La Perle, an upcoming aquatic theatre show in Dubai by Franco Dragone, will now open in August.
The year-round show will be located in a dedicated 1,300 capacity venue, right beside The W Hotel in Al Habtoor City.
It originally was to open by December of 2016, but construction hiccups and rigorous security tests pushed the launch back.
Dragone, a former Cirque du Soleil mastermind and the head of cultural creation company Dragone, pays homage to the region through this show.
As previously reported after a tour of the venue in October, La Perle will feature a proliferated dry stage that, in 90 seconds, can be flooded with 2.7 million litres of water. In less than a minute, that water can disappear.
65 artists acrobats, aerialists, contortionists and more from 23 countries will perform under, telling a story infused with flavours of the Arab world.
A diver will jump from a stomach-curdling 35 metres into an 11 metre deep, 5 metre wide hole in the ground. They’ll be greeted by a scuba diver who will give them enough oxygen to stay underwater for as long as necessary.
“[Artists] will be hanging and diving everywhere, coming from under the water and coming from the roof, so that’s not easy to do. They’re not normal acrobats that you see at the malls, they are very professional — this is their job for life,” said Mohammad Al Habtoor, vice chairman and CEO of Al Habtoor Group LLC.
“I would not say that they are freaks, but in a certain way, they are special, because they do something that they’re not used to doing. They approach it differently,” said Dragone.
