KÀ brings the visual language of cinema to a
dazzling live event that is more about storytelling
than any previous Cirque production. The show's underlying
theme of duality is underscored by the opposing powers
of fire to create and to destroy.
KÀ combines acrobatic performances, martial arts,
puppetry, multimedia and pyrotechnics to illustrate
the nature of duality. Created and directed by acclaimed
theatre and film director Robert Lepage, the show applies
the visual vocabulary of cinema to a live spectacle
creating a vibrant narrative that conjures an entire
empire on stage.
KÀ tells the epic saga of separated twins—a
boy and a girl—who embark on a perilous journey
to fulfill their linked destinies. As the plot unfolds,
danger lies in wait for them at every turn. Archers
and spearmen hunt the twins relentlessly, as their quest
takes them through a succession of challenging landscapes,
from a mysterious seashore through menacing mountains
and foreboding forests.
The show’s creative elements are essential to
invoking the world of KÀ. The costumes for the
international cast of 72 artists have an Asian influence,
as reflected in the lavish imperial court costumes and
robust martial artists’ warrior uniforms. Additionally,
the mood is set by the original score, which incorporates
soaring melodies and richly textured arrangements driven
through an elaborate audio system that literally surrounds
the spectator in sound.
Another important element is the ambivalent power of
fire to create and destroy. “Fire is the one thing
that holds everything together,” says Lepage.
“It’s the storyline and the saga. It creates
conflict and destruction as it gives life and light.”
Cirque du Soleil Founder and CEO, Guy Laliberté,
describes KÀ as “the most theatrical show
we’ve ever done.” It is scripted with a
strongly defined almost cinematic narrative, with clearly
identified characters and story arcs. The execution
of that narrative called for more technologically advanced
visual effects than Cirque du Soleil has ever attempted.
“That’s why I wanted Robert Lepage to write
and direct the show. With his vast experience in theatre
and film, his knowledge of the technology and his curiosity
and innovative spirit, he was the only man for the job.”
The KÀ Theatre is an astonishing performance
space, seating 1,951 guests. “The arrival of KÀ
is the crown jewel in the renaissance of MGM Grand,”
says Gamal Aziz, MGM Grand president and COO. “Throughout
our reinvention, we have strived for the best in dining,
entertainment and service. With the unveiling of KÀ,
MGM Grand is taken to a new level.” The show’s
title, KÀ, is inspired by the ancient Egyptian
belief in the “ka,” an invisible spiritual
duplicate of the body that accompanies every human being
throughout this life and into the next. That concept
is also reflected in the show’s visual signature,
which evokes the central theme of duality as personified
by the twins and the symbolic use of fire. The logo
is influenced by Asian iconography.
If you spend $165 million on a show, the results had
better be spectacular. Fortunately, there's still no
shortage of wonder and creativity under the Cirque du
Soleil tent, as evidenced in its new production, 'KA'
(pronounced 'caw'). Even though Cirque shows are now
as ubiquitous as Starbucks in Vegas, each offers a unique
entertainment experience, even if some of the trappings
are similar.
KA is an ancient spiritual concept that provides the
theme to a linear story (a first for a Cirque show)
of Asian twins, male and female, who are separated at
birth and set out on individual journeys fraught with
danger. There is no dialogue, but there's plenty of
everything else; 'KA' integrates music, circus acrobatics,
martial arts, kabuki, puppetry and pyrotechnics, enhanced
by the type of special effects that previously existed
only in the creation of motion pictures.
What’s new about KÀ? Just about everything.
To start with, it’s the first Cirque show with
a plot. The story, devised by writer-director Robert
Lepage, tells of twins, a brother and sister (played
by sisters but not twins Sheri and Jennifer Haight),
separated during an attack at the royal court and meeting
many outlandish creatures on a beach, in a forest, in
a mountaintop tepee (whose flaps become giant wings
and fly away) while they try to elude Japanese gangster
types led by the Councillor, a yellow-hooded Fu Manchu.
KÀ means duality in Egyptian, and the plot eventually
reconciles brother and sister, sea and sand, Earth and
sky.
In addition, space-age technology and Stone Age storytelling.
Ka is also a Japanese word for fire, says Lepage, who
sees fire as “the birth of performance.”
In prehistoric times, people would sit around a fire
and tell stories. “One day,” Lepage says,
“a guy stands up, and the shadow behind him on
the wall is the first form of using technology to tell
a story.” In this 21st century Plato’s cave,
the use of fire is both inventive and incendiary. It
announces itself at the start in bursts from the void,
flicks from the lanterns of villains attacking the twins,
lights the beguilingly simple shadow play of the boy
twin and his protector. It warms and illuminates the
whole show.
Some of what’s new in KÀ is what’s
missing. There are no discrete acrobatic numbers, no
cheerfully gaudy costumes, no solo clown acts. Most
brazenly, no stable stage. Instead, a void, out of which
some ethereal miracles materialize. A life-size ship
floats in the air; people are plunged into the deep
sea (the bubbles are clever video projections); a beach
is inhabited by an acrobatic starfish and contortionist
crabs; a forest of metal tubes features a stick bug,
a scorpion, a snake—all human-size.
Occasionally that 15-m-by-7.6-m, 159-ton slab (known
as the sand-cliff deck) rises from the pit to serve
as a wall, a cliff, a battlefield. A smaller platform
(the 9-m-by-9-m, 34-ton tatami deck) is the beach. Then
there’s the ship, which in a storm-tossed sea
nearly tips on its side (you won’t get wet, as
in the first rows of O, but you might get seasick).
These platforms—the main one is operated by a
$10 million gantry crane that can simultaneously lift,
rotate and tilt it—help give KÀ its nearly
ant gravitational buoyancy.
Artists using new tools sometimes let the tools use
them. “There might be too many toys,” says
production manager Stephane Mongeau with a smile-sigh.
“When I look at the theater right now, I feel
maybe I didn’t say no enough.” No question
that the technology, supported by a staff of 168, is
the star (the final curtain call goes to the gantry
crane). But it doesn’t overwhelm the action or
the performers; it enables them.
The show is bursting with episodes that will make a
viewer’s eyes pop and jaw go slack. The martial
artistry, fought with spears or what look like giant
Q-tips, is vigorous enough on the giant deck. Performed
on the virtually vertical wall, with the artists on
barely visible wires, it’s kung- furious. In the
forest, the blue people leap from one reedlike pole
to another, catching it not with their hands but between
their thighs. The climactic battle scene, which gives
the audience the impression of seeing it from above,
is so treacherous, so complexly choreographed, it could
have Jackie Chan drooling with appreciation and envy.
The KÀ adventure began in 2000, when Cirque’s
sponsors at MGM Mirage realized the need for an attraction
to replace the aging EFX show at the MGM Grand. Cirque,
of course, had an idea. Or perhaps it had only an inclination—to
say yes, we can fill that space. They may also have
had an inspiration: the surprise North American success
($128 million box office) of the Chinese film Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon, whose performers bound on rooftops
and treetops as lithely and blithely as if they were
in one of Cirque’s yellow-and-blue-striped tents.
