Las Vegas Weekly

August 5, 2008 · 6 AM

No life-threatening stunts, but Angel ready to fly into the danger zone in Believe

By Robin Leach

Criss Angel works to pick his handcuffs to free himself as he tries to escape a building that will soon be imploded.

Photo: Courtesy A&E/SFEPR

Even before Mindfreak magician Criss Angel escaped from the dynamited building in Florida last week, he’d promised his mom that he wouldn’t risk his life any further on death defying stunts! Well, that, too may have been a magical trick because Luxe Life has learned there will still be dangerous illusions in his new Believe show that launches for Cirque du Soleil this fall at the Luxor.

“There is a fine line between danger and life-threatening,” explained one of his close assistants. “What Criss is saying is that there will be no more

‘ultimate sacrifices’ on the line. His life isn’t going to be threatened anymore -- but ‘Believe’ will have a lot of scary dangers. You will cry and laugh but you will also be frightened and scared. It will also show a side of Criss that’s never been seen or known before.”

“He’ll keep his promise to his mother because this wont be dicing with death, this wont be being blown up, this wont be drowning – but there will still be a lot of edge of the seat dangers and dramas –followed by miracles in the new Cirque show.”

BIGGER & BETTER BODIES-- INCLUDING THE “NAUGHTY BITS”:

Meantime, the Luxor has begun playing host-hotel to the “bigger, better, bolder” Bodies exhibit in a new, whopping 36,800-square-foot exhibition center. It was previously located at a rival hotel across the Strip. Hard to believe that almost one million people saw it there during its two-year tenure at the Tropicana. Now both Luxor and Premiere Exhibitions are betting it will be an even larger attraction.

It now has more than 260 full body, organ and partial body specimens. “These real human bodies have been meticulously dissected preserved and respectfully presented,” says Bruce Eskowitz, president of Premiere. “It gives visitors the opportunity to view the beauty and complexity of their own organs and systems.” The bodies are preserved through a revolutionary technique using liquid silicone rubber on the human tissue to treat and harden it to preserve everything to the deepest cellular level. The full body takes over a year to prepare and using the polymer preservation process making it impervious to decomposition.”

The new Luxor exhibit will have a touch of healthy-lifestyle education to it also. Damage to the body from over-eating and lack of exercise will be vividly shown in startling scenarios –- nothing more so than the side-by-side lungs: one healthy, and the other black, ravaged by smoking!

Next up for the Luxor, as it undergoes its transformation, will be the Sports Memorabilia and Collectibles museum with the rarest million-dollar baseball card of all time. That’s scheduled before Thanksgiving!

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