Nights on the Circuit

Support the Revolution!

Xania Woodman

Monday, January 8, 11:11 p.m. The Mirage escalators spit us out at Jet's entrance, where we wade through a flood plain of suits and skirts both so numerous they are just barely contained by the velvet levees. Pressing on, the bar at Kokomo's is equally jammed, the cocktail crowd spilling out in all directions. But we keep moving.

The music is bumpin' at the Japonais lounge, where a DJ with a spartan setup is getting everyone up dancing, or at least bopping a little in their chairs. Next door, there is not a seat to be had at Stack's bar; the cucumber martinis flow like water and beckon for a taste. But we veer left.

When we finally approach Revolution Lounge by way of the Abbey Road bar, just beyond the 10-foot letters and the mod white seating, I am not the least bit concerned that the crowd is thin; though all are invited, this party is not for the convention crowd, which has the other bars and lounges testing their limits. Monday night is Cirque du Soleil's Family Night, and with their fifth Vegas-based show, Love, just yards away, it won't be long before the artists, crew, dancers and acrobats begin making their grand entrances.

Revolution's Angela Weiss gives us a tour of the lounge's seven ultra-interactive VIP tabletops. As "consuls," she and her lab-coated and bell-bottomed male counterpart keep tabs as guests doodle and play with the screens, the opaque-bottomed cocktail glasses eliciting explosions of digital imagery and rippling halos of color.

We draw in the G-Zone ("graffiti"), then Weiss waves her magic hands—aided by a little gadgetry in the form of a ring—and pulls the design into the O-Zone ("other") to save it. Represented by a little purple heart, my design dances around merrily until she pantomimes grabbing it and throws it up on the lounge's central pillar. There, written in butterflies, are my initials! I hardly notice that all the while, the suits and skirts have given way to a more artistic patron. Ah, the talent has arrived.

When Revolution was still under construction, director of operations Bill Hillman explained that the Cirque du Soleil touring shows employ the concept of a tapis rouge, literally a red carpet, but in practice a small tent next to the big top where VIPs, friends and family can interact with the cast and creators. As a lounge, Revolution represents the first permanently constructed tapis rouge.

In all manners of funky, freestyle dress, artists from Love, O and Zumanity head straight for a deep VIP cove just past the DJ. With the vodka circulating like the smoke from their cigarettes, they groove to sounds by DJs Omar Cortes, a KA acrobat and Robyn Houpt, a dancer from Love. They raise the beat from sensual and loungy to up-tempo, vocal, world house with Cortes jumping back in later to supply the break beats for this United Nations of dancers who are testing out the lounge's slick floors.

We, the nondancing faction of the room, take this in from ample plush, free seating. The angular banquettes mirror the ceiling's diamond design, an allusion to The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds." The Fab Four references are laced throughout, though some more sly than others, like the four portal windows behind the bar, straight off that yellow submarine and representing John, Paul, George and Ringo.

We sip at neat Anglophile specialty cocktails, like my Ginger Peach (Gentlemen's Jack, fresh peach, ginger beer, $13), and Wingman Russ' English Breakfast (Plymouth gin, fresh lemon and marmalade, $13). Trying out the pink leather beanbag chairs, I watch Hassan, a fedora'd French dancer from Love, pop 'n' lock right up to a cocktail server; nose-to-nose with him, she blushes, twitters and runs away. If you have no moves, this is a good night to watch the others who do. Just beyond the breakers, an African dancer faces off with a clown from KA, reviving dusty dreams of running off with the circus.

"Liberté, égalité, fraternité, ou la mort!" No, no French battle cry of the Republic will be necessary tonight. Rather, I'm enjoying an invasion of the mod, British sort, a revolution of the musical, cultural and sexual kind. Grrr, baby, very grrr!


Xania Woodman thinks globally and parties locally. And frequently. E-mail her at
[email protected] and visit
www.TheCircuitLV.com to sign up for Xania's free weekly newsletter.

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