Famous Macau Water Show to Return

There were lots of acrobatic stunts in the show

Macau is getting back its pre-pandemic stride with Chinese tourists flocking to the former Portuguese enclave and checking out the sights with a bit of gambling on the side. It also helps that five new hotels have opened in the last few months to house them all.

And perhaps for old times' sake -- the show The House of Dancing Water will return to City of Dreams in Macau after it effectively shut down because of the Covid-19 pandemic. During that time it had to let go of 137 performers after their blue card or work visas ran out.

One of the stars was a former ballet dancer

The House of Dancing Water was a show that featured dancing with and without water, acrobatics, dancers, really flexible African performers and even motorcycle stunts -- set in ancient China. Go figure.

The show, designed by former Cirque du Soleil director Franco Dragone, opened in 2010 and by early 2020 some 6 million people had seen it. There had been plans to tweak the show for the following year, but that was postponed indefinitely.

But now it seems there are plans to revive the show by the end of next year.

"We're just now going through the process of the remount," said David Sisk, chief operating officer of Melco Resorts. 

"We've been doing a lot of work on The House of Dancing Water theatre to get it up and ready. We just started doing our first shows there. We're doing a production right now where we're doing some musical things there on a weekly basis. And towards the middle of November, we'll get back out of that and get started back on the remount of The House of Dancing Water."

Over 6 million had watched the show over 10 yrs

Melco has to get the show on the road again -- China expects fewer Macau's resorts to offer fewer gambling -- or "gaming" activities and more entertainment.

It will be interesting to see how Melco revamps the show. The resort had just purchased the show from Dragone in 2019 and then the pandemic hit. Melco hasn't had much luck developing its own shows. In 2018 it had a car-themed one called Elekron that tanked very quickly because it solely aimed to appeal to male audiences. But even then they weren't interested.

Perhaps they will need Dragone's magic touch again?