Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas

Reviews of ‘O’, Ka and Zumanity Nightly Performances on The Strip

Aug 30, 2009

From the sensuality of Zumanity to the water sports of 'O', Cirque du Soleil dazzles Las Vegas with its unique blending of music, art and performance acrobatics.

Cirque du Soleil was founded by Guy Laliberté in the early 80’s in Baie-Saint-Paul, near Quebec City, Canada. In the early days this troupe of street performers included stilt walkers, jugglers, fire breathers and musicians.

In 1984, Laliberté proposed a show, calling it Cirque du Soleil (Circus of the Sun) to perform in Quebec City for the celebration of the 450th anniversary of Jacques Cartier’s discovery of Canada.

From that performance a dream to create a Quebec circus and tour the world was born. Today Cirque du Soleil holds performances around the world through touring shows and residencies.

Las Vegas holds the record for the most residency shows in one city, including Zumanity, ‘O’ and Ka.

Unique to Las Vegas, this Cirque du Soleil production features the talents of the world’s finest acrobats, swimmers, contortionists and trapeze artists but with one difference – the show is mostly done in water.

Centering on a moving pool of water as front stage, the show features daring stunts as well as synchronized swimmers to tell the tale. Filled with other-worldly characters and amphibian creatures coming to life on a set from another dimension, ‘O’ (or its homonym “eau” the French word for water) is in a class of its own.

Unlike any other show before it, ‘O’ incorporates the best of the land, air and sea to create a performance so capitalising, so jaw dropping and so filled with imagery, it’s impossible to look away for one second and not miss something.

‘O’ is a must see for people who like water sports, synchronized swimming or have children.

Now playing at Bellagio, Las Vegas, Wednesday through Sunday at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m.

Cirque du Soleil invites the audience into its darker world where the forces of evil have separated imperial twins who must fight their way back home, and find love along the way.

Darker and more sinister than most Cirque productions, and with very few comedic interludes, Ka has more of a linear feel than other shows.

The theatre-wide performance area, constructed specifically for this show, contains a series of interconnecting bridges suspended in the air by circular poles. The stage looks like Mad Max meets the Ewok’s village from Star Wars from which the performers leap, fly and shoot real arrows at each other during their journey.

Like those movies, Ka creates a new world with strange creatures, new languages and a stage that no only rotates horizontally, but also rises vertically. The most impressive battle takes place on a completely vertical wall with suspended soldiers fighting and flying with no apparent regard for gravity.

Though there are some light moments such as an impromptu shadow puppet interlude, Ka is much more dense than other shows such as ‘O’ and has the type of otherworldly atmosphere that draws the audience in a chokehold throughout the electrifying performance.

Ka is a must see for people who like kung fu fighting, The Matrix and Star Wars.

Now Playing at MGM Grand, Las Vegas, Nevada, Tuesday through Saturday at 7:00 and 9:30 p.m.

Billed as the “Sensual side of Cirque du Soleil”, Zumanity isn’t that different from other shows in that it has tons of attractive, scantily clad muscle men twisting their bodies into impossible poses, and beautiful wire-thin women as bendable as grass showing extreme amounts of skin. The only difference is that Zumanity has more of it – much more.

Like most Cirque du Soleil shows, a central theme runs through Zumanity, in this case, humanity at its most sexual. However, the cabaret-style variety show shares more in common with a boy-bar drag show than a performance based on sexuality. Hosted by a drag queen Joey Arias cracking dry jokes, the show loses some of its appeal as the night goes on.

While it attempts to explore all aspects of human sexuality, Zumanity leans more towards the heterosexual spectrum of human sexuality, casting homosexuality in its usual role as something freakish.

Instead of showing true intimacy between men, as it does with men and women, the show portrays homosexuality in an extreme fighting scenario. Throughout Zumanity, Cirque du Soleil relies heavily on outdated clichés of gay sex and S&M to pull off the performance whereas it could have been a beautiful tool to broaden the minds of viewers on the scope of human sexuality and sensuality.

To the average viewer, Zumanity is an eye-popping exploration of sexual taboos, to anyone who has seen a real sex show in Bangkok or even a Montreal strip show, Zumanity comes off as a bit of a disappointment.

Now playing at New York-New York Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada, Wednesday through Sunday at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m.

This international wonder from Canada continues to fascinate and amaze audiences in Las Vegas with its unique blend of performance arts, defiance of gravity, and in the case of Zumanity, sensuality.

In 2009 Cirque du Soleil celebrates its 25th anniversary. It also launches its 25th production, OVO, in Montreal.

The copyright of the article Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas in Nevada Travel is owned by James W. Coates. Permission to republish Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.