Moving stage

As part of Road Trip 2007 through the Southwest, CNET News.com reporter Daniel Terdiman is getting a behind-the-scenes look at the technical underpinnings of Cirque du Soleil's Ka, which plays at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The Ka stage has seven different pieces, each of which can move independently. The effect is wonderful, particularly when the largest piece of the stage--the "Sand Cliff Deck," a 25x50x6 foot "performance space" that weighs 80,000 pounds--rotates to be fully perpendicular to the floor and has many performers cavorting around on it. Other parts of the stage raise and lower quickly, as this image--the first of two demonstrating the motion of a piece of stage--shows.