Some of us have been lucky enough to see a Cirque du Soleil performance at one of the great venues in Las Vegas, or anywhere else around the world. The drama textbooks will remind you that one experiences a “willful suspension of disbelief” when watching a dramatic performance. But, Cirque du Soleil can not be lassoed into any single artistic category. It’s an art form you have to live in at the moment. You carry with you a kind of evolving, artistic impression that is different every time you see a show like this. I spoke with Tom Wegis, the Operations Production Manager of The Beatles Love. We talked about his experience in orchestrating the various technical departments of the production, and how they create the signature magic of Cirque du Soleil on The Beatles Love night after night.
The Beatles Love Theatre at The Mirage used to house the Siegfried & Roy show, and Cirque du Soleil had built out a $125 million custom-built theatrical and technical environment for The Beatles Love production with it’s 2,013 seats surrounding the stage in a complete circle. To give you an idea of the show’s complex performing space, there are three main theater levels that the crew works on during the show: the basement 81 foot level, the 100 foot main stage and backstage level and the low-grid 152 foot level. There is also the sub-basement, 10 feet below the basement level, where the motors and automation machinery is stored, and a high grid above the stage from the pre-existing Siegfried & Roy stage structures.
Working out the mechanics of the traps and the ‘sloats’ [sliding, lifting, opening, automated traps] was a difficult process. One advantage of the physical proscenium structure (called the “G-Line” or “Abbey Road”) that was left in place from the Siegfried and Roy days is that it cuts the stage in half, leaving an 8-foot gap across the whole width of the stage. This is used to fly scenery in and out of the dividing line and for acrobatics.
The main stage has seven different stage lifts, four different traps and two sloats, whose dividing line is the demarcation identifier for the stage’s lifts, traps and sloats. The stage lifts use rack and pinion motors instead of hydraulics.
The props that interact with the acrobats seem like regular stage props: a clock, a telephone box and brick walls. But the performance artists can walk, spin, jump and bounce off them. But here’s the amazing part about the props onstage: 85% of the floor is mobile, only 15% doesn’t open, and it’s almost impossible to put things between two hatches or lifts. This physically small margin of performance error places an incredible weight of responsibility on acrobatic and rigging designer, Guy St. Amour, for the safety of all the performers who place their trust in him.
When The Beatles Love first premiered in the summer of 2006, it was the first time in Cirque du Soleil’s 22-year history that they had based a show around music rather than acrobatic performance. So, how does the show manage to seamlessly balance old-school, physical performances of aerialists, acrobats, trapeze artists, dancers and even clowns with state-of-the-art technology? The secret is automation. Cirque du Soleil uses a lot of automation in Las Vegas shows. Automation is adapted from it’s industrial roots and is made to work in the theatrical space, but according to Wegis, it all begins with the artistic process of the Cirque du Soleil creative teams. “They come up with a concept. There are no boundaries with the concept.” And the technical staff is responsible for bringing that concept to life, whatever that is for the show.
The Beatles Love as a show has one of the most complex automation deployments in theatrical performance history. Stage Technologies was contracted to design the automation control system, and even the rigging, all of which was set up in less than a year. The automation system allows the utmost flexibility during performances. Stage Technologies supplied 142 axes of automation for the show in order to move complex combinations of platforms, screens and set elements smoothly from one scene to the next. Custom-designed rotating frames, called tracks and trolleys, were created to carry flying performers across the roof space. Below is a list of the automated stage machinery that is used in the show.
- 4 Nomad control desks
- 5 Solo handheld controllers
- MaxisID theater automation control system
- 13 tracks and trolleys
- 62 BigTow winches
- 5 main lifts
- 2 trampoline lifts
- 4 articulating trap systems
- 2 sloat mechanisms
- 2 additional stage lifts
The complex automation sequences are programmed with advanced software, eChameleon and Visual Creator.
Read more here: http://goo.gl/djxcN4
{ SOURCE: Forbes }
