Cirque du Soleil presents its major new acrobatic spectacle, Zarkana, at the legendary Radio City Music Hall in New York City with performances starting June 9, 2011 for a limited engagement through October 8, 2011. The Premiere performance will be June 29, 2011. Proudly presented by iShares, Zarkana is written and directed by acclaimed film and theatre director François Girard (The Red Violin, Silk).

Zarkana will be the latest addition to The Broadway Collection, a group of new and classic shows selected for their unparalleled popularity with international audiences. Tickets will be available through The Broadway Collection’s international partners.

Zarkana is an acrobatic rock opera that blends circus arts with the surreal to create a world where physical virtuosity rubs shoulders with the strange. The story follows Zark, a magician who has lost his powers – and the love of his life – in an abandoned theatre populated by a motley collection of off-the-wall characters and incomparable acrobats. He runs into the Mutants, four sirens as sinister as they are fabulous, who are determined to divert him from his quest.

Zarkana is a visual vortex set in a slightly twisted musical and acrobatic fantasy universe where, little by little, chaos and craziness give way to festivity and love regained. The diverse cast of more than 75 international artists transports the audience into a fantastical and suspenseful world, blurring the boundaries between the real and imaginary.

Along with François Girard, the creative team consists of the distinctive talents of Artistic Guides Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix, Director of Creation Line Tremblay, Sets and Props Designer Stéphane Roy, Costume Designer Alan Hranitelj, Composer and Musical Director Nick Littlemore, Choreographers Debra Brown and Jean-Jacques Pillet, Lighting Designer Alain Lortie, Image Content Designer Raymond St-Jean, Sound Designer Steven Dubuc, Acrobatic Performance Designer Florence Pot, Rigging and Acrobatic Equipment Designer Danny Zen, and Makeup Designer Eleni Uranis.

From a group of 20 street performers at its beginnings in 1984, Cirque du Soleil is now a major Quebec-based organization providing high-quality artistic entertainment. The company has 5,000 employees, including more than 1,500 performing artists from close to 50 different countries. Cirque du Soleil has brought wonder and delight to more than 100 million spectators in nearly 300 cities on six continents.