One day after Bill suggested the Academy shake things up at the Oscars and follow the Grammy’s lead and “Add performances that aren’t necessarily tied to this year’s films” comes an announcement that Cirque du Soleil will perform “a wholly unique and exclusive performance” at the 2012 Oscars. The one-time-only event will feature the largest Cirque cast ever assembled for a single act.
The performance will be accompanied by music by Oscar-nominated composer Danny Elfman, who scored the music for Cirque du Soleil’s IRIS, A Journey through the World of Cinema. More than 50 international artists from Cirque du Soleil productions around the world will converge in Los Angeles on Oscar Sunday to bring the dynamic showcase to life.
This isn’t the first time the group has performed at the Academy Awards as is evident from the image above. The troupe’s first appearance, at the 74th Academy Awards, sparked discussions about creating a permanent show at the Kodak Theatre and resulted in the creation of IRIS.
The video included here is a featurette with Elfman discussing Cirque du Soleil and the composition of his music for IRIS.
Of course, I’m sure you’ve either figured it out or already heard, there are no plans to have the two Oscar-nominated original songs performed during the ceremony, or at least that was the last I heard. So this performance will be taking the place of “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets and “Real in Rio” from Rio.
Honestly, it’s a bit surprising they would decide against an opportunity to have The Muppets on stage, or perhaps they wanted to have The Muppets but couldn’t figure out a way to have just The Muppets without Rio. Who knows? Things could change, but as of now that appears to be the decision.
The 2012 Oscars are just around the corner and will take place on Sunday, February 26, and you better believe we will be covering every second of it with a live blog and starting on Monday we’ll be getting down to the nitty gritty with Oscar predictions and polls giving you a chance to vote on who you think will win. So stick around and for all my current predictions click here.
