A Year with Cirque du Soleil
By Amanda Huotari
December 9, 2006
Steve Ragatz has been entertaining audiences with his juggling, physical comedy, stilt walking and general antics for over two decades. From studying at Celebration Barn to being a solo act with Cirque du Soleil, Steve has done “good gigs, bad gigs... everything, just to get out there and do it.” The good gigs have included The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and The Today Show. Most recently, he just finished a year with Cirque du Soleil’s North American tour of Quidam.
Amanda Huotari: When you first came to the Barn in 1989, what were you doing professionally?
Steve Ragatz: I came to Celebration Barn as part of my individualized major in Variety Theater at Indiana University. Mostly, I was unfocused, but extremely enthusiastic. I was frustrated that the traditional university wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I was looking for something that offered diversity.
AH: How did your work evolve at Celebration Barn?
SR: I got a broad variety of training in stage combat, voice, storytelling, and mime. These all apply to any theater convention in one-way or another. Everyone who steps on stage is a storyteller. Every performer deals with their physicality. At some point, you have to be a clown. All of the workshops influenced the way I thought about creating material. I learned the evolution of trial and error, theatricality, vocabulary and thinking structurally.
I was captivated by street performing and wanted to do a street act and pass the hat for a living.
AH: How did you go from wanting to be a street act to performing for Cirque du Soleil?
SR: I have a quiet persistence to keep going. I did all gigs: good gigs, bad gigs, high paying, free, ones that cost me money, ones that looked like they would be great and then sucked. I considered everything, just to get out there and do it. That’s pretty much been my career.
In 1993, Steve was cast in Cirque du Soleil’s Mystere in Las Vegas. After three years with that show, he toured with Cirque du Soleil’s Quidam. After a few years back home in Indiana, he spent this past year on the road again, joining the North American tour of Quidam.
AH: How was it to be back with Cirque du Soleil?
SR: Oh, it was so nice to get back in the circus world, having been there when they created Quidam and now returning as a solo act. I was in the original cast and part of the extensive creation process. To come back as an original performer was nice.
AH: How had the show evolved?
SR: The acts matured technically a great deal after ten years. The characters I knew were the same but had new faces. That was odd at first.
AH: How did you manage to balance family and circus life?
SR: The circus is pretty family-friendly. It’s kind of expensive, but it was a great experience for [my son] Andrew. We had afternoons together and then I would go do the shows in the evenings. The cast and crew provide a second family. It’s a rich ensemble environment. It’s like the Barn, but with more lipstick and funny accents. The creative energy and talent level is amazingly high. They’re just cool people.
AH: How do you approach creating a new piece of work?
SR: In circus, you’re always beginning with technique rather than coming from improvisation. You need both when you’re trying to create a seven-minute international circus act. If one part is missing, the act suffers. You have to try and package the whole thing: strong technical and strong theater, with honest and true execution.
AH: You’re over six feet tall. How important to you is physicality and body-type in creating work?
SR: The fact that I am tall got me cast as the father in Quidam. I can make a seventeen-year-old singer look like a little girl.
I had been working on gymnastics for a year and then the coach pulled me aside and said “Steve, I don’t see you ever getting this.” He was right, I had thin wrists and was too tall. It’s a handicap. Just because everyone else can do it doesn’t mean that I can. It’s a tough lesson to learn when you are young and have unbridled enthusiasm. You should work on things you can do.
Its important to write to who you are in reality and for what you can portray on stage. I was just working with a couple on an aerialist act this morning. We discussed how circus acts come out of the school where they emulated a performance that can’t be achieved without the right physicality.
A fifteen-year-old kid once asked me to teach him how to do juggling manipulation with a cigar - it’s a traditional juggling routine in vaudeville. I told him, “You are only fifteen - you have no business doing manipulation with a cigar.” I see kids going to the prom in tuxedos that don’t fit - clearly not in their element. Kids emulate older performers but don’t have the physical maturity for what they are mimicking. If you are fifteen be fifteen. Find a character and a context you’d be cast for and don’t try to write something that you can’t be.
Be true about who you are and what look like. No matter how hard I try, I will never be cast as the lead in Annie. I am just not a little girl. Wanting it isn’t enough.
AH: What are you working on now?
SR: I’m working on a new rola-bola act. One of the tricks in it derived from something that I did at the Barn years ago. I think that maybe this act is different from the others. As far as I know, my rola-bola is the only one that goes side to side and up and down.
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In addition to freelance work and special events for Cirque du Soleil, Steve is currently touring with the theatrical circus Birdhouse Factory. He may return to touring with Cirque du Soleil at the end of next year.
To read more about Steve Ragatz, visit his website: www.StevenRagatz.com
Steve Ragatz in Birdhouse Factory
For more info visit www.birdhousefactoryshow.com
