Le Rêve's Artistic Director
Brian Burke is the Artistic Director of "Le Rêve" at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas. It's his responsibility to keep the show running smoothly and looking fresh. He's entrusted with dancers, gymnasts, aerialists, divers, sound, lights, water, costumes - even character motivation.
Brian said, "My main job is to maintain the overall artistic integrity of the show in its entirety, so its lighting, its sound, its choreography, its story line, characters, the clowns, everything. So when I watch the show, I try to take in what the overall experience that an audience member is perceiving and feel the energy, feel the pulse of the show, the emotion, and really go from there."
Fortunately, he's got Cherice Barton, the Resident Choreographer, to help with that task. She said, "...a lot of the time, I'll try to give them intention...It can bring an emotion to the audience member. Sometimes, doing ten shows a week for so many weeks in a row, they can get into a bit of a robotic kind of thing where the audience wouldn't notice, but I would notice a difference. And also it just gives them a spark, kind of gives them something to think about that night so that they aren't just out there doing the motions. Because if they're feeling an emotion from the inside, automatically the audience is going to feel it."
Brian added, "The other thing that's very interesting about the show that you don't realize is the performers are never onstage when the audience is responding to what they're seeing. They're underwater or in the air. Think about that. So they don't know what the audience is feeling."
But even without the reward of applause, the performers must maintain a high level of professionalism, and that means rehearsals and constant change. "Athletes are very different than dancers so it's a different mentality. They come from a different kind of discipline. You know, dancers are very disciplined. I feel like dancers know when to conserve and when to hold back. 'I should stop doing this. I should stay out of this.' And athletes are, 'I need to do it every night all the time. I need to be goal oriented.' Very driven in a hard way."
"I've found that dancers get motivated by sort of encouragement, but I think that the athletes tend to respond to a couple parts of encouragement and a lot of parts of, 'This is what you need to work on.' It's a different language and these athletes just learned to dance in Belgium; they're not dancers. So you talk to them about things like, 'You need to be aware of your surroundings, spatial awareness. Use your peripheral vision for spacing.' Things that dancers are just aware of."
"My big thing is give the artist the tool of how to fix it. I feel like the worst director can say, 'Oh, that's wrong,' or 'That's bad.' You say, 'This isn't
working. This is why. Here's how I think you can fix it.' Give them a tool and a way to go and you give them something to work on and then it's a collaboration."
"Of the eighty people we have, we create a different show every single night. And then when people are injured and out, who's going to fill in for what? Ok, you've got those eight guys. Now, you've got to figure out who's going to swing and then Cherice has to train those people and then you have to get them in and do a put-in rehearsal and it takes months and months of time for that."
Cherice said, "I never imagined how complicated rehearsals could be. One performer: safety divers, riggers, automation, music. It takes five
minutes just to change the tension in the lines."
And those rehearsals are an ongoing reality. Brian said, "How do we make that number happen ten times a week with all different people?...That number was originally done with eight people. So how do you do eight, how do you do six, how do you do five?"
"I think the water is the thing that is actually the most exhausting. Everything they do, they have to swim to get there." "Le Rêve," it would seem, exerts a high cost.
"You have to love it to be in this show. It's extreme. It's extreme under the water. It's extreme above in the air and then you get on stage and you perform your number. So it's like you get up to the grid, you change your costume, you fly in or you come in underwater, you're scuba'd under...so there's no normal entrance. No such thing." Nevertheless, Brian manages to create continuity amongst the chaos and keep this beautiful show running smoothly, night after night after night.