| Playing with Fire page 4 | ||
| Story by MATTHEW COPE
Backstage, there is a vast complex of catwalks, corridors, smoke-effect conduits, lifts, winches, safety equipment, lights, speakers, and machinery to enable the 80 technicians who run the show to handle its intense demands. But as the show starts, the audience isn’t aware of any of that. They sit facing an apparently bottomless pit filled with smoke and fire. “The audience travels with the performers through many different worlds that are created through small changes of scenery and massive changes of lighting,” Mark Fisher explains. “In our earliest conversations, Robert Lepage and I talked of creating a stage that hovered in space like an island. As our ideas evolved, it became an island that could fly, like a magic carpet, and from that came the primal void in which everything is concealed. At 50 tons, the magic carpet has become a big piece of machinery, but thanks to the dedication of a formidable team of engineers and technicians, the grace and magic of the original idea has been retained.” Above, around, and inside the void, the artists make their entrances, perform, and make their exits without ever treading the boards of a conventional stage. Instead, they fly through the air, or perform on two moving platforms. Marie-Chantale Vaillancourt’s costumes for KÀ are quite a departure from what audiences have come to expect from Cirque du Soleil, too. In this show, there are no neon-bright primary colors on display, no candy stripes, or optical-illusion patterns. No shimmering skin-tight bodysuits, either. And yet, KÀ’s costumes are among the richest and most eye-catching ever seen in a Cirque production. As you leave the theater, you will certainly remember the Wheel of Death, but you’ll have many other breathtaking memories to choose from, too. Perhaps it will be René Dupéré’s haunting, lyrical musical score… maybe it will be the fireflies illuminating a magical forest… or it could be a rescue mission to the depths of an icy ocean. But whatever you take with you from KÀ, it’s a safe bet that it will stay with you for a long, long time. TICKETS AND INFORMATION |
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