Fascination

Cirque Du Soleil's sixth show was a Japanese exclusive that ran in arenas in 1992, marking the company's first visit to that country.

The story and most of the characters are from Le Cirque Reinvente: Ordinary People are turned into whimsical circus folk by the King of Fools and Queen of the Night. The lineup of acts, however, includes only four Reinvente acts—five of the remaining six are from Cirque's follow-up Nouvelle Experience, redressed to fit the Reinvente setting. In addition, only one of the clowns appeared in either of the previous tours.

Besides most of the tropes that appeared in Le Cirque Reinvente, this show contained examples of:

• Composite Character: The Ringmaster was a merger of the original Reinvente character and the Great Chamberlain of Nouvelle—as such, he was played by the Chamberlain's performer (Brian Dewhurst) and participated in the slackwire act as well.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: The Reinvente costume designs were overhauled for this show, and the Ringmaster's suit got a ton more sequins in the process.
• Missing Episode: A "lost episode" example in that it was never filmed for television/video; not surprising since both of the shows it combined were filmed, and there wouldn't have been much of a market for it.
• Non-Ironic Clown: Four. Balthazar (Michel Deschamps) had appeared in the later years of Reinvente and would take his act to La Nouba after this; one of the newcomers, "Bebe Francois" Dupuis, went on to become one of the viewpoint characters of Mystere.