As for the show itself, the thing that every one of the show’s creators mentions first is the story. The very fact that there is a story takes KÀ out of the realm of circus and into an arena closer to ballet or opera—provided of course it’s a ballet or opera that features fast-and-furious set-piece martial arts battles, flaming arrows flying through the air, eye-popping pyrotechnics, astonishing high-tech projections, death-defying falls, leaps, shipwrecks and snowstorms. “KÀ is a departure for Cirque,” says Guy Laliberté, Cirque du Soleil’s Founding President. “It’s the most theatrical show we’ve ever done.”

Director of Creation Guy Caron says Cirque du Soleil itself is being reinvented with this show: “We started with the script. The script dictated the way the theater was built and determined how the sets would be used. That’s totally new for Cirque. It’s a real story, which is something we’ve never had before. And that story is a sweeping saga on a grand scale. It’s the larger-than-life tale of a pair of separated twins—a boy and a girl—born into a lavish imperial lifestyle, who lose everything and must embark on a perilous journey through a mythical universe to regain their stolen lives.

As their safe, comfortable world comes under attack and collapses around them, the twins are parted, and they quickly discover that danger lies in wait for them at every turn.”

To make the story work, Laliberté and Caron turned to theater, opera, and film director Robert Lepage, who is renowned worldwide for his expertise in bringing multimedia and cinematic techniques to live stage shows. The mandate they gave Lepage was to create an epic. “