03/2005 |
Cirque du Soleil Show at the MGM Grand a Vertical Epic | |||||||||||
by Russell Boniface Entertainment architect Mark Fisher, known for designing spectacular stages for rock concerts and Super Bowl shows, has created a theater at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas with no stage. Instead, for the Cirque du Soleil show KÀ, Fisher has created an environment in which acrobats perform on tilting and rotating platforms, leap off balconies into midair, and fly over a bottomless pit. Verticality reigns Fisher wanted a sense of verticality for KÀ. He created two platforms that orient in any direction. They rise from what the audience perceives as a bottomless pit, 120 feet across, where a conventional stage would be. One is a 1,250-square-foot, 175-ton hydraulically powered platform about the size of a typical theater stage. It rises into view during the show, tilting from horizontal to vertical and revolving 360 degrees. At one point, it becomes completely vertical, changing the setting from a beach to a cliff. The smaller platform is a 900-square-foot, 40-ton deck that can simultaneously lift, rotate, and tilt while sliding open like three drawers. The stages serve as the settings for a battlefield, beach, forest, cliff, and mountaintop. The actors must perform many of their maneuvers while the platforms they are on move in all directions right under their feet. If they fall off, there’s a 60-foot drop into the pit onto an out-of-site airbag. In addition, four-story balconies with metal-beam bridges at each level sideline the theater, from which actors leap to “fly” over the audience. Lighting and special video effects play a big role, e.g., solid can change instantly to liquid, then to fire. A raised ceiling heightens the feeling of verticality. Transformational environments “By creating a stage surface that can be oriented in any direction to create performances that at some moments seem almost weightless, the show reproduces live some of the disorientating qualities of contemporary blockbusters,” Fisher says. “The fact that the action is presented live, with real flesh and blood performers, increases the adrenalin rush for the audience.” Guy Caron, director of creation for KÀ, points out that the show is not a circus act. “It’s circus skill we use to introduce on the script,” he says. “We introduce all the performances on the storyline, like a silent movie. You are going to be surprised . . . but a good surprised.” Copyright 2005 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved. Home Page |
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