Magical Macau

Entertainment

Cirque du Soleil's ZAIA has been performed in a custom-built arena in Macau since 2008. It’s the first ever resident Cirque show in Asia and truly offers its audience memories which will last a lifetime.

That Cirque du Soleil found its way to Macau is no surprise – not only is the city becoming one of the world's top entertainment destinations, but the show and the setting are two flamboyant peas in a pod: dazzling, intense, over-the-top and elegant. The story underpinning ZAIA is a perfect fit for Macau too – the title character is a young girl travelling across space in search of her parents, and through her travels being exposed to the powerful beauty of the Earth's different cultures. Cirque couldn't have picked a better stage than Macau, a tiny city that is itself struggling to keep hold of its roots as it opens up to people and cultures from distant parts of the world. Zaia's universe expands in about 90 minutes, but Macau's drama will still be playing out when Cirque and the Las Vegas Sands Corp re-evaluate their contract a decade from now.

Born in small-town Quebec in 1984, Cirque isn't your average circus act. Its cast of world-class performers includes ex-Olympic athletes, classical and modern dancers, opera singers and masterful instrumentalists. Behind the scenes, an army of equally talented choreographers, composers, costume designers and countless others all work tirelessly for an average of two years per production – and that's before opening night.

The show doesn't skimp on the daring feats Cirque is famous for – acrobats twirl several body lengths above the stage, one hanging from the other by a line gripped in her teeth; Zaia and her love interest lift off the ground and fly over the audience in a perfect aerial representation of puppy love; a team of performers cross paths in three dimensions, like balls in a toddler's corn popper toy, powered by an X-shaped teeterboard and several trampolines. Perhaps the most impressive act, though, uses no props or aids of any kind – in the 'hand to hand' sequence, two performers in flesh-toned bodysuits covered in crawling vines recall Adam and Eve with an intimate, slowly evolving series of positions that seem to defy gravity. The one stage feature they do interact with – a rotating iceberg – only makes their precarious connections more unbelievable.

Costuming and music – features that play an important but less subtle role under any big top – give ZAIA a lot of its character. The otherworldly outfits created by Dominique Lemieux actually take their cues from real Earthbound fashion: "I was inspired by the urban dress of the world's cities," she explains, and recreated that "eclectic merging of genres" in a broad spectrum of colours – with some recycled bells and whistles added to the more whimsical costumes – to convey the diversity of the world's cultures.

Composer Violaine Corradi developed ZAIA's worldbeat sound – a blend of musical features and instruments from different parts of the globe, to create a new style that's impossible to pin on a map – reinforcing the cross-cultural theme while creating a feeling of unity. Calling the music "vocally driven", Corradi spent months holding auditions for the two main singing roles, finally casting Sweden's Maria Karin Andersson and all-American 'Chicago Rose', Rose Marie Winnebrenner. "I could hear the voices I was looking for in my head," she says of the protracted but ultimately successful search. "I knew they were out there."

An 1,800 seat theatre built to the ZAIA design team's specifications helps extend this otherworldly drama in every imaginable dimension. The stage moves – and occasionally drops away – in a series of concentric orbit-like rings. A floating sphere almost eight metres in diameter projects images from within in 360 degrees, allowing it to play the roles of lantern, hot air balloon, Earth and Moon. An aerial frame spanning the 30 metre stage supports acrobats as they hurl themselves through the air, and also serves as a neato railway bridge with an engine to cross it. And a 15 by 30 metre oval track in the ceiling carries five 270kg 'ice blocks', with icy dancers nestled into their surfaces, high above the audience. The background, a 'star drop' featuring 3,000 fibre optic stars, simulates the actual night sky above the Cotai Strip.

ZAIA is performed Tuesday and Wednesday at 8pm, Thursday through Saturday at 7 and 10pm, and Sunday at 4 and 7pm. Adult tickets MOP 388-1,288; children MOP 288-1,288. Reserve seats by phone – from Macau (853) 2882 8818 or Hong Kong (852) 6333 6660 –

or online at www.cirquedusoleil.com