DEATH AT CIRQUE DU SOLEIL: Performer Dies From Fall During Show...

Sarah Guyard-Guillot, an artist in “Ka” at MGM Grand and a mother of two young children, was killed Saturday night after a fall from the show’s stage at MGM Grand. The Clark County Coroner’s Office said this afternoon that Guyard-Guillot, 31, was pronounced dead at 11:43 p.m. Saturday at University Medical Center.

No formal cause of death has been determined pending further examination of Guyard-Guillot’s body. She was born in Paris and had spent more than 22 years as an acrobatic performer.

It is the first reported death from an accident onstage in Cirque’s 30-year history.

According to reports from audience members, the incident occurred Saturday night during the latter stages of the production at MGM Grand. Guyard-Guillot was one of the artists suspended by a wire from the show’s vertical stage in the show-closing Final Battle scene. As she ascended to the top of the stage, she slipped free of her safety wire and dropped to the open, unseen pit below the performers.

After the incident, one eyewitness seated in the middle of the audience and just a few rows from the lip of the stage said Guyard-Guillot dropped from the left side of the set (or on the right side, as audience members face the production) over a distance of at least 50 feet. The show momentarily continued, but then the music halted, and the performer’s screams and groans could be heard from below the stage. One source close to the production said she died on the way to a hospital. Read more via Las Vegas Sun…