CHALLENGE 7: THE STREETS GO WILD
TEAM MICKEY PRESENTS: METAMORPHOSIS
This week, Team Mickey was tasked with bringing an all new street performance to one of Disney's most highly-themed parks, Disney's Animal Kingdom. As a team, we decided on bringing on of nature's most beautiful journeys to the park...
Guests keep coming back to the Disney parks for their ability to tell a story. It is usually said that the "little details" of the parks are what make them stand out over their competitors. These concepts extend to the street performances that seemingly spring up out of nowhere throughout the day. With all the cultural elements of Animal Kingdom, we sometimes forget that it is primarily dedicated to the animals themselves. This beautiful masterpiece of the animal kingdom will use acrobats, dancers, and contortionists to tell a story about a young egg that transforms into a butterfly. The show will bring to life the ideas of Disney's Animal Kingdom: that all animals can live in harmony, while subsisting in their own ecosystems.
Metamorphosis will highlight the beauty of a caterpillar's transformation into a majestic butterfly. In order to help tell this educational story, Disney will partner with the acclaimed Cirque du Soleil, who will help bring extremely talented performers to this nearly 8 minute street performance. In addition, the show will be sponsored by Cirque du Soleil. This partnership will essentially bring the circus back to its roots, as both of its founders are former street performers.
The voice talents of Meryl Streep will also play a large role in the narration of the performance. Streep's work in Wings of Life, a Disneynature film, shows her talent for narrating a story that celebrates the wonder of nature.
Metamorphosis will be located on Discovery Island, directly in front of the Tree of Life when entering from the Oasis. The show will be performed 2 times daily on off-season days and up to 4 times daily on peak days and holidays.
The audience area will be hemmed in by the natural barriers on all sides, making the jobs of the crowd control CMs much easier. There will be two staging areas. The first will be a two-story building to the left of the entrance to the queue of "It's Tough to Be A Bug." This building will have rooftop entrances for aerial performers to enter and exit. This staging area will be painted "Go Away Green" and covered in vines to blend in with the trees. The second staging area will be a one-story building located in the backstage zone behind Disney Outfitters. This will serve as a greenroom for the performers that enter the stage from the path to its right.
A large fake tree, disguised by real trees around it, will be built behind the stage to hide the aerial rigging for the butterfly performers. The rigging will be disguised as part of a branch, but it will pivot outward to extend over the stage during the performance. During some peak days, the show will be performed once at night, so in these instances the tree will also be used to hide lighting elements.
We chose to center this small-scale, but huge-at-heart street performance in front of the Tree of Life because Metamorphosis parallels all that the Tree of Life represents: a journey through the animal kingdom, as we cherish the lives of our ecosystem. In addition, the insect theme of the show matches "It's Tough to Be A Bug", whose entrance is only a few feet away.
We invite you to listen to the show's soundtrack while reading the script. The pieces have been specifically chosen to heighten the mood of each scene.
SCRIPT KEY
Bold = Narration
Italics = Technical Details
PRESHOW
Meryl Streep (voiceover): In fifteen minutes, come experience a caterpillar's journey into a butterfly in "Metamorphosis".
Just like in many of the large scale Cirque productions, clowns roam the audience area before the actual show. While guests are gathering to watch the production, the clowns will delight them with their wordless antics. One clown, dressed in shabby clothing and holding a butterfly net, will play the act of a luckless lepidopterist. Another clown will use finger puppets to portray the butterfly that the other is attempting to catch.
Meryl Streep: In just a few moments, "Metamorphosis" will come to life on Discovery Island in front of the Tree of Life as we follow a caterpillar's journey as he transforms into a butterfly.
Crowd control Cast Members have had guests form a large semi circle around the 'stage'. Children and shorter guests may be invited to sit or stand in the front, with taller guests being asked to stand closer to the back. The CMs rope off a pathway off of stage right, between two halves of the audience for performers to enter and exit.
THE EGG
The music of the performance fades in and crescendos. Costumed performers dressed in leaves, branches, and vines push an oversized decorative caterpillar egg through a pathway between the guests. It sits on a large platform with a similar texture to the performer's costumes, a weave of branches, vines, and leaves. The performers dance around it as it is rolled onto the stage and placed on the center circle. The acrobats and dancers continue to smoothly dance around the platform, performing flips and tricks.
The egg then begins to crack down the side, as the performers continue to dance around it. It splits in two with a puff of colored smoke, and out wriggles the 'caterpillar' in an extremely ornate costume.
THE CATERPILLAR
Meryl Streep: As the caterpillar hatches, it has one thing on its mind-- and that is to grow.
As the caterpillar slowly wriggles down from atop the makeshift platform, contortionists dressed in glittery green jumpsuits come onto the scene through the pathway between the guests that the crowd control CMs formed earlier. They have segments of leaves attached to their bodies in various locations. They twist their bodies in a way so that the leaf segments join together to form giant leaves, while they crouch behind them to hold them up.
During this time, crew members take advantage of the misdirection to remove the egg from the center circle and wheel it backstage.
To a more upbeat tune, the caterpillar begins to circle the area. It begins to "eat" the leaves by moving up to each contortionist, at which time they spring apart and vault offstage. This process continues for each leaf, and each contortionist performs more dramatic flips as they make their way offstage. Once the caterpillar has eaten all the leaves, it begins to wriggle back up onto the platform. As it ascends, it sheds its skin to reveal a new layer underneath. It freezes on the top of the platform to a dramatic conclusion of the music.
THE PUPA
Meryl Streep: Now that the caterpillar has had its fair share of food, it forms a pupa, or chrysalis.
The caterpillar attaches itself to a large branch slightly above the platform. Acrobats dressed in various insect costumes swing down vines on all sides of the caterpillar and land on the platform, each holding a piece of the chrysalis. The caterpillar costume itself expands with air to form the shape of the chrysalis, and the performers begin to plaster the pieces together around the caterpillar to form its outer shell, dancing as they go. To reach the higher parts, more performers arrive and stand on top of the other ones, forming a human pyramid.
Eventually, the caterpillar has been completely covered in a hard shell. The branch from which the chrysalis hangs is raised higher into the air, and the chrysalis spins around slowly. The performers in insect costumes form a circle on the ground and continue to dance.
THE BUTTERFLY
Meryl Streep: Over time the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, and eventually the butterfly comes out of its pupa.
An opening slowly is torn apart in the bottom of the chrysalis. Wings folded and fragile-looking, a butterfly gingerly emerges.
The way this illusion works is that the caterpillar costume itself becomes part of the chrysalis, and the butterfly performer emerges from the caterpillar costume.
It crawls out slowly until it reaches a branch. It pauses for a second and then spreads its wings. Accompanied by majestic music, it takes a leap and 'flies' into the air with the assistance of a cable attached to a beam disguised as a branch above. The butterfly flies by itself for some time, gracefully floating up and down while spinning, but one by one, more butterflies appear out of the trees as they take flight. Soon the sky is ablaze with butterfly performers flying in the air and dancing on the ground in wondrous color. All the butterflies fly into a formation, all their wings coming together to form the image of a giant butterfly.
Meryl Streep: As you have seen, metamorphosis is a beautiful thing. It has happened here once, and happens everywhere a million times over.
The music strikes one final note, and the butterflies descend to the ground, welcomed by a wave of applause.
The performers exit through the row formed between the audience members and into their backstage area. Once the audience dissipates, the chrysalis and platform are wheeled away and prepared for the next performance. The wires that suspended the aerial performers are reeled in.
COSTUMES
An integral part of every Cirque Du Soleil performance is the elaborate costuming. This performance will use a variety of costumes to assist in telling the story.
Butterfly:
The butterfly's costume represents the beauty and majesty of these insects. Oversized wings sprout off of the performer's arms, as these glittery and somewhat translucent pieces help tell the story of Metamorphosis. Using the colors of orange, black and white to portray a monarch butterfly, this costume will most certainly "pop" and draw the eye of the audience. The performer who wears the costume will be able to move and flap the wings by flapping her arms that are attached to the back of the top of the wings. The performer will be able to "fly" using a harness that attaches to her hips. Aerial wires can be easily clipped to this harness during the performance.
Caterpillar:
The caterpillar's costume uses yellow, black and white on a long, fabric-covered wire structure. Inside of the front part of the costume will be a performer, who will use her legs (which are sticking out of the front of the costume) to walk around. The caterpillar costume will also be able to shed its skin by releasing the outer covering to reveal another layer of fabric underneath. To form the pupa, the caterpillar costume will inflate and be plastered with an outer covering. While the pupa is being created, the legs of the performer will retract into the costume and she will quickly strap on her wings to become the butterfly.
Clowns:
Before the show, these lepidopterist clowns will entertain the audience as they wait for the performance. The costume features a "butterfly catcher" style, with over-exaggerated features and parts, such as a large amount of butterfly books in an accordion style and a large net.
Dancers:
The costumes worn by the dancers feature a skin-tight, breathable suit that is covered in multi-colored leaves, as well as a few twigs. It is made to allow movement. This costume can be compared to that of the famous DiVine performer.
Contortionists:
The contortionists can also be found wearing skin-tight body suits, this time with a brighter green with a lizard skin pattern on them. Located on their hands, stomach, chest, and ankles will be shiny triangles of dark green material. When the contortionist bends their body in a specific way, these green pieces will come together to form the general shape of a leaf, as seen in the Caterpillar scene during the performance.
Thanks for reading Team Mickey's submission! On behalf of project manager @Zweiland and team members @RMichael21 and @tcool, we'll see you real soon!