'Viva Elvis' Aria Resort & Casino Las Vegas, NV

Cirque du Soleil has some of the most talented and amazing dancers and athletes in the world working for them all over the world. Elvis Presley is one of popular music and popular cultures most legendary figures of all time. But a Cirque du Soleil company in Sin City doing Elvis? We checked in at the Aria Resort & Casino on the Strip in Las Vegas at the current production of "Viva Elvis." "Viva Elvis" promises to leave audiences stomping their feet and clapping their hands, but is it a worthy excursion for your next stop off on the Strip? I have been to see Cirque du Soleil before and I have always been impressed. Their manipulation of their bodies and the theatricality of their movement has always set well with me. Still when I entered into the Aria Theatre I did not really know what to expect from "Viva Elvis".

Admittedly I am not really an Elvis fan. I am familiar enough with his music but I'd never really swooned at his gyrations. I guess you could say I was about as informed of Elvis' existence as any other American kid raised on television and brought into adulthood with the Internet. I was born in 1979 just after Elvis passed ('‹Å"77 if you don't believe the conspiracy theorists) and like I said I knew about as much as anyone else.

So walking into "Viva Elvis" I was not prepared to be all that impressed. I guess as a reporter and student of popular culture I knew a little bit about The King. Poor boy, born into a poor family, got his start early and of his own volition, went on to sell millions, got drafted at the height of his success, served, came back, did films, died in a veil of mystery and sadness; overweight at the end, as I understand it; you know, all the essential Elvis knowledge.

This is the story "Viva Elvis" tells us, in a nutshell. Of course done with the typical Cirque du Soleil knock-your-socks-off insanity. I was curious as to how they would play it; having just seen another movement-musical-theatrical-circus thing in "Absinthe," I was prepared to be wowed by Cirque du Soleil but only slightly. I figured they would ham it up with some cheesy Presley classics and that would be that.

Right away, I was wrong. From the very get go, the show starts off with a bang! The movement, of course, was amazing. But the one thing which really impressed me was that their take on the music of Presley's legend was as authentic as it was reverent. The Presley family is legendary, or so I've heard, for preserving The Kings legacy. The Cirque du Soleil crew used a good mix of Elvis live, Elvis in studio and all the recordings were remixed to fit the theme of the show. But the mixes never felt flagrant or offensive in any way. Maybe to some of the fundamentalist fans of Presley they might not like the way that the tracks were mixed, but for familiar toe tappers like "Blue Suede Shoes," "Can't Help Falling in Love," and "That's All Right," the mixes felt fresh and inviting.

Of course the Cirque du Soleil crew are doing these amazing things in front of you while you're listening to Elvis and watching The King a large part of the time on a massive rear screen.

You really need to see these moves to get a full appreciation but some of the antics include one guy rolling around on a 6 foot tall monkey bar wheel and inserting himself into the wheel as it rolled, superhero characters leaping up on giant trampolines and crawling the wall what must have been 40 or 50 feet up, and a giant monkey bar guitar, hanging up those 40 or 50 feet in the air with two acrobats moving the guitar along with their flips and twirls inside of it; even going so far as to fall out of it and be caught by the other.

A Cirque du Soleil experience really goes beyond words; words don't even do this thing half the justice it deserves. There was also a girl suspended up near the top of the stage sitting at a piano and four or five individual performers swinging across the stage like Spiderman. Game on New York production. Why can't you let one guy do the swinging that these five do at once Bono?

"Viva Elvis" was truly an homage to this great man's life. I am not really a fan of The King but I found myself quite moved by this basic story I already knew. What an inspiration for everyone out there who is talented and just really poorly guided. Or has had their share of misfortunes thrown their way. Because even this one kid got his break and took the rocket ship all the way to the top. It's sad to think what Elvis would have become in our Ritalin-obsessed world we live in today.

His energy sounded infections; can you feel it?

Sources:

(1) http://www.arialasvegas.com/viva-elvis/

(2) http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/viva-elvis/default.aspx

(3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLzYWBJimKc