Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away (2012)

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away 3D Movie Official Trailer · YouTube thumbnail, shown under the embed terms of the linked video

Limelight · Cirque & spectacle

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away (2012)

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away is a 2012 3D feature film, directed by Andrew Adamson, that wraps a thin fantasy plot around footage of Cirque du Soleil resident performers. A young woman falls through the floor of a travelling circus and lands in a dreamlike composite of several Cirque productions then running in Las Vegas, searching for the acrobat she saw fall from the air moments earlier.

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away 3D Movie Official TrailerTrailer · Cirque du Soleil · watch on YouTube

What is danced

The article gives almost no description of choreography or technique. What it does establish is structural: the film 'incorporates acts from O, Mystère, Kà, Love, Zumanity, Criss Angel Believe, and Viva Elvis, some of the Cirque du Soleil shows that were running in Las Vegas in 2011.' That is a naming of source repertory, not a description of what those acts do on screen, so no specific apparatus, lift, or vocabulary can be attributed to any of them from this text alone. The one concrete movement beat the plot gives is the Aerialist's fall from his act early in the film, and the closing image: 'Mia and the Aerialist perform an aerial courtship for the grand finale' — a duet performed in the air, but the article does not name the rig, apparatus, or partnering technique used to stage it.

Staging history

The article gives the film's release path rather than a stage production history: it premiered on October 20, 2012 at the Tokyo International Film Festival, opened theatrically in the United States on December 21, 2012 through Paramount Pictures, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 12, 2013. There is no account here of the film being restaged or re-edited after release.

How to watch it

Watch for the seams between the framing fantasy narrative (Mia and the Aerialist) and the inserted performance footage from named Vegas productions — the article implies these are distinct 'worlds' the characters pass through rather than a single continuous show. Because it was shot and released in 3D, depth and aerial suspension were evidently a selling point of the theatrical presentation, though the source text does not specify how any single aerial or acrobatic sequence was staged for camera.

Questions

Which Cirque du Soleil shows appear in the film?
The article names O, Mystère, Kà, Love, Zumanity, Criss Angel Believe, and Viva Elvis as the source shows the film draws acts from, describing them as shows running in Las Vegas in 2011.
Is this a recording of a live stage show?
No. It is a scripted 3D fantasy film with a framing story about a woman named Mia and an acrobat called the Aerialist, into which excerpts from several existing Cirque du Soleil productions are incorporated.
What actually gets danced in the film?
The article does not describe specific choreography. It confirms a fall from an aerial act early on and an 'aerial courtship' between the two leads at the finale, but gives no detail of apparatus or technique.
Who choreographed the movement in the film?
Not stated in the article and not recorded in our catalogue entry for this work.
This entry was written from “Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away” on English Wikipedia (revision 1351370630), used under CC BY-SA 4.0. The link points at the exact revision this text was written from, so it shows the words we actually used rather than whatever the article says today. Credits and premiere data come from Wikidata (CC0), cited per field.