Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour
Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour is Cirque Du Soleil's 30th production, an arena tour launched in 2011 and the first of two different Cirque shows focused on the music of Michael Jackson; the second, to open in 2013, will be a permanent show at the Mandalay Bay casino resort in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The premise has an everyman mime journey into the heart of the Neverland Ranch, Jackson's most famous residence in life, and through a series of acrobatic and dance vignettes based around common themes and settings in his songs. These include dancing, gangsters and dangerous women, and supernatural creatures. While Jackson's original recordings are the basis of the soundtrack, there are live musicians and singers shoring them up.
Over 2012, this show will wrap up its North American tour and move on to Europe.
- Animal Motifs: Costumed performers play elephants during "Ben" and descend from the rafters as bats during the horror sequence.
- Bare Your Midriff: Two ladies bare theirs: the cello player and the pole dancer who performs to "Dangerous".
- Clueless Aesop: This review argues that "They Don't Care About Us" presents this; later in the review he notes that the show wouldn't have existed had Jackson's estate not seen its profit potential—yet it equates money with evil.
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...dancing robots appear with LED breastplates that first flash dollar signs amidst videos of urban and international violence, then display hearts as Mother Teresa appears onscreen to feed starving children. The number was originally designed for Jackson's This Is It shows (performances that were preempted by the artist's demise), so Cirque can't entirely be blamed for its unseemly exploitation of human suffering for commercial entertainment. Of course Jackson would have seen himself as raising awareness, and Cirque doubtless think the same thing about the pro-Gaia number Earth Song that unfolds as 30,000 people sip from souvenir plastic cups. |
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- Creepy Cemetery: Guess where the horror-inspired segment ("Thriller", etc.) takes place?
- Dance Party Ending: Naturally.
- The Eleven O'Clock Number: "Will You Be There".
- The Everyman: The Mime.
- Everything's Better with Monkeys: Bubbles the chimp (as played by a dancer) is a character!
- Everything's Better with Sparkles: Many costumes in this show are festooned with sequins, crystals, etc. Michael's iconic sparkly white glove appears more than once—at one point, it's the size of a person.
- Faceless Goons: The robot-esque soldiers in "They Don't Care About Us", though they become good by the end of the number.
- Gangsterland: As depicted in movies of the 1930s, this is the setting of the "This Place Hotel"/"Smooth Criminal"/"Dangerous" sequence.
- Green Aesop: The "Earth Song" segment.
- Jukebox Musical: More accurately, Jukebox Circus.
- Man in White: The Mime.
- Non-Ironic Clown: The Mime and the four Fanatics.
- Spiritual Successor: To The Beatles LOVE and Viva Elvis.
- Swans-a-Swimming: The duo straps performers for "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" are costumed as stylized swans; the woman is in white, the man in black.
- World Tree: Originally the set was dominated by a "Giving Tree" similar to one Jackson loved to sit in at the Neverland Ranch; most of the huge setpiece was discarded early in the run, though the tall trunk remains.