Deskilling in cultural industries: Corporatization, standardization and the erosion of creativity at the Cirque du Soleil

Abstract

The Cirque du Soleil serves as a model of innovation in the Canadian context. Since the 1980s, it has grown into a global corporation, sourcing talent and staging productions around the world. In this paper, we argue that the firm’s success owes a lot to its unique creation process, and to its ability to maintain a delicate balance between art and commerce. In recent years, however, the Cirque has struggled to maintain this balance, often opting for a formulaic and rigid approach that entails closed, rather than open, spaces of creation. Corporate expansion and the need to deliver shareholder value has led to an increasingly top-down and bureaucratic structure. We examine how corporatization is tied to a standardization and deskilling of labour, examining the ways in which individual creativity is devalued in this new context. We argue that the reorganization has led to a rationalization of the workforce and diminished opportunities for skill development and tacit knowledge exchange. As a consequences of these shifts, an increasing number of workers leave the company to pursue their artistic ambitions elsewhere.