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John Katsilometes, Entertainment Writer, Las Vegas Sun
After the tragic death of a performer, the Cirque de Soleil show Ka opened on a limited schedule this week. John Katsilometes tells us what the mood was when the show re-opened and how the performance has been modified in the wake of the accident, and describes the climactic scene that has been temporarily removed from the show:
Katsilometes: "The final battle scene entirely has been taken out, and this is the climactic scene show for good reason. It’s pretty spellbinding. And what they do with the stage -- and it’s about a 70 foot stage that is movable. It moves up into a vertical position, and it’s angled at various times in the show and the final battle is completely perpendicular to the stage. It faces down into an open pit. You’re looking at it from the audience as if you’re looking at the aerial view of the battle, and the performers are harnessed and connected to rigging devices by metal cords, and that is their safety equipment.
Photo: Stringer/USA/Newscom/RTR
It brings them up to the top of the stage, it allows them movement not only up the stage, but somewhat laterally, and they hit that stage and it kind of has a water effect. There’s an aqua surface to it, so when they’re advancing in this battle – and they’re wearing fantasy-like green and yellow costumes when they hit that looks like ripples of water. So they’re coming up eight abreast and boom boom boom they’re hitting that surface. You get the feeling that they’re walking literally across water, on a vertical stage, you’re looking at from an aerial view. It’s very impressive. And at the top point it’s very high – according to the coroner report (Sarah Guillot-Guyard) had fallen about 90 feet from there. So that is the scene that normally closes the show. So that has been entirely sidelined, at least until the OSHA findings are released."