to explore new materials and

textures."

considering the idea of representing cold and snow on stage, set designer

Patricia Ruel had to confront a problem of scale… literally. The dimensions of the

WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden – an auditorium with a 20-ft ceiling

above the 100-ft wide stage – imposed constraints that in the end offered some

unexpected possibilities.

For the Fast Track act, the stage floor opens up to reveal an elongated, 17-

meter-long and 1.8-meter-wide overlapping trampoline on which acrobats

execute high-powered gymnastic and tumbling sequences in unison and in

counterpoint.

and the Land of the North. It opens in the Alley, where clothes lines are

festooned with 205 garments, to suggest the bustling life and activity of an

imaginary urban community. Inline skaters and cyclists speed along ramps

that run the full 100-ft width of the stage.

mythical Land of the North, where a seemingly fragile lacy Frozen Forest

has been cut out of an extremely tough white fabric used to make

temporary winter car ports. The material reflects light and evokes the

crackling cold of winter.

the lighting to create a wintry setting in which huge Ice Giants and Arctic

birds can come to life. The designs on the white velvet stage curtains were

etched into the fabric with acid.

large and 60 million small snowflakes will fall inside the WaMu Theater at

Madison Square Garden! That’s 100 million snowflakes total—or roughly

one million per show!