
This time of the year the Ringling Circus invariably comes to town. With the kids in town from college I asked them if they wanted to go, and got a groan. Not that one, the one in Orlando. No animals at this circus, but plenty of clowns like Balthazar and Serge and trapeze, trampoline and other acrobatics. Ann Paladie in Cirque du Soleil’s PR group offered discounted tickets for a holiday showing of La Nouba there and the family jumped at the offer.
You have likely caught a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas or on its growing tour schedule around the globe . You have probably seen Worlds Away, James Cameron’s 3D medley film on several of the shows. But there is something special about going to the Sceno Plus designed Cirque Theatre in Downtown Disney in Orlando.
From ground to top of mast is a height is 150 feet and some of the equipment is stored in the ceiling. That allows the 25x60 foot trapeze net, for example, to be lowered without stage hand involvement and no tethering to the ground. The stage floor hides five fast moving elevator lifts which can each move loads of 3,000 lbs each at a foot a second up to a max of 16 feet and allow for a wide variety of set effects. Given that most of the show is above ground and even the orchestra is elevated, it is ideal that the this auditorium is not handicapped by proscenium arches which dominate most stages.
One of the best sequences in the show is the aerial ballet where performers wrap and fly around in columns of silk (the male performer uses the red columns around 0.45 in video below). The bright costumes are nicely accented by the lighting designed for seating in a 180º semicircle around the stage and we were seated right behind the sound technician and I kept squinting to get a glimpse at all his controls. Read more about the sound and light technology here
Before we drove to Orlando, I checked out Cirque’s digital assets. The mobile app has a very nice preview video on every one of the shows. As early as 2010, Cirque ran augmented reality technology at local malls to promote the La Nouba show. Guests with the Layar app could point their smart phones to designated areas within the mall and characters became visible on the screen. If they pointed toward the ceiling, they saw a trapeze artist. If they pointed it in between buildings, they saw a tight rope walker.
Overall, stunning evening, and maybe I can get the kids interested in the Ringling show as well :)
Photo Credit - Wikipedia
Google – 2013 Zeitgeist
The final entry in my scan of 50+ magazines for the best of 2013. Technically, not a magazine, but it is a daily read :)
Its annual Zeitgeist, based on most searched terms showed top 10 searches were
1. Paul Walker
2. Boston Marathon Bombing
3. Nelson Mandela
4. Cory Monteith
5. iPhone 5s
6. Government Shutdown
7. James Gandolfini
8. Harlem Shake
9. Royal Baby
10. Adrian Peterson
December 31, 2013 in Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)