Cirque du Soleil’s IRIS – A Journey through the World of Cinema, their newest show and resident production created exclusively for the Kodak Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center, is a world of wonderment and blinding beauty in tribute to the Hollywood’s golden film era. IRIS, appropriately named, is certainly an eye opener and refers to both the light that passes through the camera lens and the colored part of the eye. Both for the Los Angeleno and the tourist, Cirque du Soleil IRIS is a must-see show.
From the beginning, this Cirque du Soliel show is aimed to break the fourth wall and engage the audience. The comedic characters roam the aisles pre-show to set the mood that IRIS wants to interact, unlike other Cirque du Soliel shows. Vaudevillian numbers intertwine with the fantastic human feats of the fearless acrobats and uber-flexible contortionists.
Cirque du Soleil’s IRIS takes spectators on a visual voyage through the history of cinema and its genres, taking them into the heart of the movie-making process. From illustration to animation, black and white to colour, silent films to talkies, fixed shots to swooping camera movements, it’s the perfect resident show for Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre.
Spending $100 million dollars to renovate the Kodak Theatre to accomadate perfomers appearing from below ground and over head, the only other show at the Kodak Theatre for the next ten years besides IRIS will be the Academy Awards. IRIS was constructed to easily transform the Kodak to be used for the Oscars.
“We are thrilled to have found such a spectacular home in Los Angeles,” said President and CEO of Cirque du Soleil Daniel Lamarre. “The city is at the forefront not only of film, but music, architecture and art as well. It is our hope that IRIS will be a welcome addition to Hollywood as a destination for locals and visitors alike. This is also a kind of homecoming for us. Our international career started right here when we brought a show called “We Reinvent the Circus” to the LA Festival for opening night on September 3, 1987.”
IRIS, written and directed by director-choreographer Philippe Decouflé, opens with two muscular men flying over the audience seamlessly in a sort of flying ballet routine. Other highlights of the show include a gangster-cop trampoline number, the alien-suited death-dying tumblers, a frame-by-frame show of live film and dance numbers, and the finale where all 72 performers come out on stage in dazzling costume and color.
In addition to the 72 performers, IRIS has 200 costumes, 8,300 square feet of floor surface, 174 loudspeakers, 603 lighting features, 20 video projectors, and 166,000 watts of sound. IRIS joins the other Cirque du Soleil resident productions Mystère™, O™, Zumanity™, KÀ™, The Beatles LOVE™, CRISS ANGEL Believe™ and Viva ELVIS™ in Las Vegas, La Nouba™ at Walt Disney World Resort, ZED™ in Tokyo, and ZAIA™ in Macao, in scale, scope and size.
About Cirque du Soleil
From a group of 20 street performers at its beginnings in 1984, Cirque du Soleil is now a major Quebec-based organization providing high-quality artistic entertainment. The company has 5,000 employees, including more than 1,200 performing artists from close to 50 different countries. Cirque du Soleil has brought wonder and delight to more than 100 million spectators in nearly 300 cities on five continents.
For more information about Cirque du Soleil, visit www.cirquedusoleil.com.
About KODAK Theatre
Kodak Theatre is the crown jewel of the Hollywood & Highland Center retail, dining and entertainment complex located in the heart of historic Hollywood. The theatre opened in November 2001 and soon became known to more than one billion people across the globe as the first permanent home of the Academy Awards®. Kodak Theatre was designed by the internationally-renowned Rockwell Group to be as glamorous as its onstage artists and celebrity guests, yet capable of serving the enormous technical needs of a live worldwide television broadcast on Oscar® night.
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IRIS Tickets information
Ticket prices range from $43 to $253.
Tickets are available at www.cirquedusoleil.com or by calling 1-877-943-IRIS.
For parties of 12 or more, contact Cirque du Soleil group sales by calling 877-504-7164.
For Preferred Seating and other American Express® Cardmember benefits, please visit www.cirquedusoleil.com/amex.
