Show Boat Athletes who made the cut practice on the bateau, which combines the traditional circus act of the aerial cradle with gymnastics parallel bars.

‘You’re not scared of heights, I hope,’ says Larry Gill, as he leads me out of the elevator and into the darkness of ‘the grid,’ a metal screen floor 110 feet above the stage of Cirque du Soleil’s O show in Las Vegas. The head rigger and my tour guide one evening last October, Gill points out wires, winches, and other gravity-defying pieces of equipment as we make our way to the middle of the nervous system of the Bellagio hotel’s $100 million theater. Down in the audience, all 1,800 seats are full, as usual. But Gill prefers this view to theirs. As my eyes adjust and I see the colorful costumes and painted faces of the performers waiting to leave the grid and fly down to the stage, I have to agree with him. This is the best seat in the house.

The lights dim, the crowd hushes, and a reluctant-looking young man picked out of the audience follows one of the characters onto the stage to read the pre-show instructions. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he reads. “During this performance, smoke effects will be used, but they are harmless to your health.” Gill motions for me to step back. The man continues, “Also, we kindly ask that you turn off all cellular phones.” A second after he utters his last syllable, an invisible force sucks him up nine stories and onto the grid.

When the “volunteer” pops up in front of us, he unfastens his harness and bolts for the elevator. He is performer Jorge Castano. On the ride down, the 28-year-old changes out of his street clothes and into the costume of Philemon, a Sicilian boy who steps into the water-themed circus that is O. Over the next 90 minutes, about 75 divers, synchronized swimmers, and acrobats will perform seemingly impossible feats on, above, and below the stage. One second a character executes a spectacular headfirst somersault into the pool. The next moment another character runs across the surface of the water. Watch this or any Cirque production and you can’t help but wonder, How in the world do they do that? Cirque offered to give me a rare backstage glimpse at this, the biggest of all big tops. That’s how I wound up on the grid.

Danut Coseru came to O by a different route. When the 27-year-old Romanian first saw a video of Cirque’s Saltimbanco show in 2004, he thought the acrobatic feats looked easy. “I said, ‘I can do that,’” says Coseru, who took up gymnastics as a young boy and competed for Romania’s national gymnastics team. Three years after submitting his demo video, Coseru knows just how difficult the journey is from competition to Cirque’s stage. He spent two summers in Montreal and the rest of the year back home in Romania hoping for a callback. The call finally came last spring, and now Coseru is about to go on stage at O. His first big act calls for him to twist and turn on a set of parallel bars mounted on a boat suspended about 40 feet over the stage.

No pressure, right? Well, wrong. “It’s the most important thing I’ve done in my life,” Coseru says. It also appears to be the most nerve-wracking. While I’m up on the grid watching the show, Coseru sits backstage preparing to make his debut in front of a packed house. He didn’t come all this way to fail.

Body Talk O wannabe Danut Coseru gets a few pointers at Cirque’s Montreal HQ. Having beaten the odds, he practices his final flourish in Vegas. Below: a breathless practice for the show’s team of synchronized swimmers.

Two decades after Canadian Guy Laliberté set out to reinvent the circus, Cirque du Soleil is now a billion-dollar enterprise. In 2007, 10 million people paid $50 to $200 a ticket to see one of Cirque’s productions: eight touring shows, five permanent shows in Las Vegas, one permanent show in Orlando, and one seasonal show in New York. Laliberté’s original vision was to combine “circus arts and theater,” says James Hadley, who oversees artistic direction for Cirque’s Vegas and Orlando shows. “The end result was a whole new experience that now describes itself.”

That experience always includes choreographed acrobatics, elaborate costumes, and original musical scores. Yet every show tells a unique, albeit avant-garde, story. Where O is a surreal adventure, Zumanity is an erotic cabaret. Kà is an epic tale of twin brother and sister. Love is a lively musical tribute to the Beatles.

With so many shows already up and running and more on the way, Cirque scouts and coaches work year-round recruiting and training new talent. The typical production requires some 60 performers. The cast includes singers, musicians, clowns, dancers, contortionists, and other specialists with talents that often translate from one stage to the next. Depending on the role, these artists can be stage-ready within weeks of landing a part. The transition isn’t always so easy for the acrobats, who represent the bulk of the cast. That’s because, outside of the circus, Cirque’s unique hybrid of athlete and artist doesn’t really exist, says Hadley. “Our goal is to nurture and develop the artistic side of the athletes who join our shows.”

For everyone from veteran diver Castano to newbie gymnast Coseru, the journey from Cirque aspirant to Cirque performer typically follows this pattern:

1. Candidates submit a video showcasing their special skills.

2. Recruiters screen thousands of videos every year and create a database of potential performers. In some cases, candidates show potential for an existing production. In others, they have a talent so unusual that Cirque finds a way to incorporate the act into a show.

3. Cirque calls in promising candidates for an annual group audition in varied locations. Or if Cirque thinks it can use someone immediately, it calls the person in for a private tryout.

4. Athletes who put on a stellar show for scouts head to Cirque’s annual “general formation,” a four-month training camp in Montreal where they learn to perform.

5. Many who don’t make the cut at Cirque auditions or formations go on to perform with smaller, non-Cirque productions. They’ll work on stage for a few years and try out for Cirque yet again, often with better results the second or third time around. Others make the cut, then wait for the right part to become available.

That kind of persistence finally earned Coseru a shot at O.

Christianne Sainz sits on a mat at a gymnastic studio in North Las Vegas called Go For It, a long way from the glitzy Strip. The 23-year-old aerialist from Grand Rapids, Michigan, submitted her video last April and heard back the following September with an invitation to a general acrobatics audition in October. Most aspiring performers who send videos never get this far. But by the looks of her swollen ankle, Sainz will have to wait for the next round. “I rolled it during the warm-up,” she says, icing her ankle and trying her best to hold back tears.

While Sainz nurses her injury, the other gymnasts—in Spandex shorts and tight sleeveless tops—take turns showing off their tumbling talents for Cirque talent scout Hubert Barthod and casting advisor Dana Brass. “For one position of a generalist acrobat, we might see 10 people,” says Barthod, a former competitive trampolinist. Though all gymnasts have different areas of expertise, Cirque wants to see the full spectrum of skills. Indeed, the level of tumbling talent is varied. A few of the candidates effortlessly perform a series of flips and twists. Others botch their landings or flop on their butts.

The group moves on to the trampoline. One candidate, diver Drew Watson, catches everyone’s eye with his 15-foot jumps, graceful twists, and steady landings. Barthod takes the difficulty up a notch. He slides a mat onto the trampoline and pulls it as Watson lands. No matter. Watson springs up and down, not a bit fazed by Barthod’s attempts to throw him off balance. He’ll make the cut.

Most of the candidates who came today aren’t so lucky. A couple hours into the audition, Barthod reads the names of four people he wants to see after lunch. For a dozen others, including Sainz, the audition is over.

But even if athletes ace their auditions, they need to clear several more hurdles before they can even think about landing a contract with Cirque. Next stop: general formation in Montreal.

Danut Coseru can tell you all about general formation. The Romanian gymnast came to his first one in 2005. Then he went home to coach children’s gymnastics and to wait for Cirque’s next call. The company did call again but only to invite him to a second formation in 2006. Afterwards, he went home yet again. Finally, last July the casting team called to say Coseru had a part in O if he still wanted it. Coseru didn’t even have to think about his answer. “This was my dream,” says Coseru. “I wanted to do everything I could to be here.”

The general formation takes place at Cirque’s international headquarters, a sprawling glass-and-concrete structure 20 minutes northeast of downtown Montreal. There, roughly 1,700 of Cirque’s 3,800 employees work on every aspect of the production, from creating the shows and building the equipment to training performers and designing costumes. While the end result is a whimsical theatrical experience, the company overlooks no detail to create that effect. Cirque makes everything, from the performers’ hand-sewn headdresses to their custom-cobbled shoes. The company even dyes its own fabric—more than 10 miles of it annually—to ensure that it can replicate costumes for years to come.

The same do-it-yourself philosophy applies to creating talent. Every year, about 50 aspiring artists come to the annual training camp. They stay four to six months, living in apartments across the street, eating most of their meals in the company cafeteria and spending their days learning how to be performers.

Though athletes get paid, finishing general formation is no guarantee of a job. “The first day, we tell them they will be evaluated over 16 weeks with three possible outcomes,” says Cirque sports psychologist Madeleine Hallé. “The first scenario is, you are really good, and you will get a contract. The second is, you’re good, but we don’t have a position for you now. The third is, you’re not ready to be a professional artist.” Most of the performers who go through general formation draw the second card: They’re good but will have to wait for a spot, either as a performer in a new production or as a replacement in an existing show. The company’s low turnover can make for a long wait.

While other Cirque employees occasionally get to see a snippet of a new show, most of the time the set is off-limits to everyone but the cast and crew. “Every production is breaking new ground both with the concepts of the acts and the rigging equipment,” says Chantal Côté, Cirque’s senior publicist. “We like to keep the surprise for premier night.”

Showtime Coseru, playing another role off of the bateau, ends his act with flair.

Steve Bland’s premier night was a decade ago. The Aussie diver and trampolinist has done the same handful of routines thousands of times at O in Las Vegas. He stands 60 feet over the stage, shoulder to shoulder with three other divers, and plunges into a narrow pool below. He flies off an unusual prop called the Russian Swing, spins himself dizzy on the aerial hoops, and builds human pyramids during the barge routine. He does all this and more twice a night, five times a week.

While Coseru grapples with stage fright, Bland’s challenge is to make every performance as thrilling as his first. “If you eat lobster every day, even lobster can become boring,” Bland says. To ward off tedium, he focuses on the minute details of his acts and puts different emotions into his movements, depending on how he feels that day. Whatever he puts in, the crowd gives back in applause. And that never gets old. “When you hear the audience gasp or clap,” says Bland, “it’s such a rush.”

Most Cirque vets seem to feel the same way. During one afternoon practice at the O theater, the performers are caught up in the act, in this case the Russian Swing. Two or three divers line up, pump the large metal swings up and down, and then fly up and drop into the pool one at a time. The exercise doesn’t look like work at all—by design. “This rehearsal is pretty much playtime,” says O head coach Tom Otjes.

Playtime ends for the crew on the Russian Swing. The artists leave the stage to rest before the first show, now less than four hours away. The theater’s riggers move the swing off the stage and set up the bateau, an acrobatic prop that resembles a ship. Its crew of a dozen acrobats performs trapeze acts and parallel-bar routines on the ship while it “sails” 40 feet over the water. The steel-frame boat moves from the back of the stage to the front, propelled by an enormous overhead carousel.

Coseru practices on the flying boat with the help of coach Otjes and the performer he will replace, Dan Headecker. The water will cushion a fall straight down, but when the boat starts swinging back and forth, a slip could send an acrobat flying into the nets strung on either side of the stage. Coseru lowers himself to the boat’s hull, which doubles as parallel bars. He’s in his element here—if he can just forget about the drop to the water and all the people who’ll be watching him in a few weeks. After three years of auditions, formations, and on-site training, Coseru’s first performance on the bateau will come soon enough.

On the night of his debut, Coseru waits backstage, passing the time until his cue. Organized chaos surrounds him. Performers in fresh costumes and makeup zip out to the stage, return dripping wet, then change into dry clothes for another act. By contrast, the mood in the training room is calm. While the Mongolian contortionists do handstands and touch their faces with the tips of the toes, the acrobatic artists known as the “barge girls” squeeze in some last-minute tosses. In the green room, performers between acts kick back and watch the baseball game, play cards, and check e-mail. They seem so relaxed, you’d hardly guess there’s a show going on.

Tonight, Coseru can’t begin to relate. When he goes onto the stage shortly, nobody will judge him as they did during his days of competitive gymnastics. But this feeling of nervousness goes well beyond anything he experienced before competition. He follows the rest of his team—all dressed in white wigs and warrior costumes—to take their positions on the flying boat. He climbs up onto the mast and stands there as the boat glides toward the front of the stage.

The audience looks tiny under his feet, and every eye seems focused on him. The boat stops, rotates sideways, and Coseru jumps down onto the deck to prepare for his first big solo. It’s showtime. But just as begins to start his parallel- bar routine, he sees a red cue light. A technical problem just interrupted his debut. This time, the nets bracketing the stage never came up. The music continues, and Coseru stays in a warrior position: knees bent, chest out, chin up. He remembers one of the most important lessons from his training: Stay in character no matter what happens.

Finally, after one very long minute, the cue light turns green. Coseru drops down onto the bars. He swings his feet over his head and pushes himself up into a handstand, then dips down and swings through again. On his next series of handstands he pirouettes, effortlessly spinning around 180 degrees. Then he rolls over the bar on one shoulder, executes a series of straddle cuts, and rolls on the bar again before pushing himself up and back onto the deck to finish.

The audience breaks into applause, never knowing that Coseru’s flawless performance—all 30 seconds of it—was three years in the making. In a couple of hours, he’ll do the whole thing all over again.

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Freelance writer Sarah Max is an elite cross-country ski racer who can sometimes touch her toes without bending her knees. She lives in Bend, Oregon.