Cirque du Soleil Member Killed in Vegas Show

Sarah Guyard-Guillot fell from stage
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 1, 2013 6:15 AM CDT
Cirque De Soleil Member Killed in Vegas Show
A screen grab from a YouTube preview for 'Ka.'   (YouTube/ Cirque du Soleil)

For the first time in Cirque du Soleil's three decades, a performer has been killed in a performance accident. Sarah Guyard-Guillot fell from a vertical stage Saturday night, witnesses say, plummeting some 50 feet into a pit. She was wearing a harness, but it appeared to have detached from its safety wire, the Las Vegas Sun reports. "Initially, a lot of people in the audience thought it was part of the choreographed fight. But you could hear screaming," said an audience member.

The accident occurred during the last fight scene in the show Ka at the MGM Grand. "The entire Cirque du Soleil family is deeply saddened by the accidental death of Sarah (Sassoon) Guyard," the company said in a statement. The 31-year-old Parisian acrobat had been in the business for some 22 years, and was hired by Ka at its opening in 2004, the Sun notes. Days earlier, a Cirque performer in Michael Jackson One suffered a mild concussion when he fell through a slack rope. (More Cirque de Soleil stories.)

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