Elizabeth Zieba is originally from Poland, but has been living in Mallorca for years. She is the Show Director for Globo Balear and is responsible for the family show Pirates Adventure, the late night “Club Experience” Pirates Reloaded and Gringos Bingo, the riotous bingo entertainment show.
“I studied Ballet in Poland when the country was still communist. It wasn’t a good place to live and as soon as I had graduated I had the opportunity to work with some very good commercial entertainement companies. I didn’t want to stay in Poland, so I took the work. We went all over Europe performing in galas and shows and I would go home to visit my family now and again. I was making good money, doing what I love, but after many years of touring you do get tired of it. I wanted to settle down and have a family. I met my husband and had my daughter Diana and decided to open a clothes shop back in Poland. I brought exclusive fashions from Italy and Paris to Poland as it was opening up and becoming less strict. The business did really well. But then an old friend from school called me from Mallorca and said ‘Listen, there’s an audition to dance in Mallorca for just one season.’ So I went to the audition, and got the job. I had my business but it wasn’t my passion, you know? Dancing was in my heart, so it was an easy decision really. My first season here was in Mallorca in 1993 when I danced at the old Son Amar!"
What did you think of the island?
Oh, I loved it! I fell in love. I sold my business and wanted to come back here as soon as I could.
How did you start at Pirates?
I was asked to audition for the show, but I thought, no, I cannot do what these acrobats do, I am not like them. But then I was told that they were looking for dancers, and that they wanted to add more dance into the show. Jacques Sasson, the founder of the show, told me to look for more dancers who could cope with more complex choreographies. So we started to look further, in London, in Madrid, in Poland, and so that is how it started. I’ve been with the show now for 27 years.
What makes Pirates special for you?
I fell in love with the place, and the people. The people who work here are the heart of Pirates. When you perform together or work together this closely there is a bond. I can’t be too soft, because I am the director of the show, but we are a family. Marisol, who started as a dancer is now the Artistic Coordinator, she came up through the years, like me. You need to understand artists too, and because I am one, I get them. If you come from a non-theatrical background you won’t understand them and they won´t feel connected to you.
Several members of the cast are top level competitive acrobats, how do you take them and turn them into performers?
There is a difference between competing and performing. When they are competing, they just have to be good for one day, at the competition. They do not need to be consistently good day after day. In a competition if they fail at a lift then they have failed but in a performance if they fail at something they have to act their way out of it. It is very demanding on their bodies to be performing, and they need to be able to physically cope with that level. When we start the rehearsal process we only have a month before we open the show for the season. We have an acting coach, Robert, from Centre Stage Production, who comes and prepares the cast. And we have an amazing acrobatics coach, Sergey, as well who works with them.
How do you cast the show?
I keep in touch with a lot of the national team acrobatics coaches, and they tell me when someone is ready to move on from competing. We recruit people from European and World Championships. Anjd with the dancers we have people contacting us all of the time sending in their CVs, it’s always interesting to hear about a new dancer who might suit us in the future. Sometimes they just literally walk in and apply to work with us. We have eleven different nationalities in the show, I feel very loyal to my cast, like a mama. We speak English and Spanish as the main languages, but I speak six languages which is helpful. It’s better to have many nationalities because I think international people can understand each other better than just one nationality, we always try to keep a balance there.
You have to be the Director of Human Psychology as well! It’s very important for my job if you don’t understand people and how they operate, you won’t be successful.
How do you come up with new ideas for the show?
My inspiration comes from everywhere. I can be watching a movie and suddenly be inspired by something I have seen. But I get inspiration from life I guess. The basic storyline of good versus evil hasn’t changed but the show itself has developed a lot since the beginning. Pirates Adventure has a big element of audience involvement in it, a bit like an English pantomime. People come back every year to see the show again, they love it! The power of live performance is still very strong. You get touched emotionally by live performance in a way you cannot be by televisiong or YouTube or whatever. We are very different to a Cirque du Soleil, although we do have performers of the same quality. With a Cirque show everything is far away, yeah it’s beautiful, but it is out of reach, you cannot even see the faces of the people in the show. But with us, you can literally reach out and touch us, we are close up and you can feel the emotions and the drama of the show. Just like life.
The Pirates Adventure and Pirates Reloaded shows run throughout the summer at the Pirates Theatre in Magalluf. You can book your tickets online at www.piratesadventure.com.