A WHOLE NEW LEVEL `KA,' LAS VEGAS' LATEST CIRQUE, IS INFUSED WITH ENERGY, INNOVATION.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor

Choreographer Jacques Heim is intently watching a dozen or so performers rocking, twisting and flying off a 1,800-pound boat as they rehearse a scene from ``KA,'' Cirque du Soleil's latest extravaganza.

Heim wants them to ``help each other to focus the action,'' in order to give the audience the illusion that they are on a stormy sea. It's the day before ``KA's'' gala premiere, and while Cirque officials express cool confidence in the $220 million project at the MGM Grand, the performers are nervous enough to shanghai Heim from an interview in order to get in one last run-through.

Finding rehearsal time in the 1,951-seat state-of-the-art theater isn't necessarily easy for ``KA'' performers. That's because the stage area is constantly reconfigured, changing for each scene. It is part of the extraordinary artistic vision of Robert Lepage, the experimental writer-director from Quebec who has also staged concerts for rocker Peter Gabriel.

This is Cirque's fourth venture in Vegas, and it not only pushes - even transcends - the theatrical envelope, it is undoubtedly the most expensive stage presentation in history.

``Think of the movies coming out at the end of the '90s, like 'The Matrix,' '' said ``KA'' theater and set designer Mark Fisher. ``Hollywood started to use the digital media to create an artificial gravity for the performers. Think of those great martial-arts fights in 'The Matrix.' It's zero gravity in the real world. This is what Robert connected with. It was the opportunity that Cirque could give him to challenge Hollywood with those kinds of points of view for the audience.''

Lepage wanted a performance area where everything was possible, which meant a traditional stage was out of the question.

``If you look around the theater, you'll see there is no permanent stage floor,'' said Jerry Nadal, general manager of all Cirque productions in Vegas. ``The performing area comprises three main performing stages and four ancillary stages, and the main stage, called the gantry stage, is 65 feet by 25 feet and 8 feet deep - it's like its own city.''

It's more than that. The gantry stage, which weighs some 175 tons, along with a second stage can move in and out or up and down, which among other things allows the action to seem continuous. (The stage area itself is some 120 feet across and 150 feet high.)

``We realized we didn't really want a stage,'' said Fisher. ``The answer was just to have a great big hole and put something in it that could float and fly.''

But the really spectacular aspect of the gantry stage, powered by super hydraulic cylinders and electric motors and controlled by computers, is its ability to tilt upward at seemingly impossible angles (seen in one chase seen) or become completely vertical, as it does in one eye-popping battle scene.

It's here that Lepage's challenge to Hollywood and gravity is most evident as warriors - tethered by cords - walk up this wall, giving the audience a cinematic overhead shot of the action.

But that is hardly the extent of the 90-minute show's inventiveness.

Looking to expand its horizons, Cirque du Soleil under founder and CEO Guy Laliberte reached out to members of the artistic community it had never worked with before, including Lepage, Heim and puppeteer Michael Curry, best-known for his work with Julie Taymor on the stage version of ``The Lion King'' and opera productions.

Heim, the choreographer, lives in Sherman Oaks and runs the Los Angeles-based dance company Diavolo. He believes he was chosen because his own work entails working with objects like ships and walls. (One of the troupe's routines, which can be seen at www.diavolo.org, involved a ship.)

Heim says ``KA'' was a gamble for Cirque, but a necessary one after 20 years. Laliberte had been a street performer in Montreal and had formed Cirque in 1984, and all of its shows, including the other three in Vegas (``Zumanity,'' ``O'' and ``Mystere'') can be described as dreamscapes - fabulous, magical dreamscapes, but not plot-driven.

``In other shows, if someone is sick or injured we could replace them with another act,'' said Nadal. ``But this is like a Broadway show or ballet. It's got to run the same way every night. So we have understudies for all of the major character roles.''

Set in a mythical world that resembles the Orient of the 17th century, ``KA'' tells the stories of imperial twins (a boy and a girl, played by two sisters from San Francisco). Their family is attacked, their parents slain, by a band of fierce-looking, tattooed warriors.

As the audience enters the cathedral-like theater, the warriors can be seen gamboling and cavorting on tiered runways held by giant columns that flank the stage area, as if they are getting pumped up for the attack.

The action follows the adventures of the twins, who are separated by the battle and make separate escapes - one on that ship. They're eventually reunited, but only after a surprising twist of fate.

In telling the story, ``KA'' incorporates elements of Chinese Opera, martial arts, lots of pyrotechnics, large-scale puppetry and multimedia technologies. There is no dialogue, only driving music composed by Rene Dupere, delivered through a superior multichannel sound system.

In one scene, the girl twin and her nanny wash up on a beach (the converted gantry stage). After a few moments, two crabs suddenly pop out of the sand.

These are acrobats in crab suits who must spend six minutes buried in the sand, using breathing apparatus, before getting their cue. Then they mimic crab movements by walking on their hands and feet - bent over backward. Curry gave the crabs eight legs instead of the normal six just because he liked the idea.

``My favorite thing to do is alter our reality and our expectations of what the human body can do and what it looks like,'' he said.

Curry welcomed the challenge of Cirque but wasn't sure it would work out because puppetry was new to the shows. Convinced after a couple of test runs, Curry was then given pretty much free rein to meet Lepage's expectations.

For the show, Curry created a number of creatures that are both familiar (the crab) but also slightly fantastic (a giant snake that appears in the forest sequence). The latter scene also features a tent that somehow morphs into a birdlike flying machine that circles over the audience. With equipment hanging from it, 25 performers on it and 27 technicians on top of it, the machine weighs some 80 tons.

What's not new in ``KA'' are Cirque's amazing performers, who still defy gravity with fearless, astonishing acts of acrobatics. In the Wheel of Death scene toward the end of the show, two giant arms with circular cages spin while slave cages at both ends rotate. While one acrobat controls the speed of rotation in one cage, a second acrobat - untethered - runs atop the other. It provides a breathtaking moment, and reminds the audience that for all of ``KA's'' high-tech and engineering wizardry, it is still those oh my moments that ultimately capture the public's imagination.

In case you're wondering where Cirque keeps finding its wondrous pool of talent, Nadal said the Cirque team is constantly on the hunt for performers - even at Olympic competitions.

``This is a good year, post-Olympics; there are an awful lot of people who want to continue their careers,'' he said. ``We scout different competitions. This is a chance for them to make some money.''

And the show is also on the lookout for unusual acts such as the musician found in a Senegalese village who is now part of ``O,'' the water-based show at the Bellagio that is in its seventh year.

Nadal said the challenge for Cirque is to keep the shows different enough so that they all have an audience. There are some 67,000 tickets on sale each week for the four Vegas shows, and most of them are sold at more than $100 a pop - minus casino comps, of course. (You do the math.)

Stats like that keep the casinos very happy. MGM put up the $130 million for the theater and goes 50-50 on the show. But its bonus prize is all those patrons who also stay at the hotel, gamble and eat at its restaurants.

And in May or June of next year, Cirque plans to bring a fifth show to Las Vegas, set to Beatles music and staged at the Mirage. It will take the place of the Siegfried & Roy show. No tigers will be involved, but Curry and Heim will.

As for Heim's performers who were worried about opening night, they came through with flying colors. In fact, they all went flying right off the stormed-tossed ship into the pit below, where air bags waited to cushion their fall.

Rob Lowman, [phone]

robert.lowman(at)dailynews.com

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: The MGM Grand is at 3799 Las Vegas Blvd.

KA: The show is staged Tuesday through Friday at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. Tickets range from $99 to $150.

INFORMATION: [phone] or [phone]; www.mgmgrand.com.

CAPTION(S):

7 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- color) The Wheel of Death, top, is one of several dramatic staging elements employed in ``KA,'' the latest Cirque show in Las Vegas, which is playing at the MGM Grand. The show tells the epic story of the imperial twins, above, played by real-life twins Jennifer Kimberly Haight, at left, and Cheri Tabushi Haight. In one scene, far left, a character washes up on a shore and is awakened by contortionist performers in crab costumes.

(4 -- 6) In ``KA,'' Cirque du Soleil's newest show in Las Vegas, performers tethered by wires act out a battle scene on a stage that tilts to 90 degrees to provide an ``overhead'' perspective, left. Acrobats also stage fights on pillars, above, and ride a storm-tossed ship, below.

(7) ``KA,'' which tells the story of twins who survive an attack on their family, ends with an upbeat musical finale.

Box:

IF YOU GO (see text)