Wednesday, February 11, 2015
KÀ, a Technical Marvel, Celebrates 10 Years
www.cirquefascination.com: The athleticism and gymnastics are extraordinary. The agility is more than amazing. The computer technology and machinery to bring Cirque du Soleil’s “Ka” to life twice nightly at MGM Grand are exceptional. It’s all about fearless courage and tenacity in a unique family of performing artists. They’ve been defying the laws of gravity for 10 years and are still climbing. Tonight is the start of the 10th anniversary celebration shows, and it’s good to take a look back at the spectacular that still has audiences confounded and wondering if what they saw was real.
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7 comments:
I guess you really can tech a show for 6 months if you know you are going to run for 10 years twice a night for 2,000 people. Cirque really does create some amazing work and I hope to one day see all of it, if not help play a small part in making it at some point. Every part of their performance is so highly calculated and refined. Every time I watch a video of Cirque's work, Ka or otherwise, I am blown away by what they have managed to make live entertainment. In our directing class last semester, our teacher stressed that physical feats or otherwise seemingly supernatural acts were one of the best pieces of competitive advantage that theater and live entertainment has. I truly believe that Cirque is on the bleeding edge of this concept, and I look forward to all the new content they will continue to produce. Happy 10th anniversary Ka!
I have only seen one Cirque show, and I have to admit I was blown away. A lot of what they do is highly calculated and practiced and the performers make it appear effortless.
That being said, I still strongly disagree with Cirque's decision to re-introduce the stunt that killed one of the performers. I am aware that 'the show must go on', but when multiple performers were injured during various stunts in "Spiderman the musical", the show was completely reworked and most of those stunts were cut. And when I saw the show, some of the audience would still cringe when the characters would fly over them.
I understand the way Cirque works, where you are constantly in fear for the performers' safety, and as the show progresses, you learn to let go and trust the acrobats and understand that they know what they're doing, and once you do that, the show becomes much more incredible to watch. As an audience member, I would not want to go to KA and watch a stunt that got one of the performers killed, I would spend the entire seen in fear, and that would completely rid me of any enjoyment for that scene.
Congratulations to Cirque du Soleil! This is truly a remarkable feat, to keep a show up and running for that long in Las Vegas, a city that has to constantly adapt and change to upcoming generations’ tastes. I have to disagree with Paula on the subject of reintroducing the scene in which the performer died. This scene is important to the progression of the show, and it was the intention of the director to include at the beginning of its run, so it should not be cut now. Spiderman had scenes cut, yes because of technical problems, but also because the show did not fit the producer’s goals. Cirque du Soleil had no reason to cut this scene other than when it was being reviewed, which is perfectly understandable. But once the situation was declared and the findings were presented, Cirque had every right to reintroduce the scene. I’ve heard from multiple people who saw the show with the projected seen the it took so much power away from the show and I personally, am glad that it was reintroduced and the show is safer that it ever was before.
Congratulations to Cirque! I can say that after seeing KA with my own eyes, the show is a clear standout from any other entertainment production on the Las Vegas stages. I think this benchmark says a lot about the Cirque business model, and with enough capital it'll be interesting to see if any productions outside of Cirque manage to follow that same model and succeed without getting Spiderman'd. I am also surprised to hear that the final battle scene was brought back, as I can imagine much audience outrage would ensue, as lame as a projection of the scene sounds. I'm assuming the $500,000 spent that was mentioned in the article following the accident was in part payed as the settlement and I'm only hoping that the rest was spent to increase the quality of safety equipment on stage.
I would say that the computer technology and mechanics involved in making Ka happen twice every night is a little bit more than exceptional, it is unprecedented. The image mapping and tracking technology that went into the media for the show was half a decade ahead of anything else being implemented in the field at the time. The ability to do really good live motion capture of actors in costume on stage, in any orientation was unseen onstage in such a large scale before this. The computers and the technology to do that had to be developed for Ka. Had it been implemented across industry sooner, entertainment media technology would be much farther advanced than now. While Ka’s run has not been unmarred by tragedy, it is still better than anywhere else that operates on Cirque’s scale of production. I hope they run for another 10 years without incident.
Cirque de Soleil is an amazing company. I have not seen a Cirque show before, but I hope to see one, especially Ka, in the future. The performers are probably some of the most athletic people in the world. Doing 8 shows a week on Broadway is very difficult for normal musicals. Ka performs twice a night, which is insane especially with all of the rigorous stunts that they perform. There are huge risks in everything they do. It is surprising that there haven’t been more deaths, but that is also a very good thing. It must have been a very tough decision to bring back the Final Battle Scene after the tragic accident. I am sure there were a lot of people that were opposed to bringing back this stunt, even though it was an accident and it would probably not happen again. There are probably even more safety precautions in addition to the many they already have for every stunt.
Every time i see excerpts from this show I become a gibbering idiot. It’s just SO COOL. It’s amazing, but not entirely surprising, that they have lasted for 10 years considering the scope of the show and all the crazy jaw dropping, heart stopping things they put into it. I’ve only seen one Cirque show and that blew me away. I cant even imagine what it would be like to see this show in person. So amazing. The talent and strength that each of the acrobats has to be able to do all these stunts. It’s surprising but really great that they’ve only had one death in this show. I rewatched the scene on youtube with the wheel of death and the battle at the end and I cannot believe they don't have more accidents than they do. In the battle it would be so easy to tangle all the cables together as they are flying over one another, and yet they never do, and they do it twice a night. Incredible.
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