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The biggest Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas Ka at MGM Grand will be popping champagne tomorrow as it celebrates its sixth anniversary on the Strip. The MGM Grand production is Cirque’s fourth residency show here and is said to be the most expensive production ever mounted in the history of theater. But money aside, Ka is also the only Cirque show that tells an actual story, making it a production that shows off both its athleticism and captivating storyline. Combining martial arts, acrobatics, puppetry, interactive video projections and pyrotechnics Ka tells the story of the Imperial Twins – a boy and a girl – who embark on a journey to fulfill their destinies. Brought to life by over 80 artists from around the world, Ka has captivated more than 3,000 audiences during its seven-year tenure. That feat is due in part to the creative team’s constant hunger to tweak the show, keeping it new and fresh for audiences. "The idea is if you keep this show being a work piece, it's fun for everybody," says artistic director Marie-Hélène Gagnon. "Everybody has an opinion (and) not coming in, clocking in, doing the thing you do and then going home, which would be a killer for anybody who likes to work the stage." One such change happened just last year with the overhaul of the gravity-defying battle finale. New characters were added for the good vs. evil fight to making it more realistic than before. And while audience members may not notice the new characters there’s no doubt a more definitive storyline has been created. Now that the battle scene has been updated, Creators have already begun reworking other sequences, such as the battle on a ship tossed at sea.
All of these changes are a part of a larger marketing effort to distinguish each Cirque title from the other, and to position Ka as "this epic adventure.”
Ka’s incredible stage even helps set it apart from the other Cirque shows on the Strip. Winner of the 2008 Thea Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement, the Ka stage is made up of an elaborate set of mobile stages. Five stage lifts moving 25 feet up and down transport props and performers during the spectacular show. The effect is incredible especially when the largest piece of the stage – the “Sand Cliff Deck,” a 25x50x6 foot “performance space” that weighs 80,000 pounds – rotates to be fully perpendicular to the floor and has many performers frolicing around on it. Congratulations to Ka on seven years of extraordinary entertainment! Here’s to many more years of thrilling acrobatics, an enthralling storyline and that incredible stage!
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