Posts Tagged ‘cirque de soleil’
Space Tourist Guy Laliberte
Cirque du soleil founder Guy Laliberte’s dream was to see the world. I bet he never thought he would be seeing it from outer space.
Laliberte, a Russian cosmonaut and an American astronaut blasted off into space Wednesday morning aboard a Soyuz spacecraft headed for the International Space Station. Laliberte is Canada’s first space tourist on the space station. This is the latest milestone in a life where adventure has been the norm.
He is known for throwing wild parties, rubbing shoulders with stars, including actor Robert De Niro and director Francis Ford Coppola.
He was recognized by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Forbes magazine estimates Laliberte has a net worth of $2.5 billion by spreading the tentacles of the Cirque de Soleil around the globe.
“He’s the kind of guy that is never happy with a normal life,” says Daniel Lamarre, a longtime friend of Laliberte and the Cirque’s president and CEO.
“He is an amazing entrepreneur always provoking people to go to their limits. This a good illustration of that. He’s also pushing his team to try the crazy idea of having a show coming from the space station.”
Laliberte, the father of five children is engaged to be married to his current fiancee, was born in Quebec City. He started out as a teenage fire-eater. He’s also been a stilt walker, a musician and a magician.
It was the magic he worked with a rag-tag bunch of street performers to create the Cirque du soleil in 1984. That got him noticed in a really big way.
He reinvented the circus and made people laugh at the same time.
The 50-year-old Laliberte doesn’t like to do the day to day of the business. That’s why he is doing what he is doing, because he wants to keep his focus on the creative content.
Guy amazing businessman, the one place where he excels is creative content and international development. Those two things still keep him stimulated.
Laliberte’s s space mission as “surreal,” the CEO Lamarre says the $35-million trip isn’t just a billionaire’s whim or a new way to torque a Cirque show. Lamarre says it illustrates another side to his high-stakes recreational poker player.
Laliberte will be promoting his One Drop Foundation during a broadcast on Oct. 9, seeking to raise awareness of the threat to global water supplies.
The Cirque kicked off its 1988 debut in New York with a benefit for homeless people.
One per cent of the organization’s box-office take goes to social causes. You can imagine, one per cent of our box office represents millions of dollars.
Laliberte has been driven all his life by two things – creating unique artistic content and helping change the world, even in little ways such as helping villages in Honduras and Nicaragua get clean water.
Furthermore, he doesn’t blink in the face of risk, whether it’s negotiating with Ringo Starr and Yoko Ono for a Beatles-themed Cirque show or climbing into a space-bound rocket.
God Speed Guy!
