Macau’s House of Dancing Water: casino show’s 10 years of success, and how the cast and crew do it
- Now the Cotai Strip’s longest running show, The House of Dancing Water at City of Dreams has played to more than five million people
- We talk to show star Faye Leung and the crew on what it takes to put together such a technical performance combining acrobatics, dance and diving
It is hours before show time on the set of The House of Dancing Water, but everyone involved, from performers to stage managers and scuba divers, are already getting ready. Technicians in the control room test the water jets and fountains, lighting, and special effects, while the performers are doing warm-up exercises.
It is business as usual in the theatre of the City of Dreams, one of a cluster of casino resorts on the Cotai Strip – the Asian equivalent of the Las Vegas stretch in Macau. The House of Dancing Water is now the strip’s longest-running show, having wowed more than five million punters since it opened almost a decade ago, in September 2010.
The show is a combination of acrobatics, dance and diving, all taking place in a massive pool holding 17 million litres of water, equivalent to more than five Olympic-sized swimming pools. It is still playing to full houses, and there’s no sign that its run will end any time soon.
“The House of Dancing Water is unlike any other show on the planet,” says Dillon Evans, one of 11 stage managers involved in the show, during a rare media visit to observe the complex operations that go on behind the scenes. “There are so many different elements that come together to make this production what it is. You have 90 performers and hundreds of technicians from all around the world.”
He adds that everyone has different backgrounds and technical skills that come together to create an epic production. “You can do a lot in 90 minutes, especially when you have 300 people coming together to make it work.”