Cirque Du Soleil Zaia Premiere at Venetian Macao

OK, i apologize for being slow on this one! two weeks ago we had a special opportunity to see the premiere opening for the new Cirque Du Soleil show ' Zaia' at the Venetian Casino in Macau.  You recall that I attended a press sneak preview of the show at the end of May that was pretty cool.

The invitation was pretty awesome, in addition to the show and ferry tickets, they comped 1 night accommodation and on the second day a behind the scenes tour of the theater and visit with the cast members.  (Venetian has spent a LOT of money on this thing, on the theater, on the show production, on the promotion, so no reason to stop now!)

UNFORTUNATELY we had already planned our trip to Tokyo for the 2nd day, so Stephen and I couldn't stay for the cool behind the scenes stuff.  But luckily Shan was able to make it to that ( click for Shan's pictures from the behind the scenes tour).

This is us outside the theater:

Unlike the preview in May, this time was the 'real deal' full show... and of course no photography.  Doh.  Well let me give my impressions of the show at least!

my review:

Actually I have never really been a Cirque du Soleil fanatic.  Some of my friends in the US have been to nearly, if not all of the shows in Vegas and also the touring shows.  Every time they invited me I was uninterested.  So in this respect this was my first Cirque Du Soleil experience. (...even though I know like 5 or 6 guys who did or currently work on the ' KA' show in Vegas).

Based on what i've read and heard from my friends,  this show differs from some of the other shows in that it doesn't really have a storyline or connecting theme... its mostly just a bunch of performances of various types - acrobatics,  aerial stuff, dancing, fire related stuff,  and of course some clowns.   

I want to give you guys the 'real deal': I reallyliked some of the acts, they are really amazing... but some of the acts I was not that impressed with.  

I liked the aerial stuff (high flying wire work, etc), especially the pairs stuff.  There were several cool ones,  the ones you see in the above picture, also shown prominently in a lot of the ads were probably the best.  Here's my video of them from the preview in May:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4SejBN4aow ( part 1 of my video from the preview is here if you haven't watched it yet)

Some of the group ones were cool too - trapeze,  see-saw acrobatics particularly.

After talking it over w/ a friend who had scene earlier rehearsal shows a few weeks before, it seems like this show is still a work in progress, for example the Trapeze performance wasn't performed the day he went and they did some sort of juggling thing instead. 

I'm sure they're still honing the performances and adjusting to improve. I want to come back in a few months to see how its changed.

Bottom line:  No matter what I'd say its worth seeing if you're planning on going to Macau.  Worth making a side trip to Macau if you are a super Cirque fan... 

i have a few more pictures of the hotel, i'll save those for a 2nd blog entry... tomorrow. ;-)