Cirque du Soleil unveiled its first permanent Asian show on Thursday at the Venetian in the Macao Special Administrative region. Casino operators on the island are trying to attract a broader market with Las Vegas-style entertainment.

Cirque du Soleil unveiled its first permanent Asian show on Thursday at the Venetian in the Macao Special Administrative region.

"Zaia" is a 90-minute show about a young girl's journey in space. It features an astronaut cycling in the air and performers biking while suspended upside down from an 80-foot high stage.

Jeff Hall, Aerobatics choreographer, said, "One of the hardest things about this job, is most of these acrobats have never performed in theatre shows before. They come from world class competitions, they come from the Olympics. So you have to train them to be performers now and clearly that is what makes Cirque du Soleil the international company that we are. We treat our acrobats as performers, as artists we call them."

With a past more noted for its massage parlours and smoke-filled casino rooms, Macao has tried to reinvent itself in recent years with gleaming new casinos built by foreign investors such as the Venetian, the Wynn and the MGM Grand.

"Zaia", from the Greek meaning life, is the first major permanent entertainment act in Macao. Cirque du Soleil has six permanent shows in Las Vegas.

While Cirque du Soleil has toured regions of Hong Kong and Taiwan and is popular in Japan -- where it plans to launch a second permanent Asian show -- the group has had limited exposure in the Chinese mainland. The tour show "Quidam" was held in Shanghai last year.