Pollstar: Cirque du Soleil officials have invited reporters to a Dec. 3 preview of the scene’s return at the MGM Grand hotel-casino on the Strip.
Cirque expects to add the scene intermittently to regular performances for the ticket-buying public starting next week, and it will be part of every performance by Dec. 12, said Alexandria Baum, a spokeswoman for the show.
Changes have been made to the choreography and equipment used in the scene, she said.
6 comments:
I have very strong feelings about "Ka". Although Cirque cut the scene, and settled with OSHA, etc, I really don't like the fact that the show continues to run. In any other production, if an actor dies, the show would stop, but not cirque apparently. Their break wasn't even three weeks long. With all the money and popularity that Cirque is receiving, it wouldn't be too detrimental to remove a show that killed a performer.
It's just as gross in my opinion to add the scene back in at all. But hopefully there will be no injuries, or, god forbid, deaths, in upcoming performances. Ka might just have to take a whole month off.
I feel as if Cirque has a strong sense of " the show must go on". I don't know how I feel about them adding in the show that had ended fatally previously. However, now they know what they can fix and they can be more cautious in the future, whereas, creating an entirely new stunt could be just as fatal as the original stunt because it would be like trying something out again for the first time. I feel like safety precautions should be taken in all cases regardless of accidents prior in order to prevent tragedies like this from occurring in the future.
In a sense I feel like I can compare the deaths and stunts of Cirque to the deaths and stunts of Animal trainers at SeaWorld. They would sill be doing the same stunts after fatal accidents as well. I don't necessarily agree with this, I just feel as if entertainment performances or thrilling performances have reached a certain limit and should proceed with caution.
Yes Cirque could have complexly cut this event from the show completely, but I value that they decided to bring it back after a dramatic event. Just because something fails once and has a horrible result doesn't mean you should give up and not try again. Many of these stunts have high risk and their is tons of potential for injury. This doesn't mean that the company is going to shut down because of what could happen. It would have been really easy to walk away from this event and move on, but they were up for the challenge and really wanted to push their boundaries and give the audience what they want to see. I'm assuming the performers had complete control over this choice too and were not forced into doing a stunt they did't want to do.
in response to Paula, I disagree. Not all shows would shut down permanently because of an actor death. a hiatus most likely occurs and a return with a possible some new cast and some re-blocking but the show can just as easily return as it could be shut down. I think that there is a frequently overlooked factor of that is pivotal to cirque performances and that is the danger factor in the show. All of these performers joined this company with full knowledge of how dangerous their careers are. I am not trying to make light the death of an incredibly talented performer but let us take a look at a larger picture. This is the first performance death in the history of the company which is quite impressive and a testament to the skill of the performers. What we seem to be over looking is that this was an accident, yes probably could have been prevented but it was an accident. If you look at a show like spiderman, that should should have been canceled and ages ago. The difference is between properly and safely executing the stunts and just pushing forward through dangerous acts hoping someone will figure it out.
I also have to disagree with Paula in that Cirque did take precautions by taking the battle scene out for a year and a half. A year and a half is plenty of time to refine safety so that something like this does not happen again. And the "Wheel of Death" was removed too, and the stunt man didn't die that time. Cirque seems to remove anything that could harm their company and I admire that. Spiderman didn't do that; Spiderman just kept reopening with the same dangerous stunt until it closed for good. I feel better that Cirque at least addressed the issues immediately rather than continuing the same dangerous scene once there was an injury.
It says something about Cirque’s performers that the only death they have had in their entire history was by a technology failure, never by a missed acrobatic movement by a performer. As a proponent and possible builder of such technologies I wish that it had not been a tech failure but I understand that it does happen sometimes, and the best we can do is check and re-check everything.
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