Ringmaster extraordinaire Salvador Salangsang with his performers on the intimate stage.
Ringmaster extraordinaire Salvador Salangsang with his performers on the intimate stage.
The wheel of death rolls out for the latest spectacular, writes Dionne Christian.
Salvador Salangsang has done it all. He has been a break dancer for NBA team San Antonio Spurs, strutted his stuff in the MGM Grand's most expensive show alongside David Cassidy and Rick Springfield and won awards at the Festival International de Cirque.
So it's a surprise when he makes a candid confession.
Salangsang was sought out by its producers to help craft Le Noir - The Dark Side of Cirque, but he admits despite his five years in the spotlight as the show's ringmaster he still battles with stage fright. It's partly because he wants the audience to have a night they will never forget and feels the responsibility lies on his shoulders.
He plays a French-inspired comedic clown who acts as the show's MC, introducing each of its performers and guiding the audience on a journey that takes them from dazzling bright white through to the inky black that is le noir.
As the lights shine white then intensify to red and dim to black, Salangsang is acutely aware that because Le Noir is so extreme there remains the ever-present risk something won't go as meticulously planned or rehearsed.
Just look at the acts, he says.
Twenty-four of the best performers from all over the world, many of them former Cirque du Soleil acrobats, are at the heart of the production that culminates in the decidedly dangerous Colombian Wheel of Death.
An acrobat in Le Noir.
Performers are not attached to its huge metal wheels in any way: there are no harnesses so they must run, jump and spin to match the speed of the wheels, which rotate high in to the air.
Although it's the stunt that sets his pulse racing the fastest, Salangsang says it's also the one he can hardly bear to watch because it's risky, unpredictable and puts the "noir" into the show's title.
He likes to say those who perform death-defying stunts within the wheel are crazy and that's a necessary requirement to conquer such fear.
He does nothing as extreme, but Salangsang has his own nerve-racking challenge. Audience involvement is pivotal to Le Noir and, for some, that means being brave enough to join in. It's Salangsang's job to coax them up onto stage and make them part of the show.
"No one is ever in any danger - we're not asking anyone from the audience to ride the Wheel of Death or anything like that - nor do we make anyone the butt of a joke, but a large part of the show's success is getting the audience involved.
"There's always an element of, 'Will I find enough people to make this work?' Because I don't take anyone who's reluctant - there's no coercion - and I move on to the next person.
Those who do take part, at half time and after the show, they're like celebrities with everyone wanting to congratulate them and ask what it was like."
The audience plays a bigger role than it does at most circus shows.
Le Noir's producer Simon Painter says the original concept was to take the world's best Cirque performers and rather than create a production in a huge auditorium or arena, produce an intimate show where the best seats in the house are inches from the action on stage.
The audience also has a 360-degree view of the stage.
"They can see everything," says Salangsang."So there's no escape for the cast, either!"
