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Tichina just tweeted this:
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The Legend Lives On - Official Cirque du Soleil 'Immortal World Tour' Discussion
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8701girl
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I know i didnt recognise him at first
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Interesting article but the part on Randy and Jermaine comment is incorrect.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/27/entertainment/la-et-immortal-story-20120127
Cirque du Soleil's Michael Jackson show: 'Immortal' but not immune
The tribute to the late pop icon, which is coming to Staples Center, is not without controversy.
January 27, 2012|By Solvej Schou, Special to the Los Angeles Times
The inspiration for Cirque du Soleil's new show, "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour," began in the late 1980s when Michael Jackson hopped into a van (sans security) with his longtime attorney John Branca to see the French Canadian performance troupe for the first time in Santa Monica.
The mega-pop star was fascinated by the avant-garde circus and asked to meet the cast backstage, said Branca, who was named co-executor of Jackson's estate along with music executive John McClain in accordance with Jackson's 2002 will. Over the years, Jackson took his three children to Cirque shows and toured Cirque's home base in Montreal.
Branca said the estate — which is divided among Jackson's mother, Katherine, his children and charities — wished to pay homage to the performer after his death on June 25, 2009. Though the estate released the film of Jackson's concert rehearsals for a would-be comeback series, "This Is It," shortly after he died, Branca said they wanted to present Jackson's songs and dance legacy in a live setting. Given the performer's appreciation for Cirque, the idea for "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour" was born several months after his death.
"We wanted to have a live show, because, as [Motown Records founder] Berry Gordy said, 'Michael was the greatest entertainer that ever lived,'" Branca said recently over breakfast in Los Angeles. "We couldn't ever imagine having an impersonator, or a tribute show, because no one's Michael. That would just be unthinkable."
The glitzy spectacle pairs Jackson's tunes with Cirque's signature acrobatics, the singer's iconic dance moves and Jackson's voice and video imagery. The show will hit the Staples Center — the same venue that hosted Jackson's public memorial service — on Friday. Due to strong demand, two new dates for August 14 and 15 were recently added. The tour is directed by longtime Jackson collaborator Jamie King, with costumes by "This Is It" designer Zaldy Goco, dance numbers by 10 choreographers including Travis Payne, and musical design courtesy of Kevin Antunes.
Despite the talent and effort behind the show, not everyone is bedazzled with the production, or how Jackson's legacy is being handled.
"The show lacks focus, and only occasionally touches the larger-than-life stage presence that Michael Jackson projected in his concerts," wrote the Oregonian's Grant Butler last November, adding that the tour was "a carnival that's as much of a head-scratching paradox as the scandal-plagued last decade of Jackson's life."
And Jackson's siblings Randy and Jermaine had criticized family and the estate for supporting tributes to their brother such as the lavish "Michael Forever" concert last October in Wales, claiming it was ill-timed during the manslaughter trial of Jackson's physician Conrad Murray.
Katherine Jackson, however, ended up walking the red carpet the day "Immortal" opened in Montreal last October.
"There was a special artistic relationship between Michael and Cirque du Soleil," said Cirque President Daniel Lamarre, who hosted Michael Jackson in Montreal in 2002. "When John Branca came to Michael's mother, Katherine, to talk about the show, because there were so many companies interested, she said it was a no-brainer, that Michael wanted to work with Cirque du Soleil all his life."
Planning the production began in earnest in the fall of '09, when Branca got a call from Celine Dion's rep, saying Dion's husband, René Angélil, wanted to introduce the Jackson estate to Cirque co-founder and Chief Executive Guy Laliberte. Laliberte was in orbit, literally, as part of a space tourist program.
After Laliberte returned from space, Branca told him a permanent show in Las Vegas would be ideal, in the tradition of Cirque's Beatles "Love" show, but Laliberte persuaded Branca and McClain to expand beyond that, to a touring show at rock arenas. A permanent, more intimate, tech-heavy show in Las Vegas will open at Mandalay Bay in early 2013, as the tour winds down its global leg.
Still, the estate wanted to make sure the production was "a Michael show," said Branca, instead of, well, a circus.
"We said to Kevin, 'Listen, we don't want to hear any accordions in 'Beat It.' … It's gotta be Michael Jackson,'" Branca said. "We said to Jamie [King], 'We don't want any — and I don't want to insult anybody — French clowns dancing at a Michael Jackson show.'"
King's name topped the pack as director because he danced with Jackson on his '92 "Dangerous" world tour and had a background in pop and hip-hop. He wanted to include multiple forms of movement, including mime, which Jackson studied with Marcel Marceau.
Antunes hunkered down for a year listening to Jackson's master recordings before launching into rearranging the tunes. He decided to start "Thriller" with finger snaps and only Jackson's voice to show the layers of the song before exploding it into the traditional "Thriller" dance. He added a choir for extra oomph to Jackson's '96 "They Don't Care About Us," featuring oversized soldiers decorated with neon peace signs designed by Goco.
"That's the awesome moment of the show and it's truly epic. It's the Michael with a message and a meaning. It makes everyone get the chills," Antunes said. "For his family, his friends, his fans, there is a responsibility left up to me. This has been on the music side that we don't drop the ball."
Rehearsals started last summer in Montreal, and Jackson's brother Jackie visited them and "loved it," Branca said. In late summer, about 15 designated "super fans" were flown in to give feedback, and their input resulted in changing some of the music, Branca said.
"I wanted to create a show that Michael would have loved to create if he had created for Cirque," King said. "'Will You Be There' is one of my favorites in the show.... There are giant hearts that illuminate and light up. His essence appears. It's almost like he comes back to say, 'I love you, I'll always be here.'"
At the show's Las Vegas opening in December, Jackson's daughter Paris broke down and sobbed during the number, Branca said.
A representation of Jackson's spirit also moves through the show in the form of a hip-hop dancer named Salah Benlemqawanssa. He's dressed all in white, and moves fluidly in and out of numbers.
"When Michael passed, I went into a bit of autopilot, personally. I was on my way to his home when I found out," said Payne, who'd worked on the "This Is It" choreography. "The first thing out of my mouth was, 'This is not done, this is not finished.'"
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/27/entertainment/la-et-immortal-story-20120127
Cirque du Soleil's Michael Jackson show: 'Immortal' but not immune
The tribute to the late pop icon, which is coming to Staples Center, is not without controversy.
January 27, 2012|By Solvej Schou, Special to the Los Angeles Times
The inspiration for Cirque du Soleil's new show, "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour," began in the late 1980s when Michael Jackson hopped into a van (sans security) with his longtime attorney John Branca to see the French Canadian performance troupe for the first time in Santa Monica.
The mega-pop star was fascinated by the avant-garde circus and asked to meet the cast backstage, said Branca, who was named co-executor of Jackson's estate along with music executive John McClain in accordance with Jackson's 2002 will. Over the years, Jackson took his three children to Cirque shows and toured Cirque's home base in Montreal.
Branca said the estate — which is divided among Jackson's mother, Katherine, his children and charities — wished to pay homage to the performer after his death on June 25, 2009. Though the estate released the film of Jackson's concert rehearsals for a would-be comeback series, "This Is It," shortly after he died, Branca said they wanted to present Jackson's songs and dance legacy in a live setting. Given the performer's appreciation for Cirque, the idea for "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour" was born several months after his death.
"We wanted to have a live show, because, as [Motown Records founder] Berry Gordy said, 'Michael was the greatest entertainer that ever lived,'" Branca said recently over breakfast in Los Angeles. "We couldn't ever imagine having an impersonator, or a tribute show, because no one's Michael. That would just be unthinkable."
The glitzy spectacle pairs Jackson's tunes with Cirque's signature acrobatics, the singer's iconic dance moves and Jackson's voice and video imagery. The show will hit the Staples Center — the same venue that hosted Jackson's public memorial service — on Friday. Due to strong demand, two new dates for August 14 and 15 were recently added. The tour is directed by longtime Jackson collaborator Jamie King, with costumes by "This Is It" designer Zaldy Goco, dance numbers by 10 choreographers including Travis Payne, and musical design courtesy of Kevin Antunes.
Despite the talent and effort behind the show, not everyone is bedazzled with the production, or how Jackson's legacy is being handled.
"The show lacks focus, and only occasionally touches the larger-than-life stage presence that Michael Jackson projected in his concerts," wrote the Oregonian's Grant Butler last November, adding that the tour was "a carnival that's as much of a head-scratching paradox as the scandal-plagued last decade of Jackson's life."
And Jackson's siblings Randy and Jermaine had criticized family and the estate for supporting tributes to their brother such as the lavish "Michael Forever" concert last October in Wales, claiming it was ill-timed during the manslaughter trial of Jackson's physician Conrad Murray.
Katherine Jackson, however, ended up walking the red carpet the day "Immortal" opened in Montreal last October.
"There was a special artistic relationship between Michael and Cirque du Soleil," said Cirque President Daniel Lamarre, who hosted Michael Jackson in Montreal in 2002. "When John Branca came to Michael's mother, Katherine, to talk about the show, because there were so many companies interested, she said it was a no-brainer, that Michael wanted to work with Cirque du Soleil all his life."
Planning the production began in earnest in the fall of '09, when Branca got a call from Celine Dion's rep, saying Dion's husband, René Angélil, wanted to introduce the Jackson estate to Cirque co-founder and Chief Executive Guy Laliberte. Laliberte was in orbit, literally, as part of a space tourist program.
After Laliberte returned from space, Branca told him a permanent show in Las Vegas would be ideal, in the tradition of Cirque's Beatles "Love" show, but Laliberte persuaded Branca and McClain to expand beyond that, to a touring show at rock arenas. A permanent, more intimate, tech-heavy show in Las Vegas will open at Mandalay Bay in early 2013, as the tour winds down its global leg.
Still, the estate wanted to make sure the production was "a Michael show," said Branca, instead of, well, a circus.
"We said to Kevin, 'Listen, we don't want to hear any accordions in 'Beat It.' … It's gotta be Michael Jackson,'" Branca said. "We said to Jamie [King], 'We don't want any — and I don't want to insult anybody — French clowns dancing at a Michael Jackson show.'"
King's name topped the pack as director because he danced with Jackson on his '92 "Dangerous" world tour and had a background in pop and hip-hop. He wanted to include multiple forms of movement, including mime, which Jackson studied with Marcel Marceau.
Antunes hunkered down for a year listening to Jackson's master recordings before launching into rearranging the tunes. He decided to start "Thriller" with finger snaps and only Jackson's voice to show the layers of the song before exploding it into the traditional "Thriller" dance. He added a choir for extra oomph to Jackson's '96 "They Don't Care About Us," featuring oversized soldiers decorated with neon peace signs designed by Goco.
"That's the awesome moment of the show and it's truly epic. It's the Michael with a message and a meaning. It makes everyone get the chills," Antunes said. "For his family, his friends, his fans, there is a responsibility left up to me. This has been on the music side that we don't drop the ball."
Rehearsals started last summer in Montreal, and Jackson's brother Jackie visited them and "loved it," Branca said. In late summer, about 15 designated "super fans" were flown in to give feedback, and their input resulted in changing some of the music, Branca said.
"I wanted to create a show that Michael would have loved to create if he had created for Cirque," King said. "'Will You Be There' is one of my favorites in the show.... There are giant hearts that illuminate and light up. His essence appears. It's almost like he comes back to say, 'I love you, I'll always be here.'"
At the show's Las Vegas opening in December, Jackson's daughter Paris broke down and sobbed during the number, Branca said.
A representation of Jackson's spirit also moves through the show in the form of a hip-hop dancer named Salah Benlemqawanssa. He's dressed all in white, and moves fluidly in and out of numbers.
"When Michael passed, I went into a bit of autopilot, personally. I was on my way to his home when I found out," said Payne, who'd worked on the "This Is It" choreography. "The first thing out of my mouth was, 'This is not done, this is not finished.'"
Memefan
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Hmmmmm..exactly what he said. I take it at face value. I am not sure there's an ambiguity to what he said.
Obviously, he wouldn't accept that MJ was gone and that, their project wouldn't be brought to completion.
more from perez hilton
Perez Hilton @PerezHilton
Sooooo excited to go see the new #MichaelJackson @Cirque show tonight in LA! My second weekend in a row seeing a Cirque Du Soleil show! Yay!
Perez Hilton @PerezHilton
MJ really lives on! That is such an awesome tribute to his legacy! And the music - wow! My favorite part was what they did with those songs!
He looks like "where's Waldo?"
bluesky
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@XtinaNews @AguileraOnline a fan took a Xtina pic at MJ Immortal Show. pic.twitter.com/nSVcVuOJ
11 minutes ago
@anaolicon Ana Morales
OMG! it's @TheRealXtina I'm freaking out right now! pic.twitter.com/LSJnxV0E
11 minutes ago
@anaolicon Ana Morales
OMG! it's @TheRealXtina I'm freaking out right now! pic.twitter.com/LSJnxV0E
MsCassieMollie
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Brandy & Jackie @ MJ IMMORTAL SHOW 1/27
marc_vivien
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http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...opean-dates-begin-october-2012-138309599.html
FALL 2012 EUROPEAN TOUR SCHEDULE
FALL 2012 EUROPEAN TOUR SCHEDULE
| October 12 | London, UK - O2 Arena |
| October 24 - 25 | Herding, DK - Jyske Bank Boxen |
| October 27 - 28 | Copenhagen, DK - Parken |
| November 2 - 3 | Stockholm, SWE - Ericsson Globe Arena |
| November 6 | Helsinki, FIN - Hartwall Areena |
| November 16 - 17 | Frankfurt, DE - Festhalle |
| November 20 - 21 | Oberhausen, DE - Koenig-Pilsener |
| November 24 - 25 | Munich, DE - Olympichalle |
| November 28 | Hannover, DE - TUI Arena |
| December 1 -2 | Vienna, AT - Stadhalle |
| December 5 -6 | Manheim, DE - SAP Arena |
| December 8- 9 | Leipzig, DE - Leipzig Arena |
| December 11 - 12 | Hamburg, DE - O2 World-Hamburg Arena |
| December 15 - 16 | Cologne, DE - Lanxess Arena |
| December 19 - 20 | Berlin, DE - O2 World Arena |
| December 27 - 30 | Madrid, ES - Palacio Deportes |
*Completly dry*
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Vici
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yesssssssssssss
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European dates yes yes yes yes yes!
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[h=1]Jamie King has got the moves[/h]
[h=2]From a young age, he studied Michael Jackson's steps, a legacy he preserves in 'The Immortal.' He's also helping Madonna generate heat at the Super Bowl.[/h]
January 22, 2012|By Jean Lenihan, Special to the Los Angeles Times
In a dark booth at the Polo Lounge, just down the street from his Beverly Hills home, tour director extraordinaire Jamie King struggles to recall the day he hung up his dance shoes for good. Though his management badly wants this interview to stay on the topic of his current feats as the director-writer of the Cirque du Soleil/Michael Jackson tribute world tour, "The Immortal" (Tuesday and Wednesday at the Honda Center and Friday through Jan. 29 at Staples Center), as well as his stint directing Madonna's heat-seeking Super Bowl performance (Feb. 5), and please don't forget the start of his Latin American "Idol"-esque TV series with Jennifer Lopez and Mark Anthony called "Q'Viva!" (premiering this month on Univision and later in spring on Fox), the affable King is giggling as he tries to remember exactly who was the last artist he danced for. He was neither injured nor burnt out at the time — he'd just become increasingly consumed with one-off choreographing and directing projects.
"Madonna!" he says, finally. "It was her. She wanted me to dance in her 'Human Nature' video. I didn't want to do it, but she begged." In the 1995 cult-favorite music video, a cat-suited Madonna sports a frisky S&M attitude in a realm of white-on-white boxes. King, then a spiky blond, hangs upside-down from a swinging trapeze in the scene, among other things.
A talk with King this month made Madonna's pleas easy to understand. At 39, he is broad-shouldered and warm, with a soft Midwestern twang. It's hard at first glance to reconcile this large, solid presence with his amazingly fast dance technique. Nor can one immediately see — as he gently cuts his pizza after a nonstop day of meetings on "Q'Viva!" — the stubborn, steely will that was needed to catapult him from dancer to choreographer to tour director by age 27.
Since 1999, he's directed Ricky Martin (two tours), Rihanna (three), Britney Spears (three) and Christina Aguilera (two), among others. And don't forget Madonna, whose last three stratospheric tours he conceived and directed. His trademark? Dream-like tours that feel born from the artist's forehead, not his.
"If you can make it all — and that means the stage moves, the choreography, the costumes, the lighting — be a reflection of that artist, you've done your job correctly," he says. "Because the fans will really understand the show."
King prefers invisibility in his public life too. He keeps a low profile and has embarked on only one clunky self-promotional endeavor (a 2007 dance-exercise tape called "Rock Your Body" that's proven too tricky for mass popularity). In the past, he's acknowledged a relationship with the Beverly Hills Kabbalah Centre, where Madonna attends, but when asked if his close circle is made up of A-listers he's fast to say, "No! I do that all day long!" Later, when he removes his dark sweater, a vintage Cartier key can be seen hanging from his neck. When prodded, he will say it was a special Christmas gift — but not from whom — and shyly demonstrate how its teeth spell L-O-V-E.
"Jamie has a spirit about him that is quite remarkable," says "American Idol" founder Simon Fuller, King's production partner on "Q'Viva!" "I need someone like him by my side."
Especially now, by the sound of it. Fuller describes 200 far-flung contestants arriving in Los Angeles this month, to be winnowed to 60, who'll then be coached in stage performance and presented in a concert, conceived and directed by King, in Las Vegas in late April, all played out on weekly television.
Fuller calls it "a massive, massive operation, which, with a [Lopez-Anthony] divorce in the mix, has become far-away the most complicated thing I've ever done." On a happier note, it's also the culmination of years of strategizing between Fuller and King to build a unique show around King's artistic passions and directing talents.
"I recognize myself in those kids, those groups," King says. He traveled to Argentine bars, festivals, dance studios and barrios during the taping. "I definitely see that hunger, just wanting to be heard, just wanting to be appreciated, just wanting someone to get you. I remember that. I still wake up like that."
Born in Verona, Wis., to a white teenage mom and a black father who left when he was 5, King describes a people-pleasing childhood in which he felt the pain of his mother's struggles and tried his best to ease the situation. "I learned to 'produce' early," he says. By high school, he worked afternoons and weekends and summers: making pizzas, tinting car windows, cleaning offices, watering greenhouses.
At the same time, identifying powerfully with '80s pop stars (he rotated his outfits at school, "one week Michael, one week Prince"), King danced privately and obsessively. On a foundation of self-taught MTV video reenactments in his basement, King's storybook public dance career took off at age 16 with a fast succession of school scholarships and contest wins, which led to a Los Angeles audition for Michael Jackson that landed him the single open slot for a male dancer on the 1992-93 "Dangerous" world tour. Within weeks, King was rehearsing Jackson's tight, skidding moves from "Beat It" and head-bobbing syncopations from "Smooth Criminal" with the master himself.
King followed his curiosity, "absorbing everything." After the 17-month Jackson tour, King was comfortable with and interested in all aspects of stage production. Working with musical directors, lighting and stage designers, wardrobe, jumbo screens, pyrotechnics, moving sets, he wanted to choreograph it all, and honed his craft working for Prince for several years. Then in 1999, garnering attention for his carnivalesque design for Ricky Martin's Grammy Awards appearance, King was hired to direct the singer's first U.S. tour. After Madonna caught Martin's show one night, King explains, she asked him to help her launch her first tour after an eight-year hiatus. And the rest — disco-ball entrances, mechanical horses, roller-skate mania — is history.
"From when the lights go down, or when the lights come on, to when the screens open or the screens come up, and how that moves with the set pieces coming on or the dancers arriving, I see it all in a dance way," King explains. He sips an iced tea between words. "One of my biggest dislikes is when those elements are not working together. I get very uncomfortable. I like it all to move and flow together and make sense, like theater."
Cirque du Soleil spokesman Maxime Charbonneau says King's background with rock tours and Jackson himself made him the easy choice to help the entertainment company in its first attempt to fill 10,000-seat arenas (and not wall off portions to retain intimacy). For King, who was used to working so incisively as to move from a shoe box concept to world tour in several months, Cirque's initial open-ended creative period was unsettling. "They like to just throw things at you left and right and see what you respond to," King explains. "They say it's 'feeding' — they like to 'feed' you and wait while you chew on it."
Using 65 songs, 30 dancers, 25 acrobats, 10 musicians and a 10-choreographer team, King conceived and directed "The Immortal" to center on a place (Neverland Ranch, which he visited early on) rather than his usual artist-focused orientation. Jackson is represented by master tracks of his singing voice, video and spoken-word clips and amplified representations of his most identifiable choreography and accessories.
Since the show opened in Las Vegas in December, reviewers have paled at some cartoonish mash-ups and missteps during pivotal songs (e.g. a frolicking life-size sequined glove and loafers during "Beat It"), yet there's been no argument over King's ability to intensify and amplify the precise, essential dance power in such signature numbers as "Billie Jean" and "Thriller."
Next month, even more of King's oversize movement collaborations with Cirque du Soleil performers and crew will be visible during Madonna's high-exposure Super Bowl performance. "There'll be some magic," he says slyly.
Meanwhile, as the "Immortal" tsunami rolls into Los Angeles this month (more than 900,000 tickets have sold in North America), King has officially begun work with Cirque on the more intimate, permanent version of "The Immortal" to go up in Vegas in 2013.
It had been his "great dream," he says, to scale back to create a work for a fixed site. "The possibilities are just endless when you're in a theater and there aren't people standing in front of you like in a rock concert, with popcorn flying and alcohol," he says. "This will be a focused environment where we'll really have people's attention. I just can't wait."
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/22/entertainment/la-ca-jamie-king-20120122
[h=2]From a young age, he studied Michael Jackson's steps, a legacy he preserves in 'The Immortal.' He's also helping Madonna generate heat at the Super Bowl.[/h]
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
January 22, 2012|By Jean Lenihan, Special to the Los Angeles Times
In a dark booth at the Polo Lounge, just down the street from his Beverly Hills home, tour director extraordinaire Jamie King struggles to recall the day he hung up his dance shoes for good. Though his management badly wants this interview to stay on the topic of his current feats as the director-writer of the Cirque du Soleil/Michael Jackson tribute world tour, "The Immortal" (Tuesday and Wednesday at the Honda Center and Friday through Jan. 29 at Staples Center), as well as his stint directing Madonna's heat-seeking Super Bowl performance (Feb. 5), and please don't forget the start of his Latin American "Idol"-esque TV series with Jennifer Lopez and Mark Anthony called "Q'Viva!" (premiering this month on Univision and later in spring on Fox), the affable King is giggling as he tries to remember exactly who was the last artist he danced for. He was neither injured nor burnt out at the time — he'd just become increasingly consumed with one-off choreographing and directing projects.
"Madonna!" he says, finally. "It was her. She wanted me to dance in her 'Human Nature' video. I didn't want to do it, but she begged." In the 1995 cult-favorite music video, a cat-suited Madonna sports a frisky S&M attitude in a realm of white-on-white boxes. King, then a spiky blond, hangs upside-down from a swinging trapeze in the scene, among other things.
A talk with King this month made Madonna's pleas easy to understand. At 39, he is broad-shouldered and warm, with a soft Midwestern twang. It's hard at first glance to reconcile this large, solid presence with his amazingly fast dance technique. Nor can one immediately see — as he gently cuts his pizza after a nonstop day of meetings on "Q'Viva!" — the stubborn, steely will that was needed to catapult him from dancer to choreographer to tour director by age 27.
Since 1999, he's directed Ricky Martin (two tours), Rihanna (three), Britney Spears (three) and Christina Aguilera (two), among others. And don't forget Madonna, whose last three stratospheric tours he conceived and directed. His trademark? Dream-like tours that feel born from the artist's forehead, not his.
"If you can make it all — and that means the stage moves, the choreography, the costumes, the lighting — be a reflection of that artist, you've done your job correctly," he says. "Because the fans will really understand the show."
King prefers invisibility in his public life too. He keeps a low profile and has embarked on only one clunky self-promotional endeavor (a 2007 dance-exercise tape called "Rock Your Body" that's proven too tricky for mass popularity). In the past, he's acknowledged a relationship with the Beverly Hills Kabbalah Centre, where Madonna attends, but when asked if his close circle is made up of A-listers he's fast to say, "No! I do that all day long!" Later, when he removes his dark sweater, a vintage Cartier key can be seen hanging from his neck. When prodded, he will say it was a special Christmas gift — but not from whom — and shyly demonstrate how its teeth spell L-O-V-E.
"Jamie has a spirit about him that is quite remarkable," says "American Idol" founder Simon Fuller, King's production partner on "Q'Viva!" "I need someone like him by my side."
Especially now, by the sound of it. Fuller describes 200 far-flung contestants arriving in Los Angeles this month, to be winnowed to 60, who'll then be coached in stage performance and presented in a concert, conceived and directed by King, in Las Vegas in late April, all played out on weekly television.
Fuller calls it "a massive, massive operation, which, with a [Lopez-Anthony] divorce in the mix, has become far-away the most complicated thing I've ever done." On a happier note, it's also the culmination of years of strategizing between Fuller and King to build a unique show around King's artistic passions and directing talents.
"I recognize myself in those kids, those groups," King says. He traveled to Argentine bars, festivals, dance studios and barrios during the taping. "I definitely see that hunger, just wanting to be heard, just wanting to be appreciated, just wanting someone to get you. I remember that. I still wake up like that."
Born in Verona, Wis., to a white teenage mom and a black father who left when he was 5, King describes a people-pleasing childhood in which he felt the pain of his mother's struggles and tried his best to ease the situation. "I learned to 'produce' early," he says. By high school, he worked afternoons and weekends and summers: making pizzas, tinting car windows, cleaning offices, watering greenhouses.
At the same time, identifying powerfully with '80s pop stars (he rotated his outfits at school, "one week Michael, one week Prince"), King danced privately and obsessively. On a foundation of self-taught MTV video reenactments in his basement, King's storybook public dance career took off at age 16 with a fast succession of school scholarships and contest wins, which led to a Los Angeles audition for Michael Jackson that landed him the single open slot for a male dancer on the 1992-93 "Dangerous" world tour. Within weeks, King was rehearsing Jackson's tight, skidding moves from "Beat It" and head-bobbing syncopations from "Smooth Criminal" with the master himself.
King followed his curiosity, "absorbing everything." After the 17-month Jackson tour, King was comfortable with and interested in all aspects of stage production. Working with musical directors, lighting and stage designers, wardrobe, jumbo screens, pyrotechnics, moving sets, he wanted to choreograph it all, and honed his craft working for Prince for several years. Then in 1999, garnering attention for his carnivalesque design for Ricky Martin's Grammy Awards appearance, King was hired to direct the singer's first U.S. tour. After Madonna caught Martin's show one night, King explains, she asked him to help her launch her first tour after an eight-year hiatus. And the rest — disco-ball entrances, mechanical horses, roller-skate mania — is history.
"From when the lights go down, or when the lights come on, to when the screens open or the screens come up, and how that moves with the set pieces coming on or the dancers arriving, I see it all in a dance way," King explains. He sips an iced tea between words. "One of my biggest dislikes is when those elements are not working together. I get very uncomfortable. I like it all to move and flow together and make sense, like theater."
Cirque du Soleil spokesman Maxime Charbonneau says King's background with rock tours and Jackson himself made him the easy choice to help the entertainment company in its first attempt to fill 10,000-seat arenas (and not wall off portions to retain intimacy). For King, who was used to working so incisively as to move from a shoe box concept to world tour in several months, Cirque's initial open-ended creative period was unsettling. "They like to just throw things at you left and right and see what you respond to," King explains. "They say it's 'feeding' — they like to 'feed' you and wait while you chew on it."
Using 65 songs, 30 dancers, 25 acrobats, 10 musicians and a 10-choreographer team, King conceived and directed "The Immortal" to center on a place (Neverland Ranch, which he visited early on) rather than his usual artist-focused orientation. Jackson is represented by master tracks of his singing voice, video and spoken-word clips and amplified representations of his most identifiable choreography and accessories.
Since the show opened in Las Vegas in December, reviewers have paled at some cartoonish mash-ups and missteps during pivotal songs (e.g. a frolicking life-size sequined glove and loafers during "Beat It"), yet there's been no argument over King's ability to intensify and amplify the precise, essential dance power in such signature numbers as "Billie Jean" and "Thriller."
Next month, even more of King's oversize movement collaborations with Cirque du Soleil performers and crew will be visible during Madonna's high-exposure Super Bowl performance. "There'll be some magic," he says slyly.
Meanwhile, as the "Immortal" tsunami rolls into Los Angeles this month (more than 900,000 tickets have sold in North America), King has officially begun work with Cirque on the more intimate, permanent version of "The Immortal" to go up in Vegas in 2013.
It had been his "great dream," he says, to scale back to create a work for a fixed site. "The possibilities are just endless when you're in a theater and there aren't people standing in front of you like in a rock concert, with popcorn flying and alcohol," he says. "This will be a focused environment where we'll really have people's attention. I just can't wait."
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/22/entertainment/la-ca-jamie-king-20120122
Akkanvader
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Re: The Legend Lives On - Official News Announcement
ive went to the show in Las Vegas !!!!!!
ive went to the show in Las Vegas !!!!!!
Akkanvader
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Re: The Legend Lives On - Official News Announcement
i want to this show one more time.
i hope this comes to Japan!
i want to this show one more time.
i hope this comes to Japan!
madmijack
Proud Member
OMG !!! !!! !!! :clap: :clap: :clap: HOLD ON, RUSSIAN FANS !!! !!! !!!
This has been posted for a while on the russian web site but quickly banned away. I think that's because Russia's dates are not been set finaly yet, so they can not give out any info, when exactly CDS' Immortal comes to Moscow. But some fans who talked to Sony Music Russia have been taught the show might start at early 2013.
Akkanvader
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The show was sooooooooo exciting!!!!?But i missed MJ.
Indra
Guests
Just got the tickets for the show in Stockholm in November. Can't wait!!!
elusive moonwalker
Guests
U wont get away with filming long amounts of the show unless you are very lucky. thats the main thing stewards look out for. if you want to film take a compact camera with film mode on it. dont even try with a camcorder as if staff are doing their job u wont get it in
Petrarose
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^^Lol yeah. I never though about it like that either. The whole thing makes even more sense to me now!
Amazing show, a true tribute for a true King!
It show is, and now I will pay more attention to the guy in white.
kristinaz
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Had no idea bout that wow thinking about it like that now, it's even more beautiful.