This week's LVW Col: Sun Dance Festival

Here's this week's LVW piece, from my exclusive visit to a recent round of Cirque du Soleil dance auditions. I'll have more pictures up later from the same and maybe some video.

Sun Dance Festival

Cirque du Soleil is far more than acrobatics, as a recent audition proved

By STEVE FRIESS

In a dance studio south of the Strip earlier this month, a long table of casting personnel—in this Dancing With the Stars era I so want to call them judges—sat at attention in a large mirrored room where an impeccably built young dancer named Mas slithered about in nothing but extremely tight blue underwear.

Mas was trying his hand at an improvisational dance number with music he’d never heard before. With every turn and beat, he felt over his bare body or shook out his tight, barely concealed bottom or did something else intended to fulfill the command of casting director Krista Monson to give her something seductive.

When the music (unfortunately) stopped, he stood there catching his breath—did I mention he was now glistening with sweat in addition to being nearly naked?—waiting for Monson to offer some feedback. And happily for those enjoying Mas’, uh, work, she wanted him to do it again, only this time, she said, he was to add some menace to the seduction act. “This character, you’re never sure if he wants to kill you or ... he wants to fuck you,” she said.

Monson seemed to enjoy Mas’ second effort, but just as quickly as he was at the center of her world, he was moved off to the side so a succession of equally attractive men and women could strut before her, all of them having flocked here from across the United States and even from overseas for a chance of landing a job at one of the most significant dance companies in the world.

That company: Cirque du Soleil.

Of course, it wasn’t always thus, and you’re forgiven if it wasn’t at the top of your list. For most of my career covering Las Vegas, I’ve described Cirque variously as “the Canadian acrobatic” or “human circus” troupe or some other similar construct.

Yet with each of its newest shows in Las Vegas—Love, Criss Angel Believe and the still-unnamed Elvis-scored production opening in December at Aria—the company has become a new force in the world of modern dance.

Read the rest at this LasVegasWeekly.Com link.