Our
Vision & Mission
to nourish the spark of Dreams, ignite the Imagination
to Create beyond paradigms
Art is vital and holds an essential place in our society well beyond any form, format, or formula. This is the fundamental approach to theatre as life that Franco Dragone has passed on to the global creative community and to us as his company.
The essence of that approach is to unite the widest range of diversified talent and expertise into a vision.
Dragone is by nature Pluridisciplinary, and each creative process serves and nourishes that vision.
Therefore, each creation has its own “raison d’être”.
The ever-expanding creative avenues for discovery, exploration and expression remain the core into which we delve and out from which we radiate.
Our Core
BUILDING THE DREAM
We are imbued with the creative approach of our visionary founder, propelling the ideology forward with avant-garde, transdisciplinary, and timeless experiences that will forever live on.
We approach every project like a new creation, and therefore we will follow the appropriate Dragone process and method: Creativity with a nucleus of creators, designers and specialists who inspire each other and that will lead towards a common and constant goal: offer an image that speaks powerfully beyond any language or model.
We Create
Our Values
1
Authenticity of our artistic approach: throughout 20 years of activity Dragone has been able to create its universe which is undeniably recognized today.
2
Never compromise on quality.
3
Constantly intertwine the following:
• Artistic • Economic • Social
developing the cultural community around the world.
4
Listen to the environment and let it inform you.
Our
History
FROM FRANCO TO DRAGONE
Franco Dragone, with his more than 120 million spectators, is widely recognized as having re-invented modern performing arts.
As a young child, Franco moved from a small Italian village, Cairano, to Belgium with his family. They settled in a flourishing mining town, La Louvière, where Franco grew up. His passion for performance culminated in him studying drama at the Conservatory in Mons, where he fell in love with commedia dell’arte and political theatre.
He became involved, both as an actor and a director, in many cultural movements with social overtones that were troubling Europe in the wake of May 1968.
“I was born during the crisis and all I ever wanted was to escape from this sad reality. I needed to feed my imagination.”
From his first appearance as an actor in a young professional theatre company, Franco realised that his place was not only on stage but also amid the action. He resolutely enrolled in theatre-action with the Compagnie Du Campus, to which he owes his transition to directing.
In 1982 he left Belgium for Quebec where he ran workshops in theatrical improvisation before teaching at the National Circus School of Montreal.
His original and innovative method attracted the critics’ attention, particularly that of Guy Laliberté, who had just founded what would soon become the one and only Cirque du Soleil. This would be Franco Dragone’s crowning moment.
Between 1985 and 1999 he put his name to ten Cirque du Soleil productions, some of which are still being performed around the world with the same degree of success. His enchantments include Alegria, Quidam, Saltimbanco and La Nouba, to name but a few.
With original creations such as the aquatic show Ô and Mystère, he played a part in transforming Las Vegas into one of the major artistic centres in the world.
These are the words of Chris Jones, the art critic and American columnist, for whom “the Belgian artist Franco Dragone has made one of the most outstanding contributions to urban culture in the history of modern America”.
In 2000, he decides to create and to lead his own company in the working-class town that witnessed him grow up and to participate in the economic and cultural development of his adopted region. It was the birth of the Franco Dragone Entertainment Group. More focused than ever on creating visionary performing arts that combine the virtuosity of artistic prowess, creative diversity and the mastery of technological innovation as a theatrical language. It was the start of a new era for Franco Dragone.
While he has become a businessman and an entrepreneur as well as a visionary artist, Franco Dragone describes himself above all as an activist for the performing arts. People are at the centre of his work and his ideas, just as much as the enthusiasm and artistic performance itself. It is this enthusiasm that allows him and his team to start from scratch each time, to invent shows that are ever more sophisticated, universal and innovative.
He announced in 2000, when he presented the first Décrocher la Lune: My first contribution, a gesture, a declaration of intentions, and of war, against the stench of the inevitable and the shadows of a future as yet undefined.
The time has come to fuel and fan the flames of creation that smoulder beneath the Centre. To support the constructive resistance of these people: designers, politicians, artists and technicians, who desire to reshape and recreate the contours of a life in constant turmoil. To be engulfed by these waves and tides, who continue to swim against the tide, believing that anything is still possible. To launch a beacon of joy.”
The Franco Dragone Group amazed the music industry in March 2003 when it created “A New Day” for Celine Dion, a show so successful that it staged in Las Vegas for five years. The company then created “Le Rêve” in 2005, a sumptuous resident aquatic show created for the Wynn Resort, once again in Vegas.
In 2010, “The House of Dancing Water”, an extraordinary aquatic show created in Macao opened the door in China. Almost 3 years only after the opening, more than 1000 shows and 2 million spectators later, The House Of Dancing Water was honoured with many international awards. And the success keeps going on.
In 2012, Dragone’s new cabaret Taboo: The Show Naughty and Naughtier premiered at City of Dreams, in Macao.
Since its creation, the company has also developed expertise in designing and organising events all over the world under the artistic direction of Franco Dragone. This other activity of the Group has resulted in the creation of a large number of events in Europe, Asia and on the American continent.
In the first quarter of 2013, FDEG has participated to a prestigious festival in Abu Dhabi, with an amazing show based on 250 years of Emirati culture, “The story of a Fort, the Legacy of a Nation”.
The Macao experience proved the company’s international appeal. Soon after this exceptionally successful venture, Franco Dragone accepted a commission to put together the creation, production and performance of several world-class shows in a number of Chinese cities over the next ten years. The first theatre, in the shape of a Chinese lantern, has been built in Wuhan, in the province of Hubei. It was designed by world-famous architect, Mark Fisher. In 2014 the venue hosted The Han Show Premiere, the writing of which has been deeply influenced by Chinese culture.
A New Chapter:
A new name, a new simplified logo and a new website are signs of the objectives Franco Dragone wishes to lay down for his Company: to permanently establish it, in its creative dimensions, in Belgium, and specifically in La Louvière and of course in Franco’s second home town, Las Vegas; to develop his shows throughout the world using local resources; to focus on the training of performers and technicians; and to open the Company up to new skills and new horizons, like the designing and building of theme parks, directing international festivals, and contributing to the emergence of the cultural industry as an instrument of change in post-industrial Europe.
Goodbye Franco Dragone Entertainment Group. Hello Dragone, a consortium in the image of its founder: pluralistic and multi-faceted, while still being focused on one overriding objective: to speak to humanity in the universal language of shared emotions …
In Macao, in 2012, Lawrence Ho asked Franco to create a small-scale show for The Cubic a very select club housed within his City of Dreams hotel complex. The show also included international cabaret stars such as Dita Von Teese and the famous Bluebell Girls from the Lido. With the appearance of the Bluebell Girls at the Cubic in Macao, contacts were gradually formed with the owners of the Lido, the Bellon family, and with the management of the famous Parisian cabaret, who were looking for a way to modernize their venerable institution. Opened in March 2015, Paris Merveilles is a breath-taking spectacle, in which a chorus leader of quite a new kind, a very rock ’n’ roll kind, leads the audience on a voyage of discovery into an eternal Paris.
The projects come thick and fast, with adjustments to The Han Show in Wuhan, the opening of The Dai Show in Xishuangbanna in October 2015, the artistic direction of a vast amusement park in Turkey, and the construction of a new purpose-built theatre in Dubai in spring 2017.
In 2017, Dragone’s show La Perle opened in Al Habtoor City, Dubai, in a custom-made 10-story theater. The show involved waterfalls, fires, motorcyclists spinning inside a suspended metal sphere, acrobatics into water, and other features. Preparing La Perle took Dragone four to five years, and during its first year he “continually tweaked and improved” the show.
In recent times Dragone debuted a world first in collaboration with the Saudi Ministry of Culture as they reveal their latest creation, TERHAL. This most recent Dragone creation is the first production of its kind in the Kingdom: an original, live theatrical spectacular that honors and celebrates the rich culture of Saudi Arabia by featuring a combined cast of local Saudi artists working alongside international artists and collaborators from over 20 different nations. TERHAL.
The spectacle premiered on March 2 in a newly constructed theatre built for the show. The Saudi Ministry of Culture has been a strong and generous partner to Dragone in shaping the process and creation of this theatrical and cultural masterpiece.
TERHAL is be the first Dragone creation to open since the passing of Dragone founder and Artistic Director Franco Dragone. With his involvement through much of the process, it is a particularly special show for the Dragone organization, with every team member striving to honor his legacy in every aspect of the production.
Our
Vision
& Mission
to nourish the spark of Dreams,
ignite the Imagination,
to Create beyond paradigms
Art is vital and holds an essential place in our society well beyond any form, format, or formula. This is the fundamental approach to theatre as life that Franco Dragone has passed on to the global creative community and to us as his company.
The essence of that approach is to unite the widest range of diversified talent and expertise into a vision.
Dragone is by nature Pluridisciplinary, and each creative process serves and nourishes that vision.
Therefore, each creation has its own “raison d’être”.
The ever-expanding creative avenues for discovery, exploration and expression remain the core into which we delve and out from which we radiate.
Our Core
BUILDING THE DREAM
We are imbued with the creative approach of our visionary founder, propelling the ideology forward with avant-garde, transdisciplinary, and timeless experiences that will forever live on.
We approach every project like a new creation, and therefore we will follow the appropriate Dragone process and method: Creativity with a nucleus of creators, designers and specialists who inspire each other and that will lead towards a common and constant goal: offer an image that speaks powerfully beyond any language or model.
We Create
Our Values
1
Authenticity of our artistic approach: throughout 20 years of activity Dragone has been able to create its universe which is undeniably recognized today.
2
Never compromise on quality.
3
Constantly intertwine the following:
• Artistic • Economic • Social
developing the cultural community around the world.
4
Listen to the environment and let it inform you.
Our
History
FROM FRANCO TO DRAGONE
Franco Dragone is widely recognized
as a ground breaking catalyst for modern performing arts.
As a young child, Franco moved from a small Italian village, Cairano, to Belgium with his family. They settled in a flourishing mining town, La Louvière, where Franco grew up. His passion for performance culminated in him studying drama at the Conservatory in Mons, where he fell in love with commedia dell’arte and political theatre.
He became involved, both as an actor and a director, in many cultural movements with social overtones that were troubling Europe in the wake of May 1968.
“I was born during the crisis and all I ever wanted was to escape from this sad reality. I needed to feed my imagination.”
From his first appearance as an actor in a young professional theatre company, Franco realised that his place was not only on stage but also amid the action. He resolutely enrolled in theatre-action with the Compagnie Du Campus, to which he owes his transition to directing.
In 1982 he left Belgium for Quebec where he ran workshops in theatrical improvisation before teaching at the National Circus School of Montreal.
His original and innovative method attracted the critics’ attention, particularly that of Guy Laliberté, who had just founded what would soon become the one and only Cirque du Soleil. This would be Franco Dragone’s crowning moment.
Between 1985 and 1999 he put his name to ten Cirque du Soleil productions, some of which are still being performed around the world with the same degree of success. His enchantments include Alegria, Quidam, Saltimbanco and La Nouba, to name but a few.
With original creations such as the aquatic show Ô and Mystère, he played a part in transforming Las Vegas into one of the major artistic centres in the world.
These are the words of Chris Jones, the art critic and American columnist, for whom “the Belgian artist Franco Dragone has made one of the most outstanding contributions to urban culture in the history of modern America”.
In 2000, he decides to create and to lead his own company in the working-class town that witnessed him grow up and to participate in the economic and cultural development of his adopted region. It was the birth of the Franco Dragone Entertainment Group. More focused than ever on creating visionary performing arts that combine the virtuosity of artistic prowess, creative diversity and the mastery of technological innovation as a theatrical language. It was the start of a new era for Franco Dragone.
While he has become a businessman and an entrepreneur as well as a visionary artist, Franco Dragone describes himself above all as an activist for the performing arts. People are at the centre of his work and his ideas, just as much as the enthusiasm and artistic performance itself. It is this enthusiasm that allows him and his team to start from scratch each time, to invent shows that are ever more sophisticated, universal and innovative.
He announced in 2000, when he presented the first Décrocher la Lune: My first contribution, a gesture, a declaration of intentions, and of war, against the stench of the inevitable and the shadows of a future as yet undefined.
The time has come to fuel and fan the flames of creation that smoulder beneath the Centre. To support the constructive resistance of these people: designers, politicians, artists and technicians, who desire to reshape and recreate the contours of a life in constant turmoil. To be engulfed by these waves and tides, who continue to swim against the tide, believing that anything is still possible. To launch a beacon of joy.”
The Franco Dragone Group amazed the music industry in March 2003 when it created “A New Day” for Celine Dion, a show so successful that it staged in Las Vegas for five years. The company then created “Le Rêve” in 2005, a sumptuous resident aquatic show created for the Wynn Resort, once again in Vegas.
In 2010, “The House of Dancing Water”, an extraordinary aquatic show created in Macao opened the door in China. Almost 3 years only after the opening, more than 1000 shows and 2 million spectators later, The House Of Dancing Water was honoured with many international awards. And the success keeps going on.
In 2012, Dragone’s new cabaret Taboo: The Show Naughty and Naughtier premiered at City of Dreams, in Macao.
Since its creation, the company has also developed expertise in designing and organising events all over the world under the artistic direction of Franco Dragone. This other activity of the Group has resulted in the creation of a large number of events in Europe, Asia and on the American continent.
In the first quarter of 2013, FDEG has participated to a prestigious festival in Abu Dhabi, with an amazing show based on 250 years of Emirati culture, “The story of a Fort, the Legacy of a Nation”.
The Macao experience proved the company’s international appeal. Soon after this exceptionally successful venture, Franco Dragone accepted a commission to put together the creation, production and performance of several world-class shows in a number of Chinese cities over the next ten years. The first theatre, in the shape of a Chinese lantern, has been built in Wuhan, in the province of Hubei. It was designed by world-famous architect, Mark Fisher. In 2014 the venue hosted The Han Show Premiere, the writing of which has been deeply influenced by Chinese culture.
A New Chapter:
A new name, a new simplified logo and a new website are signs of the objectives Franco Dragone wishes to lay down for his Company: to permanently establish it, in its creative dimensions, in Belgium, and specifically in La Louvière and of course in Franco’s second home town, Las Vegas; to develop his shows throughout the world using local resources; to focus on the training of performers and technicians; and to open the Company up to new skills and new horizons, like the designing and building of theme parks, directing international festivals, and contributing to the emergence of the cultural industry as an instrument of change in post-industrial Europe.
Goodbye Franco Dragone Entertainment Group. Hello Dragone, a consortium in the image of its founder: pluralistic and multi-faceted, while still being focused on one overriding objective: to speak to humanity in the universal language of shared emotions …
In Macao, in 2012, Lawrence Ho asked Franco to create a small-scale show for The Cubic a very select club housed within his City of Dreams hotel complex. The show also included international cabaret stars such as Dita Von Teese and the famous Bluebell Girls from the Lido. With the appearance of the Bluebell Girls at the Cubic in Macao, contacts were gradually formed with the owners of the Lido, the Bellon family, and with the management of the famous Parisian cabaret, who were looking for a way to modernize their venerable institution. Opened in March 2015, Paris Merveilles is a breath-taking spectacle, in which a chorus leader of quite a new kind, a very rock ’n’ roll kind, leads the audience on a voyage of discovery into an eternal Paris.
The projects come thick and fast, with adjustments to The Han Show in Wuhan, the opening of The Dai Show in Xishuangbanna in October 2015, the artistic direction of a vast amusement park in Turkey, and the construction of a new purpose-built theatre in Dubai in spring 2017.
In 2017, Dragone’s show La Perle opened in Al Habtoor City, Dubai, in a custom-made 10-story theater. The show involved waterfalls, fires, motorcyclists spinning inside a suspended metal sphere, acrobatics into water, and other features. Preparing La Perle took Dragone four to five years, and during its first year he “continually tweaked and improved” the show.
In recent times Dragone debuted a world first in collaboration with the Saudi Ministry of Culture as they reveal their latest creation, TERHAL. This most recent Dragone creation is the first production of its kind in the Kingdom: an original, live theatrical spectacular that honors and celebrates the rich culture of Saudi Arabia by featuring a combined cast of local Saudi artists working alongside international artists and collaborators from over 20 different nations. TERHAL.
The spectacle premiered on March 2 in a newly constructed theatre built for the show. The Saudi Ministry of Culture has been a strong and generous partner to Dragone in shaping the process and creation of this theatrical and cultural masterpiece.
TERHAL is be the first Dragone creation to open since the passing of Dragone founder and Artistic Director Franco Dragone. With his involvement through much of the process, it is a particularly special show for the Dragone organization, with every team member striving to honor his legacy in every aspect of the production.
Our
Vision
& Mission
to nourish the spark of Dreams,
ignite the Imagination,
to Create beyond paradigms
Art is vital and holds an essential place in our society well beyond any form, format, or formula. This is the fundamental approach to theatre as life that Franco Dragone has passed on to the global creative community and to us as his company.
The essence of that approach is to unite the widest range of diversified talent and expertise into a vision.
Dragone is by nature Pluridisciplinary, and each creative process serves and nourishes that vision.
Therefore, each creation has its own “raison d’être”.
The ever-expanding creative avenues for discovery, exploration and expression remain the core into which we delve and out from which we radiate.
Our Core
BUILDING THE DREAM
We are imbued with the creative approach of our visionary founder, propelling the ideology forward with avant-garde, transdisciplinary, and timeless experiences that will forever live on.
We approach every project like a new creation, and therefore we will follow the appropriate Dragone process and method: Creativity with a nucleus of creators, designers and specialists who inspire each other and that will lead towards a common and constant goal: offer an image that speaks powerfully beyond any language or model.
We Create
Our Values
1
Authenticity of our artistic approach: throughout 20 years of activity Dragone has been able to create its universe which is undeniably recognized today.
2
Never compromise on quality.
3
Constantly intertwine the following:
• Artistic • Economic • Social
developing the cultural community around the world.
4
Listen to the environment and let it inform you.
Our
History
FROM FRANCO TO DRAGONE
Franco Dragone is widely recognized
as a ground breaking catalyst for modern performing arts.
As a young child, Franco moved from a small Italian village, Cairano, to Belgium with his family. They settled in a flourishing mining town, La Louvière, where Franco grew up. His passion for performance culminated in him studying drama at the Conservatory in Mons, where he fell in love with commedia dell’arte and political theatre.
He became involved, both as an actor and a director, in many cultural movements with social overtones that were troubling Europe in the wake of May 1968.
“I was born during the crisis and all I ever wanted was to escape from this sad reality. I needed to feed my imagination.”
From his first appearance as an actor in a young professional theatre company, Franco realised that his place was not only on stage but also amid the action. He resolutely enrolled in theatre-action with the Compagnie Du Campus, to which he owes his transition to directing.
In 1982 he left Belgium for Quebec where he ran workshops in theatrical improvisation before teaching at the National Circus School of Montreal.
His original and innovative method attracted the critics’ attention, particularly that of Guy Laliberté, who had just founded what would soon become the one and only Cirque du Soleil. This would be Franco Dragone’s crowning moment.
Between 1985 and 1999 he put his name to ten Cirque du Soleil productions, some of which are still being performed around the world with the same degree of success. His enchantments include Alegria, Quidam, Saltimbanco and La Nouba, to name but a few.
With original creations such as the aquatic show Ô and Mystère, he played a part in transforming Las Vegas into one of the major artistic centres in the world.
These are the words of Chris Jones, the art critic and American columnist, for whom “the Belgian artist Franco Dragone has made one of the most outstanding contributions to urban culture in the history of modern America”.
In 2000, he decides to create and to lead his own company in the working-class town that witnessed him grow up and to participate in the economic and cultural development of his adopted region. It was the birth of the Franco Dragone Entertainment Group. More focused than ever on creating visionary performing arts that combine the virtuosity of artistic prowess, creative diversity and the mastery of technological innovation as a theatrical language. It was the start of a new era for Franco Dragone.
While he has become a businessman and an entrepreneur as well as a visionary artist, Franco Dragone describes himself above all as an activist for the performing arts. People are at the centre of his work and his ideas, just as much as the enthusiasm and artistic performance itself. It is this enthusiasm that allows him and his team to start from scratch each time, to invent shows that are ever more sophisticated, universal and innovative.
He announced in 2000, when he presented the first Décrocher la Lune: My first contribution, a gesture, a declaration of intentions, and of war, against the stench of the inevitable and the shadows of a future as yet undefined.
The time has come to fuel and fan the flames of creation that smoulder beneath the Centre. To support the constructive resistance of these people: designers, politicians, artists and technicians, who desire to reshape and recreate the contours of a life in constant turmoil. To be engulfed by these waves and tides, who continue to swim against the tide, believing that anything is still possible. To launch a beacon of joy.”
The Franco Dragone Group amazed the music industry in March 2003 when it created “A New Day” for Celine Dion, a show so successful that it staged in Las Vegas for five years. The company then created “Le Rêve” in 2005, a sumptuous resident aquatic show created for the Wynn Resort, once again in Vegas.
In 2010, “The House of Dancing Water”, an extraordinary aquatic show created in Macao opened the door in China. Almost 3 years only after the opening, more than 1000 shows and 2 million spectators later, The House Of Dancing Water was honoured with many international awards. And the success keeps going on.
In 2012, Dragone’s new cabaret Taboo: The Show Naughty and Naughtier premiered at City of Dreams, in Macao.
Since its creation, the company has also developed expertise in designing and organising events all over the world under the artistic direction of Franco Dragone. This other activity of the Group has resulted in the creation of a large number of events in Europe, Asia and on the American continent.
In the first quarter of 2013, FDEG has participated to a prestigious festival in Abu Dhabi, with an amazing show based on 250 years of Emirati culture, “The story of a Fort, the Legacy of a Nation”.
The Macao experience proved the company’s international appeal. Soon after this exceptionally successful venture, Franco Dragone accepted a commission to put together the creation, production and performance of several world-class shows in a number of Chinese cities over the next ten years. The first theatre, in the shape of a Chinese lantern, has been built in Wuhan, in the province of Hubei. It was designed by world-famous architect, Mark Fisher. In 2014 the venue hosted The Han Show Premiere, the writing of which has been deeply influenced by Chinese culture.
A New Chapter:
A new name, a new simplified logo and a new website are signs of the objectives Franco Dragone wishes to lay down for his Company: to permanently establish it, in its creative dimensions, in Belgium, and specifically in La Louvière and of course in Franco’s second home town, Las Vegas; to develop his shows throughout the world using local resources; to focus on the training of performers and technicians; and to open the Company up to new skills and new horizons, like the designing and building of theme parks, directing international festivals, and contributing to the emergence of the cultural industry as an instrument of change in post-industrial Europe.
Goodbye Franco Dragone Entertainment Group. Hello Dragone, a consortium in the image of its founder: pluralistic and multi-faceted, while still being focused on one overriding objective: to speak to humanity in the universal language of shared emotions …
In Macao, in 2012, Lawrence Ho asked Franco to create a small-scale show for The Cubic a very select club housed within his City of Dreams hotel complex. The show also included international cabaret stars such as Dita Von Teese and the famous Bluebell Girls from the Lido. With the appearance of the Bluebell Girls at the Cubic in Macao, contacts were gradually formed with the owners of the Lido, the Bellon family, and with the management of the famous Parisian cabaret, who were looking for a way to modernize their venerable institution. Opened in March 2015, Paris Merveilles is a breath-taking spectacle, in which a chorus leader of quite a new kind, a very rock ’n’ roll kind, leads the audience on a voyage of discovery into an eternal Paris.
The projects come thick and fast, with adjustments to The Han Show in Wuhan, the opening of The Dai Show in Xishuangbanna in October 2015, the artistic direction of a vast amusement park in Turkey, and the construction of a new purpose-built theatre in Dubai in spring 2017.
In 2017, Dragone’s show La Perle opened in Al Habtoor City, Dubai, in a custom-made 10-story theater. The show involved waterfalls, fires, motorcyclists spinning inside a suspended metal sphere, acrobatics into water, and other features. Preparing La Perle took Dragone four to five years, and during its first year he “continually tweaked and improved” the show.
In recent times Dragone debuted a world first in collaboration with the Saudi Ministry of Culture as they reveal their latest creation, TERHAL. This most recent Dragone creation is the first production of its kind in the Kingdom: an original, live theatrical spectacular that honors and celebrates the rich culture of Saudi Arabia by featuring a combined cast of local Saudi artists working alongside international artists and collaborators from over 20 different nations. TERHAL.
The spectacle premiered on March 2 in a newly constructed theatre built for the show. The Saudi Ministry of Culture has been a strong and generous partner to Dragone in shaping the process and creation of this theatrical and cultural masterpiece.
TERHAL is be the first Dragone creation to open since the passing of Dragone founder and Artistic Director Franco Dragone. With his involvement through much of the process, it is a particularly special show for the Dragone organization, with every team member striving to honor his legacy in every aspect of the production.