Guy Laliberté is, as you already know, the founder of Cirque du Soleil, the first circus created by a Quebecer and recognized worldwide. Born in Quebec City, he moved to Saint-Bruno as a child, following his artistic mother and entrepreneurial father. In his teenage years, he became interested in the accordion, folk dancing, stilts, and fire-breathing. At 18, he left for Paris with a few dollars in his pocket and became a street performer for several months. In 1979, he returned to Baie-Saint-Paul, in Charlevoix, where he met Gilles Sainte-Croix, a stilt walker who helped him improve his stilt-walking skills, and where he crossed paths with a childhood friend, Daniel Gauthier, who naturally had a keen business sense. He then spent a few winters entertaining crowds under the warm Hawaiian sun, which is where the Cirque's logo comes from. With the help of his companions, he then organized the Baie Saint-Paul Fair in 1982, whose popular closing shows led to the formation of Cirque du Soleil in 1984. He thus contributed not only to promoting Quebec but also to developing circus arts as an artistic discipline, by combining art and acrobatics in his shows. The Cirque conquered the United States in 1987, Europe in 1990, and Japan in 1992, then signed a ten-year contract in 1993 for the show Mystère in Las Vegas. Guy Laliberté has received several awards, testifying to his immense talent as an entrepreneur and artist, including, among others, the Ordre national du Québec in 1997 and the insignia of the Order of Canada in 2004, the most prestigious Quebec and Canadian distinctions, and even an honorary doctorate from Université Laval in Quebec City in 2008. Cirque du Soleil has always wanted to leave a social footprint and, since its beginnings, has asserted itself as an agent of change. The establishment of its headquarters and the creation of TOHU, Cité des arts du cirque, and the national circus school in the Saint-Michel district of Montreal, to foster the rebirth of this area, the founding of Cirque du Monde, an artistic training program for disadvantaged youth from all over the world, and the annual allocation of 1% of its revenues to social and cultural initiatives. One of the Cirque's core values is the conviction that every small individual action can make a significant difference. Founded almost thirty years ago, the Cirque now employs approximately 4,000 people of about forty different nationalities.

There is the One Drop Foundation, created in 2007 by Mr. Laliberté and his generous initial contribution, which also has a humanitarian mission: to raise public awareness of the global problem of water scarcity and to promote access to safe drinking water for the most deprived, as represented by its slogan "Water for all, all for water." Inspired by water and having grown up in the land of water, it is the dreamer in him who wishes to mobilize all of us to change the world, bearing witness through his shows to the power of the collective. Rather extravagant, Guy Laliberté was the first to have the original idea of undertaking an artistic and social space mission in 2009, a journey to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket! The original goal of this idea, through his One Drop Foundation, was to draw global attention to the urgency of the planetary water shortage problem, in connection with human space exploration. Guy Laliberté, living proof that believing in your dreams can lead far, as far as space!

Quebec and its international successes, wonderful stories to discover!