Write On: Creative crossroads

I haven’t been able to get Cirque du Soleil’s Amaluna out of my head since I saw it last year.

Under the big top, the performers danced, dove and swung through the air to tell the stories of a group of goddesses.

The show was beautiful, of course. But it’s not so much the show’s beauty that I keep thinking about—it’s how many hours of disciplined practice and production must’ve gone into creating it.

The acrobats made their daredevil stunts look effortless, but they probably poured more energy into a 10-minute performance than I’d use in a week’s worth of workouts. The costume designers’ work was not only breathtaking but realistic—to make peacock costumes accurate, they researched the birds in the wild. The performers’ headshots revealed how transformative the makeup artists’ work was—the acrobats were unrecognizable without makeup.

“With each new show, the expectation of the public gets higher and higher, and the risk for us gets bigger and bigger. That is why we are taking it with a lot of humility,” CEO and President Daniel Lamarre told the Las Vegas Sun.

In a Forbes article, Lamarre revealed the real secret to his creative team’s success: They argue. A lot.

The Cirque team encourages “creative friction”—debate and disagreement to weed out the weak ideas and cultivate innovative thinking. They research trends to determine the relevancy of themes, and they have talent scouts positioned all over the world to secure new performers. They listen to feedback. Anyone can be an influencer driving people to or away from the show—right down to a city’s cab drivers.

And that is why 15 million people bought tickets to a Cirque du Soleil show last year, why 150 million have seen a show over the past three decades. It’s why the company is known as the largest theatrical producer in the world.

It’s why, months later, I’m still thinking about that show.

I’ve thought a lot about creative friction since I started at 225. Our staff has meetings daily, and we don’t always agree. But that’s how it should be. We look at every story, every photo, every idea critically with the goal of making the magazine better every month. Through constant collaboration with each other and the Baton Rouge community, we hope for 225 to keep evolving.

For creatives, it can be hard to take criticism. Chefs, artists, filmmakers, designers, photographers, actors and writers all take pride in what they do. It’s tough to let go of that personal connection when your work pays the bills and has to satisfy not just your own vision but an audience’s expectations.

I once worked for an editor who so encouraged criticism of our team’s and her own work that I actually felt like I was not doing my job if I didn’t question everything. I received the same treatment from her—articles I wrote thinking they were near perfect were returned to me covered in red ink. It was tough at first, but I grew more in the first six months I worked with her than I had in double the amount of time at my previous job.

The most successful businesses and relationships all seem to have one thing in common: They are the product of constant collaboration and re-evaluation, much like Cirque du Soleil. While reporting for this month’s cover story, we discovered that even Fat Cow’s owners created over 120 burgers before they settled on 13 staples for the menu.

At the end of the day, an argument is not such a bad thing. It’s how great shows, burgers and magazines are made.