Clowning around with the audience

Bashful spectators are favourite targets for Cirque du Soleil clowns Voki Kalfayan (left) and Guillermo Castineiras. Picture / Martin Sykes

A tip for those shy souls who would rather eat spiders than be hauled on stage before the 2500-strong audience at Cirque du Soleil's Quidam: Pretend it is your life's desire.

The clowns responsible for the hauling - Guillermo Castineiras and Voki Kalfayan - say they always aim for the shy ones.

"I usually try to pick a shy girl," Castineiras said of his act about a first date in a car. "They are better on the stage. They are more like themselves and do not act a lot. The audience enjoys this kind of personality."

Auckland audiences seem smitten with the magic of Quidam, and for the clowns the feeling is mutual.

Castineiras, known as Toto, said some audiences laugh at anything "all the time, and sometimes I wonder why".

"But I find these audiences more relaxed. I usually work in South America and I find New Zealand audiences are more like the South American ones.

"There is a real reaction. There is more sincerity."

He said they particularly enjoy the audience participation acts. His reasons for this are diplomatic - NZ audiences are "very perceptive".

Others might reckon it is more because New Zealanders, sitting in the cosy anonymity of their darkened row, just like to watch other people squirm.

Kalfayan - who needs four helpers from the audience to stage a silent movie - says New Zealanders give the clowns scope to improvise more than they might in other countries.

"In order for the people on stage to work out, the audience has to be enjoying themselves.

"If they don't laugh, the person on stage thinks we're picking on them, but when the audience is following it and getting all the jokes, the person on stage has fun."

Wherever they go they have to adapt their acts to the local culture.

Castineiras is from Buenos Aires in Argentina.

"There we talk about the military a lot, and government and people who disappear. So if I have a glove on my hand and am pointing, there it is a sign to mean torture. Here, if I use my tongue, it relates to the haka."

Kalfayan said he was an "aggressive" clown.

"I'm very aggressive to the audience and very mean to them. Some find that very funny, but I find in Auckland that it is quite surprising to people."