Blue Horizons promo pic

[speck76]

Blue Horizons promo pic & article

New Broadway-Style Show Comes To SeaWorld 1 hour, 42 minutes ago

Blue Horizons, a new show at SeaWorld, has changed an old formula in hopes of keeping audiences on the edge of their seat.



SeaWorld scrapped its educational dolphin show in favor of a Broadway-style production, WESH 2's Joe Oliver reported.

"The biggest difference between the way we used to do shows and this particular show is that Blue Horizons hopes to affect the audience, give the audience an experience rather than teach the audience," SeaWorld curator Kelly Clarke said. "We want to invite them into the animal world and have them leave just in awe of what they've just seen."

This means SeaWorld had to teach the animals to act naturally.

"You can't ask a 600-pound dolphin or a 1,200-pound false killer whale to do something they don't want to do. You first have to instill the drive to want to do it," Clarke said.

Stanley Meyer, an award-winning Broadway set designer, designed the sets for the show, and Tracy Christensen, a Broadway costume designer, designed the costumes.

The world premiere of Blue Horizons will be held Thursday night, and beginning this weekend, the show will be open to the public.

To comment on this story, send an e-mail to Joe Oliver.

 

[xfkirsten]

Laughingplace.com has photos and a 13-minute highlights video of the show. I watched it, and I am somewhat underwhelmed by it. Here's what I think so far:

The Good:
-The finale. The music and the action fit very well, although I could do without all the banners flying everywhere.
-The music! Here at SeaWorld of California, we've put out two show soundtracks on CD for sale (The Shamu Adventure and Cirque de la Mer) and I'd love to see Florida jump on that boat with this show.
-The overall theming

The Bad:
-The educational aspect. I'm a firm believer in having at least a somewhat educational aspect in the day shows. I think that's where this fails. IMHO, they should have an educational day show as they always have, and save a more theatrical endeavor like this for a night show, as those tend to be purely for entertainment. Admittedly, what I saw was only a highlights video, but I saw nothing there that indicated any kind of an education component to the show.
-The long acrobat segment in the middle. This is a dolphin show, and I think it's detrimental to include a whole segment that has nothing to do with the dolphins. It looks cool, yes. What I'd love to see them do with that is move it over to the waterski lagoon and turn it into part of a decent version of Cirque de la Mer or something similar. (the old Florida version in the tiny theater was not decent in light of our version! :lol: ) In short, leave it a dolphin show. Include people as part of that, cool... but don't have a huge scene like that taking away from the dolphins.

Just my four cents!

 

[speck76]

Early reviews that I have heard from people that were at the press/VIP event last night.

It was great....the best show in the park....I am so glad it is entertainment, not education......I loved the colors....I loved the birds.....

Part of SW's downfall is that it can be TOO educational....as with Epcot, most people dont want to pay $60 to be lectured.

 

[Zed]

I'm glad it's not all that much educational anymore either. If people really want to learn more, there's always the dolphin pool, not to mention the people from Sea World's Education dept. are pretty easy to find at all the major animal exhibits, as well as they usually spiel while at those exhibits.

Speck76 hit it right on the head, in that most people don't want to pay that kind of money for lectures and info(most of which can be found on the internet nowadays quite easily).

As soon as the holiday weekend is over I plan to catch Blue Horizons myself, from that video it looks pretty good, and I've not read, nor heard one negative thing from anyone(both employees/passholders) who've actually seen the show.

Even though I love the animals, I can't wait to see the diving and acrobatic parts of the show. That music sounds fantastic from what I've heard, and I can't wait to see that funky pulley system used to help "pull" off the show, in action.

Sea World used to sell a cd for the Cirque show that was here over at the giftshop closest to the Nautilus Theater.

The Fusion show over at Atlantis Bayside Stadium is quite nice the way it is, sure it'd be nice to have the full lake back, but doubt that's ever gonna happen.

 

[xfkirsten]

Ah, so you guys did get the Cirque CD. Too bad you didn't really get the show. :lol: :lol: /SeaWorld San Diego Cirque crew member

It certainly doesn't have to be all lectures. Far from it. What I'm saying is that the education and conservation message should be tied into the action of the show. IMHO, an lead-in or lead-out to a segment is a good place to put it in. And it doesn't have to be rocket science either. The basics are fine.

As far as the Education department goes... well, I don't much care for some of them, because I've run into more than one that really didn't know what they were talking about.

 

[Zed]

This is totally off topic (sorry Speck76).

The Orlando Cirque/ San Diego Cirque don't seem to have had much to do with each other, other than sharing the name, and perhaps some of the performers.

The Orlando show was the "Flight of the Condor" show from http://www.aedoproductions.com/ once in the site you can click on the Chincero/Market link and it'll take you to the "Flight of the Condor" cd page with samples of the songs from the Orlando show.

I can remember some of the performers from the Orlando show actually performing with their instruments, the music from the show outside as people left the Nautilus Theater.


The San Diego show is put on by the people over at http://www.imaginationent.com/index.html

The music at http://www.ilcirco.com/newsite/audio.html is totally different than anything that was in the Orlando Cirque show.

So it's pretty safe to say the 2 show's cds are totally different as well.

 

[xfkirsten]

Yeah, it's been awhile since I saw it... but regardless, it just wasn't impressive in a little theater. I think what makes Cirque so unique here is that it's performed on Mission Bay and makes extensive use of the water as well as the stage itself. The way it was on stage there, it's just another generic Cirque-style show with nothing particularly special about it. And with the competition from La Nouba just down the street, a show like Orlando's Cirque just won't cut it.

 

[mkt]

I finally got around to seeing it today... I'll be totally honest, I liked the soundtrack, and that was about it. I don't think it's quite possible to teach dolphin trainers how to act, or walk relatively gracefully...

and the show misses a specific point of focus. I spent most of the time looking around while the music was going....

and during my briefing beforehand with the Entertainment Director, it was mentioned that they had to make the cues for the dolphins very subtle... perhaps they were a little TOO subtle, because the dolpins were missing cues left and right.

I'll see it again in a few weeks to see if SW has gotten their stuff together yet.

 

[xfkirsten]

I don't think it's quite possible to teach dolphin trainers how to act, or walk relatively gracefully...

It's true. Here in San Diego, that's been a big problem... so they're actually putting much more emphasis on entertainment experience in hiring decisions for trainers.

 

[disnyfan89]

Our Blue Horizons is based off the dolphin show at SeaWorld San Antonio called Vivia. This show has been running for 5 seasons now and the majority of the cast was all from Canada. There were about four dolphin trainers in the show that there only job was to give ques and dance. I would imagine that blue horizons will go through a tweaking stage to make changes and additions to the show and will soon be perfect.

 

[tpieples]

Ripped Off

We went to the first show of the day on Fathers' Day, and it was awful.
All they had were the dolphins jumping...Nothing else.
No big red bird...No theatrical effects...And they didn't say that it was an abbreviated version.
We couldn't believe the hype it was getting!
I feel ripped off!

 

[sillyspook13]

We went to the first show of the day on Fathers' Day, and it was awful.
All they had were the dolphins jumping...Nothing else.
No big red bird...No theatrical effects...And they didn't say that it was an abbreviated version.
We couldn't believe the hype it was getting!
I feel ripped off!

Like this?

The problem has since been (mostly) fixed. I finally saw the show today and most of the effects worked. None of the dolphins missed any cues (that I noticed) although one of the parrots landed in the lap of a girl in the audience..... :lol:

I'll agree with the majority- the show was beautiful! :sohappy:

 

[mkt]

so... I was talking to the in-laws. When they saw it, the big red bird lady... err.. her rope gave way and she fell into the water. Apparently it was rather funny

 

[sillyspook13]

Maybe that was the same technical problem that caused me (and others here) not to see the show...... :lookaroun

 

[crazydaveh]

I have seen the show several times. I've seen it in top form and in a form that doesn't need to be described.

I think it's a great show. It flows very well and keeps the audience in the show the entire time.

When the animals are performing their behaviors correctly, it's awesome, when they're not, well.... we all know how it goes!

Remember, it's a show! It's fun! You could be at work instead!

 

[Legacy]

I saw VIVA! at Sea World San Antonio today, is Blue Horizons anything like that? Because if it is I really don't think I would be too impressed.

 

[disnyfan89]

yes it is what BH was based off of

 

[Legacy]

yes it is what BH was based off of

Then bleh... I was not impressed.

 

[JIFhdvjd]

Laughingplace.com has photos and a 13-minute highlights video of the show. I watched it, and I am somewhat underwhelmed by it. Here's what I think so far:

The Good:
-The finale. The music and the action fit very well, although I could do without all the banners flying everywhere.
-The music! Here at SeaWorld of California, we've put out two show soundtracks on CD for sale (The Shamu Adventure and Cirque de la Mer) and I'd love to see Florida jump on that boat with this show.
-The overall theming

The Bad:
-The educational aspect. I'm a firm believer in having at least a somewhat educational aspect in the day shows. I think that's where this fails. IMHO, they should have an educational day show as they always have, and save a more theatrical endeavor like this for a night show, as those tend to be purely for entertainment. Admittedly, what I saw was only a highlights video, but I saw nothing there that indicated any kind of an education component to the show.
-The long acrobat segment in the middle. This is a dolphin show, and I think it's detrimental to include a whole segment that has nothing to do with the dolphins. It looks cool, yes. What I'd love to see them do with that is move it over to the waterski lagoon and turn it into part of a decent version of Cirque de la Mer or something similar. (the old Florida version in the tiny theater was not decent in light of our version! :lol: ) In short, leave it a dolphin show. Include people as part of that, cool... but don't have a huge scene like that taking away from the dolphins.

Just my four cents!

send it!

 

[joanna71985]

send it!

This post is from 16 years ago