Festival of the Lion King, an original interpretation of the Disney animated film The Lion King

The Lion King

The Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...

, is a live stage musical performed in Disney's Animal Kingdom

Disney's Animal Kingdom

Disney's Animal Kingdom is an animal theme park located at the Walt Disney World Resort. The fourth park built at the resort, it opened on April 22, 1998, and it is the largest single Disney theme park in the world, covering more than . It is also the first Disney theme park to be themed entirely...

 at Walt Disney World, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 and in Adventureland at Hong Kong Disneyland

Hong Kong Disneyland

Hong Kong Disneyland is located on reclaimed land in Penny's Bay, Lantau Island. It is the first theme park located inside the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and is owned and managed by the Hong Kong International Theme Parks. The park opened to visitors on 12 September 2005...

. The show uses songs, dance, puppetry and visual effects to portray a tribal celebration in an African savanna setting filled with lions, elephants, giraffes, birds, zebras and gazelles. In this theater environment, Festival of the Lion King is a traveling celebration presented by Simba and his friends (including a band of four human singers). The show is in the form of a revue, and not a condensed version of either the film or Broadway show. The show features Elton John

Elton John

Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...

 and Tim Rice

Tim Rice

Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...

's award-winning music

Academy Award for Best Original Song

The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...

 from the movie.

It is currently the longest-running attraction at Disney's Animal Kingdom

Disney's Animal Kingdom

Disney's Animal Kingdom is an animal theme park located at the Walt Disney World Resort. The fourth park built at the resort, it opened on April 22, 1998, and it is the largest single Disney theme park in the world, covering more than . It is also the first Disney theme park to be themed entirely...

. The shows in Disney's Animal Kingdom and Hong Kong Disneyland are different, though similar in many respects.

Disney's Animal Kingdom version

The show is presented inside an enclosed theater in Camp Minnie Mickey. Guests sit in four sections, each designated with an animal name: Warthog, Elephant, Giraffe and Lion. Guests are asked to make a noise corresponding to their animal at certain times during the show and children are sometimes pulled out of the audience to dance.The show is hosted by four performers dressed in costumes inspired by traditional African dress. Each has a Swahili name: Kiume (meaning "masculine and strong"), Nakawa (meaning "good-looking"), Kibibi (meaning "princess"), and Zawadi (meaning "the gift").

The story of the movie is not followed, being replaced instead with a show of songs from the movie and other sources. This is combined with aerobatics performed by the Tumble Monkeys, a group of performers dressed in orange monkey costumes. The cast also performs annually for the Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade

Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade

The Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade is an American television special that airs on Christmas Day on the ABC, taped primarily inside the Magic Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, approximately one month prior to Christmas Day...

 which is filmed at the Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom Park is one of four theme parks at the Walt Disney World Resort located near Orlando, Florida. The first park built at the resort, Magic Kingdom opened Oct. 1, 1971. Designed and built by WED Enterprises, the park's layout and attractions are similar to Disneyland in Anaheim, California...

 and is broadcast on Christmas Day on ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

.

Hong Kong Disneyland version

The show is featured in the "Theater in the Wild" in Adventureland. Similar to the theater setting in Disney's Animal Kingdom, guests sit in four different sections, each with an animal name: Warthog, Elephant, Giraffe and Lion. The show in Hong Kong has been arranged to a simplified version of the story of The Lion King along with the songs in the movie. The performance is mainly in English, but two actors dressed as monkeys summarize and translate Rafiki's lines into Cantonese in order to accommodate guests who do not speak English. Simplified Chinese

Simplified Chinese character

Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Xiandai Hanyu Tongyong Zibiao for use in Mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of many standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language...

 subtitles, for Mainland Chinese

Mainland Chinese

Mainland Chinese or Mainlanders are Chinese people who live in a region considered a "mainland". It is frequently used in the context of areas ruled by the People's Republic of China, referring to people from Mainland China as opposed to other areas controlled by the state such as Hong Kong or...

 visitors, are also projected onto the screens above each seating section. The show is presented to Simba by Rafiki (portrayed by a female actress, as in the Broadway musical) as a re-telling of Simba's life. Simba is represented by a large, elaborate puppet on a parade-style float decorated as a tribal-styled Pride Rock.

In contrast to the Simba of the Animal Kingdom production, he wears red and black tribal bracelets and has braids in his mane.

See also

• Disney's Animal Kingdom attraction and entertainment history