Issue #138: JUL 2015 – Released!

Welcome to the latest edition of Fascination, the Unofficial Cirque du Soleil Newsletter.

After a relatively quiet end to Spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s been quite a bevy of announcements as of late to start the Summer off with a bang: One Night for One Drop set a date for its fourth annual production: Friday, March 18, 2016 at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Symphony Park downtown Las Vegas. Netflix acquires Luna Petuna, Cirque du Soleil’s animated preschool series (a co-production from Saban Brands and Cirque du Soleil Media), to air sometime in 2016. Cirque teases the show it has created for the Opening Ceremonies of the Pan Am Games being held in Toronto. Vidanta, Cirque and Goddard presented “The Celebrate Project”, the Cirque du Soleil Theme Park & Resort planned for Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. Some tantalizing information was presented in a video, which was later taken down, but what we saw of it proves this is a massive undertaking and could be something very special. We await more details. Cirque du Soleil and PopArt Music, an Argentinean company, announced that they will work jointly with Soda Stereo and Sony Music to create a show inspired by the music and history of the band (A project that has been under discussion for at least two years, Cirque said.) I think of it as a mini-Viva Elvis but we’ll have to wait and see. And that Cirque would bring TORUK: The First Flight to China following its North American Tour in addition to launching a new resident show to premiere in early 2018 at Hangzhou XTD in a custom-designed theater.

Sacré moo! (That’s holy cow to the rest of us…)

In tour news: OVO performed their last show under the Big Top in Sendai, Japan June 7th, and officially announced TOTEM would tour the region next. TOTEM is scheduled for Tokyo in February 2016 and will visit all five major cities: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Sendai over the course of the next 16 months. Tickets go on sale August 8th and you can get more information (soon) at their official website: (totem-jp.com). Meanwhile, OVO has gone dark while the show is converted into the Arena format. Rumor has it the bugs will resurface in April 2016 somewhere in North America. Currently the Cirque website suggests OVO will take over the Bell Centre in Montreal next, but, how that schedule will coincide the launch of Cirque 2016, the next touring show (directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca in case you didn’t know) that April and with TORUK’s tour schedule is unknown as yet. But it’s possible OVO will soft-open in a few secondary markets in the United States before “premiering” in Montreal well after the new touring show has moved on to Quebec City and Toronto, but we’ll have to wait and see!

VAREKAI celebrated its 4,500th performance on Friday, June 26th and Michael Jackson ONE celebrated its 2nd Anniversary in style on Monday, June 29th! And CORTEO certainly surprised us all by extending its farewell tour into Ecuador (and probably finally close in Venezuela). This thanks to a newly formed partnership between Cirque and Main Event Productions, a company based in Venezuela to bring KOOZA to South America in 2016. The new year also brings sad tidings for QUIDAM’s 20-year tour around the globe. It’s coming to an end on February 16, 2016 in New Zealand. But don’t despair… rumors abound that QUIDAM will be presented one last time under the Big Top before its final curtain call, when it visits South Korea later this year and that’s something we never thought we’d see again! So if you’re inclined to see the show one last time under the big top, its stop in Seoul might be your last chance!

Phew, that’s a lot to take in for sure. Details on many of these topics (and more) can be found in our NEWS section.

In our FEATURES section this month we have a review of the One Night for One Drop 3 Fathom Event that took place on Wednesday, June 10th. Yours truly was unable to attend, but thankfully my good friend Keith Johnson was able to, and he gives us his thoughts about the broadcast and the show within! Then we have Q&A’s from two different sources of the Press, which were just too long and unwieldy to be published in our NEWS section : a Q&A with KURIOS’s Kit Chatham (Percussionist) and a Q&A with the Wardrobe Team from KOOZA. And last, but certainly not least, we also have a special article collection from Robin Leach who, through his column with the Las Vegas Sun (Vegas Deluxe), explored the world of “On The Record: BAZ”, a new theatrical experience from Cirque du Soleil at LIGHT Mandalay Bay, with three separate articles published with the Las Vegas Sun. These are: a Q&A with BAZ actress Ginifer King, a Q&A with BAZ Performers Ruby and Ciaran, and lastly a review of the new spectacle, which we’ve compiled for you in one SPECIAL: “Robin Leach on ‘For the Record: BAZ'”

As always we also have the relevant posts made to Cirque’s Facebook pages, and updates to Cirque’s touring schedule.

So, let’s get started!

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