Читать книгу Creative Courage - Altidor Welby - Страница 10

Do you know what Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Frida Kahlo, Nelson Mandela, Plato, Muhammad Yunus, and Bob Dylan have in common? They all challenged the status quo of their time in periods that felt transformational and unprecedented. By questioning how music or race was strictly segregated, how women were supposed to relate to their sensuality or identity in public, what corrupted youth, what folk music was supposed to be, or how banks operated, these icons clashed with the past in a way that made them relevant and memorable to us. In fact, in every culture through time, there have been forces aimed at preserving the status quo and opposing energies dedicated to its transformation.

For close to sixteen years, I worked at Cirque du Soleil, arguably one of the world's most influential and important live entertainment companies in our time. I became then a passionate member of a unique, stimulating, and challenging work culture, and I eventually played one of the leading roles in the creative destiny of the organization. I learned to work at an exceptionally fast pace. On one side, I could see in full bloom the beauty of creativity, imagination, and the fearless drive to innovate. And on the other side, I witnessed and benefited from the powerful leverage of business savvy and commerce at play.

Cirque du Soleil contributed to reinventing the circus by marrying industry and artistry, theater and sports, creativity and commerce, individual imagination and the strengths of the collective. Cirque rose as a challenger to the traditional understanding of what a circus could and couldn't be and in this way brought an unexpected modernity to an ancient form. Creativity, imagination, and innovation find their most vivid expression at the center of that same tension between the past and the present.