Escaping Mediocrity

Early last month I was in Las Vegas and had the chance to see a Cirque Du Soleil show. I chose to see KA- again. If you missed my first post about this amazing show, you can check it out here.

This time when I saw it, I was moving in this new direction of Escaping Mediocrity so I watched it with a fresh lens. It was as amazing and moving as I remembered it to be. So much so that I bought KA Extreme which chronicles how this amazing production developed.

For those of you who aren’t as rabid as I am about Cirque Du Soleil, I’d like to share the fact that this company is often cited in business articles and books (Blue Ocean Strategy is just one that comes to mind) because they redefined the whole concept of “Circus” and they embrace creativity and innovation as business strategies. 

Up until they hit the scene, conventional thinking was that a successful circus had to have three rings, animal acts and be targeted to children. If it didn’t look like that, then it wasn’t a “circus” and would not succeed. (Oh and you couldn’t charge more than, say, $35 a ticket and getting grownups to come was a huge marketing challenge.)

Then this band of street performers from Canada hit the scene and turned the definition of “circus” upside down. Cirque Du Soleil is sophisticated, high energy, targeted to grownups and charges premium dollar for tickets. Oh – and there are no animal acts or “rings” of any kind. Cirque Du Soleil could be THE poster child company for Escaping Mediocrity (hmm…maybe I’ll ask them about that….).

Here’s the thing I love most about them though: they NEVER stop pushing the boundaries of their creativity.  With KA – they broke the mold that THEY created. First, KA is a story – like a ballet or an opera. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. None of the other Cirque shows have that. Second, and to me most important, they created this moving stage that actually becomes many characters in the show. Looking at those words – I simply am not doing justice to the concept.

The stage pivots 365 degrees in all directions (I think) and weighs more than a 747 at takeoff. It transforms into a ship, a seashore, a mountain – and in one of my favorite sequences – a vertical chessboard.

Here’s the thing that made me catch my breathe over and over again: the performers are almost always at risk of falling off of the platform. Sometimes they even have to fall off on purpose in a freefall and you don’t see them land. “They perform on the edge of the void” as Robert LePage, KA Creator and Director says – and it is a l-o-n-g way down (up to 100 feet – yikes!) to the net below.

In the KA Extreme video, I got to watch the perfomers go throught the emotional process of learning how to overcome their fears and master both performing on the edge of a void AND making a complete freefall. And just in case you think it was easy for those amazing artists, it was not.

LePage says “We ask our performers to find the courage to confront the void”.

As if that quote isn’t enough to chew on, Lepage closes KA Extreme with this:

“I feel that my life is bristling with opportunities or invitations to dive into the void…I don’t mean emptiness…I mean the void in terms of taking risks.  The ambitiousness of this Cirque Du Soleil show is a very clear invitation to dive into the void.”

And the result of learning to “confront the void” and to take risks is a Cirque Du Soleil show that is so beautiful, so touching, so astonishing and so unlike any other that it leaves everyone I know speechless (and trust me – my friends are rarely at a loss for words about ANYTHING.)

Here’s what I learned: If I am committed to escaping mediocrity,  I have to be willing to freefall into the void and to take HUGE risks. IF I can manage that, IF I can screw up my courage and let go – I just might create something magnificent.

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When I started thinking about posting a review of Cirque Du Soleil’s Ka, I was on an airplane with pen and paper. I wrote a few words then scratched them out. Wrote a few more. Scratched those out too. I truly could not find the right words to begin.

Those of you who know me (or at least read what I write) know that I am one to rarely, if ever, be at a loss for words. And yet here I am.

The experience of Ka is so moving, so wondrous, so poignant, so spectacular, so breathtaking and so filled with physical beauty and amazing skill that it literally swept me away for 90 minutes.

Since I clearly need help finding language to suit the experience, I called on some of my friends who saw the show with me.

unmarketing@SarahRobinson i still cant describe it to people, and the was my fourth time

MissIve@SarahRobinson I know. Want a quote? I’ll just send you this “(no words)”

kimballroundy@SarahRobinson I hear you… Speechless. Nothing like it.Seems my lack of language isn’t unique.

Fortunately, a few other tweeple weighed in and at least gave me something to throw my grapple hook towards!

ConfessionsMom@SarahRobinsonWORDS to describe Cirque du Soleil’s-KA: redefines unique, illogical, impossibly amazing, justifiable ticket price-hows that?

HeleneScott@SarahRobinson visual experiential bliss.

Here’s what is so unique about Ka. It is a story – a story told with physical movement. Sounds like ballet I know, but the movement I’m talking about is a combination of martial arts (wushu, I read at the Ka website), acrobatics, Capoeira dance, puppetry – and jump rope. Serious jump rope. Jump rope on top of a spinning cage that had the audience gasping again and again. As always, Cirque redefines itself and the genre it created.

(I say this because several reviews I read by people who were expecting a “traditional” Cirque show were disappointed that it was a story – rather than one act followed by another held together by a theme like “O” or “Zumanity”.)

The story takes place in another – and intentionally undefined – time and place. At the center are the Royal Twins who must flee their kingdom when it is attacked, are separated – each making their own heroic journey through perilous obstacles while being relentlessly pursued by their enemies. Along the way, each must transform themselves from budding youth into adult hero – with lots of help along the way.

I won’t spend a ton of time here giving  you a scene-by scene – you can get a wonderful overview at the official Ka website: www.cirquedusoleil.com/cirquedusoleil/ka/

I do want tell you about my very favorite scene, though. It wasn’t the human airplane flying out over the audience or the extraordinary acrobatics of Firefly Boy or the final fight scene – which defies gravity and boggles that mind – it wasn’t even the spinning cage/jump rope spectacular.

It was a quiet little scene – a respite from exhaustive flight. The court jester, who risks his life to protect the Royal Prince, sits close to the young boy and teaches him shadow puppets. Gently arranging his fingers and his hands in front of the light of a lantern to form a cat, a dog, a rabbit. Once the prince caught on, they put on a brief shadow puppet show together – with only themselves as their audience. The moment was so…so…so tender, so childlike, so warm – and still so beautifully and skillfully executed that I wanted it to go on and on.

Actually, I wanted Ka to go on and on and on. I pondered hiding under the seats so I could see the second show. The doorman (in costume of course) assured me that I would have been found and kindly escorted out.

Fortunately for me, I am returning to Las Vegas in June. I will see Ka again – even if I have to go by myself. But I’m betting I won’t have any trouble finding a few adventurers to go with me!

Ka is playing at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. You find out more about it here: www.cirquedusoleil.com/cirquedusoleil/ka/

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