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The Legend Lives On - Official Cirque du Soleil 'Immortal World Tour' Discussion

^^^

Great positive video.

"You don't wanna miss it!"
 
Cirque du Soleil's Michael Jackson Immortal Takes Audience On A Dazzling Ride


by Joe Vogel

Cirque du Soleil's Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour made its U.S. debut Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan. The two-hour audio-visual spectacle offered a feast for the senses as it celebrated the creative output and social ideals of the late King of Pop.
Before the show, an anxious crowd -- young, old, black, white and every demographic in between -- waited in the brisk October air, exchanging memories. A middle-aged man recalled attending the Victory Tour in 1984. A young girl remembered sobbing the day she learned of his passing and playing "Will You Be There" on repeat. An elderly woman spoke of seeing the Jackson 5 perform in Detroit in 1969. "I still can't believe he's gone," she lamented.
Coming just a couple of years after Jackson's tragic death -- and in the midst of the trial of his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray -- the show seemed to offer a cathartic experience for many attendees, while introducing an accessible version of him to a yet another generation of music listeners.
The show itself is a hybrid extravaganza: part rock concert, part theater, part acrobatics, part comedy, part festival. Its tone is more whimsical than Jackson's world tours. With no front man, the show opts instead for a five-person crew of slapstick dancer-impersonators called the "fanatics" and a versatile mime. Numerous other talents are featured in spots, including a mesmerizing contortionist, a fierce cellist, and a phenomenally gifted young boy.
The show uses a live band, led by Jackson's longtime collaborator Greg Phillinganes, to amplify the concert feel and introduces several signature MJ props (the glove, the hat, the penny loafers) to playfully point to the pop icon.
Still, it is difficult to overcome Jackson's absence on stage. His presence on the jumbo screen in the opening montage generates a tangible excitement -- it is as if the audience is waiting for him to pop up at any moment. During some of the quieter parts of the show -- "I'll Be There," "Gone Too Soon" -- audience members cry out, "We love you, Michael!"
To try to fill the void, director Jamie King and set designer Mark Fisher wisely chose Michael Jackson's "Giving Tree" as the anchoring scenic piece and controlling metaphor, creating a symbolic world for Jackson's memory to occupy. Unfortunately, the tree didn't make it to the Detroit show due to technical problems, causing the narrative thread to feel a bit disjointed and some of the numbers to be altered.
There were some other indications that the show was still finding its footing. The pacing at times was a bit turbulent and fragmented. Michael Jackson had an uncanny ability as a creator/performer to take his audience on a journey and not lose them for a second: he knew when to go big and when to pull it back, when to be extravagant and when to be subtle. He was a master of pathos and of building dramatic tension.
While the Immortal show hasn't yet reached that lofty standard, it does manage to capture certain parts of his essence. The transition from the wonder-filled "Childhood," which allows the audience to see inside the Neverland Gates as bronze statues of children come to life, segues magnificently into the frenetic, tribal energy of "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin.'" The medley of Heartbreak Hotel/Smooth Criminal/In the Closet/Dangerous also works well, blending film noir and music video footage with a cello solo, seamless choreography and a pole dancer. Likewise, the medley of Ghosts/Is It Scary/Threatened/Thriller, which begins with a creature crawling out of a large storybook, is one of the show's highlights.
Notably absent from the lineup is "The Way You Make Me Feel," a classic which Jackson performed at every concert since the Bad World Tour. There are some nice, lesser-known surprises, however, including parts of "In the Closet," "Speechless" and "Little Susie." Nearly all of the songs, including "Billie Jean," are formed in clusters with two or three other tracks.
Dazzling touches abound. Around the mid-way point, there is a beautiful sequence in which Jackson describes how he is "just the medium through which the music flows." This quote is interpreted by the mime as he allows the sound to work through his body while musical notes float into the air. It is followed by a gorgeous rendition of "Human Nature."
While the show primarily presents Jackson as man-child/idealist, occasionally other facets break through. For "They Don't Care About Us," taking its cues from concert plans for This Is It, an army of robots march in unison, flashing money signs and question marks as a video montage plays footage of violence, despair and destruction.
The finale returns to safer ground, offering a healing call for peace, unity and love to a mash-up of socially conscious anthems like "Can You Feel It," "Black or White" and "Man in the Mirror." Flags are brought on stage in a festival-like fusion of cultures, acrobatics, dance and music.
For all the elaborate staging and impressive talent, however, the unquestionable star is Michael Jackson. Musical designer Keven Antunes was given access to the artist's original multi-track master recordings and stripped away some of the production to put Jackson's singular voice on full display. On some of the ballads especially -- "I'll Be There," "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" -- the effect is stunning. His appearances on the jumbo screens likewise brought a visceral energy to the show.
Afterward, outside the arena kids excitedly described their favorite parts of the show. One of them, eyes wide, talked about the LED costumes that lit up during "Billie Jean." In the distance, by the parking garage, a man played "Thriller" on his saxophone, its strains rising plaintively into the night. He couldn't afford tickets to the show, he said, but he wanted to be nearby to "celebrate the king."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-vogel/cirque-du-soleils-michael_b_1016774.html
 
Do we have confirmed covers for the CD? Is it blue for the deluxe,orange for the normal?
 
Cirque brings Jackson show to Toronto


BY JOHN COULBOURN ,QMI AGENCYFIRST POSTED: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 02:37 PM EDT
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A scene from the Cique du Soleil production of Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour. (CIRQUE DU SOLEIL photo)
 
Super-sized circus

The King of Pop left big shoes behind, but Cirque du soleil has the larger-than-life spectacle to fill them

By: Kevin Prokosh


MONTREAL --Approaching the sprawling complex in an east-end Montreal neighbourhood, there is little indication that inside is the headquarters of a global entertainment phenomenon.Only when turning into the roundabout, which surrounds an eight-metre statue of one bronze clown shoe, might you guess that you have arrived at the home of Cirque du soleil, the small-scale circus turned billion-dollar success. The artwork was a gift from another internationally renowned theatre company, England's Kneehigh Theatre Company, whose eye-popping, multimedia adaptation of Brief Encounter was staged at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in January.


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It's the rainy day after the world première of the French-Canadian troupe's latest stage sensation, Michael Jackson, The Immortal World Tour, which had opened at a sold-out Bell Centre, where the late King of Pop's mother, three brothers and three children were the stars of the red carpet. Since then, the $60-million show with its 40 trucks has hit the road on a 47-city tour that stops at the MTS Centre Wednesday and Thursday.Walking into the expansive, $40-million grey structure -- the birthplace of the MJ spectacle -- is to enter a bustling circus arts city. Almost 2,000 of the French-Canadian company's 5,000 employees work there, including cirque king Guy Laliberté, whose personal worth is estimated at $2.5 billion. He currently oversees 22 high-flying extravaganzas, which, through ticket and merchandise sales, should top $1 billion in revenue for the first time this year. To put that in perspective, Cirque productions sell just about as many tickets as all Broadway shows combined.Like that shoe out front, everything about the troupe and how it operates is super-sized. Michael Jackson's worldwide fame was of a scale that was a perfect match for the cirque nouveau mega-giant Cirque du soleil (French for circus of the sun)."Everything he did in performance was already so big," says the production's writer and director, Jamie King, who once worked for Jackson. "I had the opportunity to really take it to another place, an even bigger spectacle."A gaggle of media types is led through the art-festooned facility, stopping in for a quick look-see at the Atelier de Frabrication: Chaussures, where most prominent is a wall with racks and racks of the plaster feet of every performer in the company (Michael Jackson, who visited in 1993, was a size 12). The surreal, oh-my-goodness footwear cobbled together by the staff of 12 makes John Fluevog's trendsetting shoes seem stodgy.There are twice that many people making wigs because every performer gets one. A wigmaster is at work, painstakingly creating -- crocheting, really -- a wig hair by hair (either human or from a horse mane), a task that was going to take him 90 hours. Everything in the facility is custom-made, and in the costume department -- which takes up two acres of space -- that means sewing together 20,000 items a year. It was part of the building Jackson wouldn't leave during his 1993 visit.But the cirque is known for dazzling with flying trapeze artists, high-wire walkers and contortionists, all of whom train here under the watchful eyes of up to 30 specialists offering medical, linguistic, makeup and nutritional expertise. The performers, half of whom come from sports backgrounds, represent 50 nationalities speaking 25 languages. Every show is a mini-United Nations, and despite being in French-first Quebec, the language of work is English.A peek into a studio finds a couple of male gymnasts at work, calmly dropping repeatedly on their backs from a perch about 30 feet up, onto a trampoline that propels them upwards to walk up a wall. Nearby, a lithe female contortionist bends in unnatural shapes around a large metal ring hanging about a metre off the ground, as her coach offers instruction.The Cirque behind-the-scenes tour then moves to the Bell Centre, where the night before, Immortal Tourbowed as a two-hour hybrid of concert, dance and circus featuring 60 performers and 32 songs. For the first time, the company's visual razzle-dazzle and daredevilry takes a backseat to the Jackson songbook.King, who for 12 years was Madonna's creative director, says he wanted to take Jackson's iconic dance moves and inject them with steroids. Maybe that's why Immortal has no fewer than 10 choreographers, most of whom worked with the Gloved One and are adamant about maintaining his legacy."Michael's been a mentor and big brother for all of us," says the Emmy-nominated choreographer Travis Payne. "Getting to be included in this tour has been a bit of a healing process."Even the props are on steroids -- a 1.8-metre-tall version of Jackson's famous glove conceals two dancers inside, his familiar penny loafers and white socks are 2.4 metres long, and his fedora is big enough to hide a pair of performers."There's a piece of Michael everywhere in this show," says New York costume designer Zaldy Goco, who was head designer of This Is It, the concert series Jackson never lived to give. "The thing I felt most important is we don't repeat from This Is It tour. Michael always wanted new. He always wanted to entertain in a new way."British set designer/eye-candy-maker Mark Fisher wanted to place Immortal Tour in Michael's world, which is why the superstar's beloved oak tree from his ranch at Neverland is the main scenic element. It became a stand-in for the missing artist."The hardest thing was to show where people have to look," says Fisher who was the chief designer of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2006 Turin and 2008 Beijing Olympics, as well as the U2 360Àö Tour. "Normally you have someone in the middle of the stage who sings."Ultimately, it is Michael's voice and his music that drive the show."The music creates the through line," says Quebec-based lighting designer Martin Lebreque. "It means his presence is always there."

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/super-sized-circus-132369818.html​

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another review

[h=1]Michael Jackson goes to the circus[/h]Posted by Roger Cullman / OCTOBER 22, 2011

20110822_CirqueMJ4.jpg
Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour kicked off its Toronto shows Friday night at the Air Canada Centre. Being a old fan of Michael Jackson and Cirque du Soleil, I was anticipating some magical synergy.
The show's premise had promise, but in execution it lacked the soul that I've come to expect from Cirque productions, such as OVO or Allegria.
The show suffers by trying too hard to capture too much of Jackson's musical output instead of focusing on achieving a wow-factor in bringing the most important elements of his music and life to the big stage.
20110822_CirqueMJ1.jpg
The show revolves around five clowns dressed as Michael Jackson fans and a guy in a white jumpsuit decorated head-to-toe in silver sparkling sequins. Let's call him Mirror Man.
The ACC is set up with a giant catwalk leading up to the centre of the stadium, with giant video screens towards the back. The show takes us through the giant gates of Neverland, as the voice of MJ booms through the speakers "Have you seen my childhood?"
There's too many disconnected scenes that don't quite showcase Cirque's potential. A gimmicky child-age Jackson floating in a hot air balloon above the stage as a song plays with the lyric "the painful youth I've had" didn't endear me much near the show's start.
Things finally get moving when an energetic live band joins in with "Wanna Be Starting Something" as colourful acrobats light up the stage. Then a guy dressed as Bubbles the chimp begins to dance with Mirror Man.
There's some other odd moments, such as when the cellist with the band — clad in knee-high glittering boots and bikini to match, hair down to her waist — do a solo.
The "Smooth Criminal" number is more apropos, with excerpts from one of Jackson's awesome videos flashing on the multiple screens while about a dozen "Michaels" in white shirts and black hats dance all over the stage in front.
20110822_CirqueMJ3.jpg
The most eye-catching number seems to have little to do with Jackson at all: a petite acrobat with fiery red hair and 10" stilettos scales a giant gold pole and has the entire audience awestruck with her sultry moves.
Other acts are tediously long, such as the Jackson 5 medley starring those five clowns/fans. And the audio clips of MJ talking about his inspiration for his songs slow down the pace.
But things pick up during the ghost stories segment, as a contortionist emerges from the pages of a giant storybook.
It's pretty cool-looking when half a dozen acrobats dressed as bats with two-metre-wide wingspans descend from way above the stage to the tune of Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" — a song that MJ and his older brother Jermaine Jackson sung on.
20110822_CirqueMJ5.jpg
This led into Thriller, with video excerpts on the large screens, a graveyard and dry ice on stage with lots of dancing mummies. But the overly cranked-up bass and painfully loud kick drum was the scariest part.
After a 20-minute intermission, there's more acrobats on wires, while Jackson's song "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" plays in a hybrid English-Spanish version for some reason.
By this time I begin to wonder where the rest of MJ's hits went? Just then "Beat It" begins with a giant silver dancing glove on stage. The guitar solo part brings out the band guitarist along with the aforementioned sexy cellist for a dual at the end of the catwalk. And "Billy Jean" featured an awesome amputee breakdancer with crutches.
Other elements seem out of place, such as a cyber army that looked right out of a Daft Punk video, but with lit up green $ signs on their chests, which later became peace signs and then red hearts.
Just when I've had enough the curtain/big screen comes down, and a video of "I'll Be There" plays, after which the lights dim and a simulation encore with canned "Michael! Michael!" chants getting louder.
20110822_CirqueMJ2.jpg
The screen goes back up and Bubbles is back in a cage above the stage as some Cirque acrobats swing around on dangling ropes to the tune of "Can You Feel It" disco number. Answer: "No, I'm just not feeling it." There's no emotional thread that helps string this almost two-and-a-half-hour show together.

http://www.blogto.com/music/2011/10/michael_jackson_goes_to_the_circus/
 
Wow, not very good critics this week. :(
I guess that now that the premiere is done, the media went back to the usual ''it's Michael Jackson so it's cooler to say it sucks'' job.

At least the fans love it. I loved it, of course it's not perfect, of course the more they'll do the show, the better it will get, yes there are some routine that makes you wonder why they decided to mix that number with that song, but hey, it IS a beautiful hommage made by great people and those guys on that stage are so proud to be there, SO PROUD! just for that they deserve our applause!

I'm not a fan of the Cirque to begin with, but they do bring a kind of magic with that show.

Can't wait for them to come back in my city to see th show again :)
 
<big>Cirque brings Jackson show to Toronto</big>
BY JOHN COULBOURN ,QMI AGENCY
FIRST POSTED: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 02:37 PM EDT

<img src="http://storage.canoe.ca/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/suns-prod-images/1317213251764_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&size=650x"/>
Considering the maelstrom of publicity, both bad and good, that was the life of the late pop sensation Michael Jackson, it is ironic &#8212; oddly fitting, but ironic nonetheless &#8212; that in death, Jackson's memory is being honoured with, of all things, a circus.

Not just any circus, mind you.

When it comes to paying tribute to the King of Pop, only the king of circuses will do. And in today's world, even though pretenders abound, few would argue that the crown of the circus world still sits securely on the brow of the Quebec-based international phenom, Cirque Du Soleil.

So it is that Cirque last month launched its latest big-budget, big-everything stadium show titled Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour, which pulled into Toronto's Air Canada Centre on Friday for a weekend run that ends Sunday.

And while there may be more than a degree of irony in the fact that Jackson's life is being commemorated with a circus, the show itself turns out to be a largely irony-free zone. Director Jamie King and his cast and crew focus all of Cirque's considerable genius on how best to conjure the myth, the man and his music &#8212; without inadvertently opening any portals into the much-publicized darker side of a man finally and tragically consumed by fame.

But despite their best efforts, it remains an affair both haunted &#8212; in this case, by design, with a (speaking of irony) white-faced mime evoking Jackson's spirit throughout the show &#8212; and haunting, as the news from Dr. Conrad Murray's trial for involuntary manslaughter in the death of Jackson features prominently in the nightly news.

It is also, even by Cirque standards, a bit of an extravaganza. It mixes the very latest in stage technology with a few breathtaking feats of physical skill and precision &#8212; not to mention more than enough moonwalking and crotch grabbing to put both NASA and a passel of andrologists out of business.

There is also, as is to be expected, a lot of music &#8212; all of it Jackson's, from his earliest days with the Jackson Five right through to the too-early end of his career. Sometimes it is served up under the musical direction of Greg Philliganes, featuring a strong musical ensemble. At others, it is delivered by Jackson himself, appearing posthumously on giant video screens woven into a modified thrust stage that allows Immortal to combine elements of both thrust and proscenium staging in such a way that it becomes impossible to focus attention on any one element of the show.

Woven into the fabric of musical memories that includes everything from I'll Be There to Billie Jean, Thriller and Beat It are a series of often jaw-dropping effects and circus routines. Not all of it is new , mind you, but impressive nonetheless.

But while the never-ending parade of giant puppets, robots, living statues, ghouls and ghost-like animal heads certainly add up to something visually engaging, some of the circus routines feel more imposed than integrated into Immortal's warp and weave. While the synchronized tumblers featured near the end of the show certainly seem a logical extension of the kind of coordinated movement Jackson espoused, the pole routine performed by the diminutive and supple Anna Melnikova simply doesn't fly, from a contextual point of view, even while it soars.

Finally, however, Immortal's creators simply over-reach themselves, not content to simply celebrate the talents of a very talented man. As their show assumes more and more of a messianic fervour, using images of Gandhi and Mother Theresa, it feels less and less like a tribute, and more and more like a revival meeting.

That's a kind of Immortal that's tough to swallow.
 
i will definetly try to catch the show when it comes to europe. but i gotta admit i am more excited about the permanent show in Las Vegas. I think this touring show might suffer a little but of the fact that the average fan might not really get the hybrid between a live concert and cirque show. i think when it becomes more of classical cirque show in a smaller venue with new amazing technolgy it will be mindblowing! Not saying that the current show is not good though, several parts of the show looks amazing!
 
See when the show does the permanent Vegas shows it will have the props AND technology bring out what I feel would probably 10x times better then the road show... Plus I can't wait when Cirque comes to St. Louis!!!
 
Someone on another MJ board said it's coming next year in Europe! It's true? When? And in which city?
 
Carinemjj said:
Wow, not very good critics this week. :(
I guess that now that the premiere is done, the media went back to the usual ''it's Michael Jackson so it's cooler to say it sucks'' job.

At least the fans love it. I loved it, of course it's not perfect, of course the more they'll do the show, the better it will get, yes there are some routine that makes you wonder why they decided to mix that number with that song, but hey, it IS a beautiful hommage made by great people and those guys on that stage are so proud to be there, SO PROUD! just for that they deserve our applause!

I'm not a fan of the Cirque to begin with, but they do bring a kind of magic with that show.

Can't wait for them to come back in my city to see th show again :)
Click to expand...

Aaawww..but the vast majority of critics (fans, non fans & media) have been positive.

We can't have all positive ...all the time. And it's ok...i read regular folks reviews almost everyday on Twitter...and they are by far and large riddled with superlatives like: mind blowing, phenomenal, breathtaking, one for the ages.... and so many more.

I can't wait to see it again
 
sugarcookies said:
See when the show does the permanent Vegas shows it will have the props AND technology bring out what I feel would probably 10x times better then the road show... Plus I can't wait when Cirque comes to St. Louis!!!
Click to expand...

From the comments I read so far - they can make the permanent show more amazing and appeals to wide audience if they incorporate
- technology : hologram
- focus on major songs and build from it with a storyline with complete music and add more acrobatic stunts (wow factors + magic)
- connection between scenes, songs
- one major medley instead lot of snippets
 
The permanent show in Vegas isn't even started creatively speaking.

They are probably planning it at the moment but nothing started yet, no rehearsal, no crew hired, no routine.
So it's not for tomorrow :) But it took 4 months of rehearsals for the show we have now, so it might not be too long either... we'll see.

The around the world tour is for 3 years, well the guys are under contract for 3 years so yes they'll go in Europe :)
 
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