Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing your…KITCHEN!

So I imagined the meeting with all the creative higher ups at the Grand Hyatt Hotel upper management sort of went like this:

Higher up 1: Dude, we have these awesome hotels but what can we do, like, to grab the attention of all the corporate dude and dudettes?

Higher up 2: Cheerio, old chap. Let’s kick everything up a notch and introduce a banquet hall for five star dinners and a luxurious high end open kitchen for our guests to view the making of their meals.

Higher up 1: Man, that’s crazy cool. I’m a diggin’ the open kitchen but we need to really grab their goat and fizzle their wizzle.

Higher up 2: …?

Higher up 1: DUDE…What I’m tryin’ to say is…WE NEEDS ENTERTAINMENT!!!

And that’s where yours truly come in.

I had been invited to co-direct and develop a new show for the Grand Hyatt Hotels in Hong Kong, Macau and , if all goes well, most of Asia.

In addition to working out this new show designed specifically to utilize their new open kitchens, I have also been asked to create a new kitchen themed juggling routine for four jugglers.

Unfortunately Hong Kong lacks a decent amount of working, professional jugglers but I was lucky enough to secure the talents of two local HK jugglers, Tony and Shu Wing, and a pretty awesome expat, Andy Comic.

It was a lot of fun trying to figure out how we can incorporate kitchen/ food items into our acts and make it work with the overall theme.

We premiered the show last month after about a week of rehearsals. I was able to grab a few behind the scenes rehearsal photos at the Grand Hyatt Shenzhen.

The final show consisted of a STOMP style percussion/dance routine, our juggling act and two amazing opera singers. But let’s not forget the real stars of the show.

Five Star Eating and the Kitchen itself!

OPENING SEQUENCE

We had lots of fun working on this one though I may have been a bit frustrated with the direction since the client wanted to integrate their real kitchen staff into the routine. It was CHAOS trying to run them through the process.

The dry ice machine also made the floor incredibly slippery. I was surprised nobody ate it during the show.

THE PERCUSSION ACT

Nap, Joseph and Jason

Three very hardworking guys that came in bulging with a variety of acts. It was a shame we could only use a small portion of it.

Lots of energy!

AND THE OTHER STUFF..namely our Juggling Routine!

I realized, after many many many MANY live performances, that big tricks aren’t that impressive sometimes. The audience just would like to see something cool.

So what’s cooler than synchronized plate spinning????!?!?!

I sure can’t think of anything else.

Shu Wing rocking out the diabolo…oh I mean, chopsticks, noodle and bowl…

Yes, I’m stretching it a bit…sue me.

I was really happy with this. I made little pieces of juggling dim sum out of ping pong balls and paper mache. It looked really good, especially after it was sitting inside the dim sum tray with smoke coming out of it.

Andy Comic hard at work.

Look, I can mix your drinks while juggling. Yes, I’m that good.

And our grand finale of juggling wine bottles. At this point, I didn’t finish the look of the bottle, but believe me when I say.. It looks DAMN good.

I felt that the finale of 12 club feed, where three guys pass three clubs each to one juggler, wasn’t strong enough so I decided to go a bit nuts.

At first, I wanted a fire finale but the client decided against it. So we ended up with Shu Wing on top of my shoulder juggling mixing spoons while Tony and Andy pass six knives around me.

Yep, the crowd loved that one. EVERYBODY loves sharp objects and the promise of sudden disembowelment.

AND of course the final bow after our first rehearsal and technical run through.

As everyone that has worked with me professionally knows and how clearly this photo illustrates, I am NEVER satisfied.

But in the end, the show was a success.

There are a lot more dates coming up this month but unfortunately I will be on my summer festival tour. Any jugglers interested in being a fill in?