For his career, Rory Bratter can thank the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. At age 5, the Long Island kid was so nuts about the reptilian action heroes that his parents let him take karate lessons.
Fourteen years later, the 19-year-old has bagged three world karate titles, several national championships in Wushu and a plum part in Cirque du Soleil’s new multimillion-dollar Las Vegas show, “KA.”
Bratter is the only American in a 12-man martial arts troop from China that performs in the $168 million spectacle, that combines eye-popping traditional circus acts with a dramatic story line. In the show’s opening minutes, Bratter performs sequences of fighting tricks, midair flips and spins that would be worthy of the Chinese action movie “Hero.”
But little phases this teen. “I’m very good with weapons,” he says backstage at the MGM Grand. But he concedes he’s fallen off a pillar a few times.
“If you jump in the air and look down and see how high you are, you can lose it.” Bratter says he doesn’t get nervous performing in front of 4,000 people a night. That’s no sweat compared with audiences of 10,000 he’s seen in competitions. “A light entertainment crowd is different from a competitive crowd. They love what you do; they’re not critical.”
The tough bit for him comes in the “KA” dressing room. “I’m not very good at putting on the makeup yet. It’s a bit of a hassle for a guy,” he says, “and it took a while getting used to the costume – wearing tights kinda cramped my style.”
Bratter trained every weekend in a Wushu school while he was in high school. He won two national titles a year in Wushu and free-style karate, plus three world titles for karate in the National Black Belt League. He heard about auditions for Cirque in a magazine, but he’d never seen a show.
“I didn’t know what to expect, but I had heard it was the best show to work for,” Bratter says. When he was offered a part, he didn’t worry that he was the only American to be accepted to join a world-class troop. His reservations were about living in Vegas.
“I don’t think my family liked the idea … but this place is as crazy as you make it,” says the teen. He’s landed a place at the University of Las Vegas next year, but he still misses New York. “I miss the Yankees and the weather.”
“KA” – the fourth show in Vegas for the Cirque du Soleil – is set for a long run, but Bratter already has his eye on bigger things.
He’s waiting to hear if Wushu will be accepted as a sport in the 2008 Olympics.
“If Wushu is made an Olympic sport, I’ll be competing in four divisions,” he says confidently.