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back to part 2 of Singing with Cirque du Soleil
...improvisation on the show:
J: I know we had a conversation on Premiere night
about how fixed is the job. I mean do you repeat everything
absolutely identically every show or is there complete leeway or do
you have to have certain things that you know you have to go round
in case…
C: Right. There are certain… you kinda create your own vamps.
There are certain things you create in order to elongate a phrase
like this. I mean I just sang a gig just a moment ago and there was
a lot of problem with setting up the [Russian] swings. So vocally it
was hard because I was singing a line with Isabelle [the
other singer in the London production]. If I would have just cut
out, she could have gone on and created something and vice versa ,
but together we were just locked in a phrase that was so monotonous,
it was just ridiculous. And we had a meeting afterwards, “If that
ever happens, Craig you stop and Isabelle you can go free”. Because
we made it sound like a mistake because of the fact we kept
repeating the same thing over and over again.
J: Yes, I get that. That’s fascinating. And for me that’s the
great thing about live performances – you never know what’s going to
happen.
C: Exactly.
voice lessons:
J: I want to go back to your voice lessons in New York. What sort
of things were you doing with your voice teacher and why?
OK, well first off one of the major criticisms that I got from
the audition and also from my first tape that I sent in was that
they felt as if I never really held out any nice, long full notes.
J: Yeah?
C: Everything was very like abbreviated and hard and crusty. They
felt like –
No.1. They wondered if I just didn’t have the support to do that,
or
2. if I didn’t have the technique to do that. So the first thing
that we did - we found that I didn’t really have the technique and I
was more like in a shouting kind of voice. This was where I had to
take a vowel and sing it out, and it was kind of a foreign voice for
me.
My teacher Caroline Keller was working with me on my vowels and
really getting inside them and singing my vowels not necessarily
singing the consonants. And we worked hard and we identified that
most of my vowels were stuck in the back of my mouth and I was
singing with really just the consonants in the front of my mouth and
that’s why I wasn’t able to hold any long notes. And so that’s what
we worked on.
As we went on and on I would use what we did in the lessons on
the tapes I was making for Cirque, to show that, to use that more
and more.
At one point it became too much the other way, it became too
legato, there was no expression any more.
J: Yeah. But that’s such a great idea to actually put down on
tape, you know, the stuff in practice that you had been learning in
your lessons and then sending them off to them to say “Look, this is
what I’ve been learning in my lessons, this is what I’m doing.” It’s
great.
C: I think so. But I don’t know with other shows whether you
would have that luxury. Cirque has a large casting department and
they do keep files on people. I’m not sure whether it works like
that in the Music Theatre world or whether it would just be agents
that keep a file on you.
J: Some casting directors keep files, some directors actually,
they sort of hold memories of people, and that’s why some actors
will often get asked to step straight into the recalls.
C: OK
J: But my guess is that because Cirque is such a great industry
and it’s extremely well organised, I should think that’s fairly
unusual to have that amount of detail on your file.
warming up before the show:
J: I have a question which is about performances. How many shows do
you do a week?
C: Well now in London we’re going to do nine shows a week for the
rest of the run. We did one week of ten but sales on the Wednesday
matinee just weren’t conducive to continuing it so we’re going to
stick with nine. But the city is selling very well.
J: How do you do nine shows a week?
C: You just sort of come here and do it!
J: Do you do any special warm-ups, do you get your voice ready?
Or are you so ingrained in that job now that you can just step onto
the stage and do it?
C: No, no, there’s no way I can do that. I have a Pilates
instructor that I work with four days a week, and I don’t think I
would have the stamina for this kind of schedule if it wasn’t for
this kind of work. It stretches me and also I find that it
strengthens me and I’m really working against gravity. So I find
strength in it and I find the stretch. At one point I was just doing
Yoga and I felt just exhausted all the time when I would come on. Of
course, Yoga is such a… you say what kind of Yoga there’s so many
kinds of Yoga, and Pilates for that matter. Anyway I have a Russian
Pilates instructor that I work with and then when it comes to
warming up vocally I have my little ritual. I do a 15 minute warmup
on work days. It’s no longer than that, it’s essentially scales and
vowels. I just like identify the vowels (mi mi mi mi) Like this kind
of thing, and I run up and down the scales and focus, remind my
voice to go up through the nose and like straight up and get it –
make sure that the elevator is in the front of my face and not in
the middle or at the back…
J: Oh, I like that
C: Otherwise it’s horrendous
J: That’s a great image.
C: It’s kind of like if you’re a golfer. I find that 15 minutes
is like taking a few swings before you go out golfing, you know? I
don’t go overboard with it because at the end of the day it’s just
too much on my voice..
J: Sure
C: And I try to stay off the phone in the week. I find that being
on the phone and talking to mates in between shows, that’s pretty
exhausting for the voice.
J: Well, I’m very honoured! Thank you.
C: No problem. Well, this is Sunday so I feel as if I’ve already
made it! I only have one more show…
J: You do make a lot of different sounds in the show.
C: Yeah, for sure.
chanting:
J: Were we right in thinking we heard overtone singing?
C: Yes, that was the Tuvan throat singing. Cirque sent me a coach
in Montreal who is a teacher and does lots of groups like that in
Montreal. His name is Bernard Dubreuil and he basically brought me
up to speed. And I’m lobbying right now to get him sent back here to
give me the next regimen.
Because I’m not really doing overtones. That’s what I want to do
is overtones, but I’ just doing …[sings demonstrating multiphonic
chanting sounds, moving around on vowels] doing that part. What I
can do is a whistly sounding overtone above it that plays a
melody, and I’d like to get into that.
J: Sorry, can you do that again? Unfortunately the phone went at
my end, so I’ve got a phone going all the way through that. Can you
just do that again?
C: Yeah, sure. [Tries] No, I can’t do it! [laughs]. [Demonstrates
again]. Like that.
J: That’s fantastic. Thanks
C: I can tell you one way that he showed me to do it that was the
most reliable when I first started was to do a baby’s cry like
[demonstrates baby’s wail, sliding down into the chanting sounds] to
first find it. That was the one that really connected with me. He
tried different avenues to get there, kind of thing? That was the
one that really worked, to do a baby’s… imitate a baby’s cry and
then try to siren down into it. If you do that [demonstrates baby
wail, slide down arriving at chanting sounds] then you can find it.
J: Yeah.
C: I prefer that one but it’s taken me a long time to get it
stable enough that I can actually sing it in the show and sing my
high notes as well. Originally when I got warmed up I couldn’t do it
at all. And the other one that I don’t like as much is what they
call the… well that was the monk voice, this is the Tuvan throat
singing, which is more abrasive, more of a [demonstrates Tuvan
throat singing on a low pitch] like that. [Coughs] And that always
makes me cough after, I just don’t like the way it feels so I try to
stay away from it as much as possible, and recently in the past year
or so I’ve been able to stay away from it quite a bit.
J: That’s excellent.
C: Maybe I just don’t do it correctly. I probably don’t!
click
here to listen to Craig singing overtones,
