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In February 2011, when visiting Haiti to meet with local partners, Special Projects Manager Marie-Josée DeBlois felt the added value of having citizens involved at the base of the artistic creation process supported by ONE DROP. Spending most of her time in Port-au-Prince and ONE DROP’s intervention area, Léogâne—the epicentre of the January 2010 earthquake—Marie-Josée’s days began early and ended late. First, together with the leader of the OXFAM team and our partner Atelier Toto B, she mapped out the implementation plan for the Haiti Project. Then, it was on to ONE DROP’S social arts and popular education program (a touring, multi-disciplinary show currently in production), where Marie-Josée worked with the co-directors to finalize the performance’s screenplay.

Twenty participants from quake-ravaged Léogâne demonstrated wonderful improvisation skills when asked to perform sketches about water to help inspire the show’s scriptwriters. Several of the scenes acted out by citizens depict local issues so well that they will performed nearly as-is in the show. The audience will therefore identify more with the characters and local solutions they are promoting. “Many participants believe that the new awareness-raising show will attract a huge audience, especially in Léogâne,” says Marie-Josée. “Not only because there aren’t many recreational activities there, but also because Haitians have an artistic soul. After an enjoyable day of discussions, storytelling and sketches, I, too, now see that aspect of their souls.”

ONE DROP’s AQUA experience was recently featured as part of [the French] CBC’s televised game show Génies en Herbe. During one episode, which aired on the French television network Radio-Canada on March 5th, cameras followed two teams of four adolescent geniuses to the Museum of Civilization in Quebec City. The teams eventually ended up within AQUA. Afterwards, when asked what they thought of AQUA, contestants shared their awe of the experience and the importance of water in our world.

“AQUA’s interactive experience, which uses various art forms to sensitize people to water issues while making them aware of the role they can play in finding a solution, is why we feel it coincides perfectly with the museum’s own educational mission,” explains museum CEO Michel Côté. Participants learn even more about the challenges facing our planet’s precious resource when they engage in workshops adjacent to AQUA. In its first six months at Quebec City’s Museum of Civilization, nearly 24,000 people had stepped into the AQUA experience, including adults, children and student groups. AQUA is in Quebec City until April 10, 2011, after which it will be heading to the southern hemisphere, at New Zealand’s Auckland Museum!

Since its inception, AQUA—a multi-sensory touring experience by ONE DROP—has educated, entertained and inspired some 200,000 people in three Canadian cities.

ONE DROP’s nomadic installation about the journey of water has a name! The CYCL O humanitarian project was introduced to the world in December 2010, at LA SOIRÉE ONE DROP in Miami, Florida. The moveable installation consists of a series of large- and medium-sized tactile (touch-screen) monitors, which present a free, fascinating and interactive learning experience all about water (including the little-known fact that humans are 70% dinosaur!). CYCL O takes about two minutes to educate, entertain and share its message about our world’s water challenges (in French and English). While empowering participants with information about what they can do to help preserve water, CYCL O explains how the tripod approach of ONE DROP is helping communities around the world gain access to clean water.

ONE DROP’s CYCL O installation was at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum from March 12 to 20, 2011. Keep looking here to find out where CYCL O will be going next!

For three weeks (end of January into February 2011), ONE DROP Project Manager Tania Vachon was in Honduras and El Salvador to further develop partnerships and start up initiatives.

Spending her first week in Honduras, Tania worked with Pascale Gravel-R, researcher and facilitator at Université Laval, on a creative, collective experience entitled “tryptic”—an artistic endeavour that came out of the needs expressed by the partners at the 2010 second annual international meeting on water, social arts and popular education. This successful water-themed artistic performance serves to reinforce the synergy between the Honduras Project’s partners, and testifies to the expertise of all partners of ONE DROP.

In the following two weeks, Tania found herself in El Salvador, working once more with partners from Quebec’s Théâtre Parminou and Théâtre de l’Aubergine to start up production on a social arts and popular education initiative in the form of a multi-disciplined show. Her visit also provided the opportunity to work with El Salvador Project partner AMS to study the causes of water problems affecting communities where the ONE DROP project is operating. Tania and her team headed out to the affected area to plan educational workshops using professionals and locals. These invaluable workshops help ONE DROP and its partners better understand how water-related problems affect children and adults in the area, as well as what, precisely, they know about the issue.

GAIA, a personal, creative project by Guy Laliberté, founder of Cirque du Soleil and Chair of the Board of Directors of ONE DROP, is an artistic perspective of planet Earth. The project consists of three distinct editions of a book showcasing artistic photographs taken by Guy during his Poetic Social Mission in Space aboard the International Space Station (ISS), in 2009. All profits from the sale of these books and related photo exhibitions will go directly to ONE DROP. The anticipated launch of the books and international vernissage tour is slated for this spring.

The purpose of this artistic project is to offer a beautiful and unique perspective of our planet. Each of the three editions of the book is created by the internationally renowned publisher Prosper Assouline Publishing. These three distinguished editions showcase up to 180 photographs supported by poetry and quotes. GAIA will be available for purchase at Assouline boutiques as well as from the Cirque du Soleil online store at cirquedusoleil.com.