Belgian theatre director Franco Dragone has become synonymous with the outlandish aquatic circus spectaculars he creates in entertainment capitals around the world. Ahead of his new HK$2 billion show at Macau’s City of Dreams, he tells Patrick Brzeski how water, inclusiveness and Bruce Lee combine to form his unique philosophy

Franco Dragone has water on the brain like a hydrocephalic. “There is a Bruce Lee quote I like to try to remember when I’m talking about the new show”, says the world renowned Belgian theatre director over video chat from Brussels. “It goes like this: ‘If you put water in a tea pot, the water becomes the tea pot. If you put water in a bottle, the water becomes the bottle. The water can flow, the water can crash. Be water, my friend.’

Over the past four years, while Dragone has laboured over his wildly ambitious new aqua-acrobatic stage production, The House of Dancing Water, he’s kept this quote in constant circulation on set as something of a creative mantra. Built atop a 3.7 million gallon commercial pool in the City of Dreams casino complex at a cost of US$250 million, Dragone’s new multisensory entertainment is the most expensive stage production ever commissioned in Macau – a city of ribald superlatives. “Because the project was in Macau, because of this overwhelming context, I knew that I had to come with something totally unexpected and unique, in all its dimension and ingredients”. The House of Dancing Water will be the first water-based stage show in Asia, with over 77 performers – dancers, acrobats, motorcyclists, high divers, clowns and contortionists – all flying, bending, dipping, dancing, wheeling, careening and catapulting in, out, under and above the surface of the 160-foot circular pool, which by an incredible feat of engineering involving eight ten-tonne elevators can be mechanically converted into a solid floor stage in the span of just one minute.

Having directed several water-based productions around the world, Dragone is more than familiar with the unique demands of his favoured medium. “Water complicates the work, makes the production more complex and the action of the drama more demanding.” Costumes and equipment must be constructed from expensive, specially designed materials lest they degrade quickly. Every performer is Scuba certified and given months of additional rehearsal time to adapt their movements and rhythms to the heavy, turgid demands of dancing and performing in water. “It’s all extremely challenging,” says Dragone. “At the same time it brings a kind of spirituality. Throughout history people used to gather around waterways and water sources. In a sense, water is the element that is symbolic of life. I’ve learned that you cannot control water, you need to dialogue with water.”

Dragone is one of the world’s most accomplished showmen when it comes to over-the-top commercial entertainments commissioned at mind-boggling expense. Throughout the 1980s and 90s he worked as a show creator for Cirque du Soleil, envisioning and directing some of the troupe’s most successful productions, including the water show ‘O’ at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and La Nouba at Disney World in Florida. After leaving Cirque he founded his own entertainment company, Franco Dragone Entertainment, and directed Celine Dion’s unprecedentedly lucrative Vegas concert series, A New Day…, which grossed over US$400,000,000 in its five-year run, selling more than three million tickets.

In many ways, he is an entertainer who courts contradiction as assiduously as success. Dragone came of age in Europe in the wake of the great social upheavals of 1960s France and began his theatrical career producing experimental stage productions that were “about defending the poor against the rich”. Yet today he counts Disney, Steve Wynn and Lawrence Ho as his principle creative partners. The Italian scholar Riccardo Petrella – author of The Water Manifesto, an influential international document arguing for the collective conservation of the world’s fresh water sources – is one of his very best friends. Yet The House of Dancing Water is sure to be one of the most water consumptive stage entertainments ever.

Like all visionaries, Dragone has worked out a high wire act of mental gymnastics to reconcile the incongruities inherent in his ambitious enterprise. “I know that it’s a contradiction for someone of my beliefs and background to work in a place like Las Vegas, because some people go there and lose their lives by gambling,” he says. “But that’s also why I am there, to help a little bit with the things I try to create. I want to change people’s lives. It’s easier to find a tree in a forest, but let’s try to grow a flower in the desert. Maybe it’s there where we have to go to truly touch people.”

Dragone also argues, with no little irony, that his personal interest in collaborating with deep pocketed corporate entertainment groups comes, via an oblique avenue, from his humble background. “When I was young I studied classical theatre and I was always pissed off and angry at my parents, who were working-class people. I wondered why they were not going to the theatre, why they didn’t appreciate opera,” he explains. “But I realised this was not their fault. They just didn’t have a chance to learn about high culture and so it was inaccessible to them.” Dragone says he was drawn to the circus and what he calls “mainstream entertainment” because he wanted his art to be able to speak to people of all backgrounds.

Yet, with the opportunity to reach the masses comes a considerable burden of responsibility. “You know, in Las Vegas there are millions of people coming in every day, every year,” he explains. “Most of these people will go see a show and it’s probably their first time ever stepping into a theatre. When you have this privilege to create a show that could be seen by millions of people, you have a big responsibility to deliver the best you can, to give them an experience that might change their lives.”

Given that Dragone has always aimed for universalism, in his themes, in the acrobatic language of his choreography and visual storytelling, he says he’s had to make only slight adjustments in approach when transplanting his theatrical style to China. “I have done so many shows with Cirque du Soleil that are circus acts, but in this case I did not want to compete with what I believe is the most beautiful circus on earth – the Chinese circus.” So Dragone began to look for a different means of human performance. “I wanted a performance that is acrobatic, but more deeply narrative, that can communicate a mythic story to the audience. So I have really pushed the envelope here, more than in any of my other shows.”

English theatre director Peter Brook, one of Dragone’s great heroes, says that every time he creates a new show it begins with an intuition. “The intuition for me was to imagine a source of water in the middle of the Chinese countryside.” He concluded his pre-production research process by reading several books on the cultural history of Chinese symbols and aesthetics. “All the costumes and set design have a flavour of the Chinese,” he explains. “It’s not a cut and paste copy of Chinese styles. It’s very subtle. I want people to have a feeling that they have already lived the scene – a Chinese déjà vu to some extent. Despite the marvellous and fantastic elements, when you see this show, you will feel in a subtle way that you are home.”

The House of Dancing Water opens on September 17. Tickets on sale now from 8009 66128 and www.thehouseofdancingwater.com.