Tale of clashing tribes

Although hosting below full capacity means not being able to cover operational costs, Xia says: "The show must go on. We cannot let the fire die out ... for months we were training and waiting, believing this will pass and life will come back to normal."

Due to the pandemic, Cirque du Soleil was by late March forced to shutter almost all of its operations and lay off 95 percent of its staff members.

On May 6, the company announced that it had received "emergency funds" of $50 million from three shareholders, including China's Fosun Group.

In Hangzhou, the production team behind X: The Land of Fantasy has been largely unaffected, except for the absence of 20 expat staffers who are unable to return to Hangzhou because of travel bans in China.

"We have managed to hire a few Chinese artists, whose international contracts were canceled because of the pandemic," Xia says. "We are also in close contact with our overseas colleagues and are looking forward to their return."