A Day (or Two) at the Circus

All the guidebooks say that if you're in Shanghai then you have to see the circus. Soon after arriving, Krystal and I took their advice, found a likely looking place (the name "Shanghai Circus World" was a bit of a giveaway), and coughed up the exorbitant fee of $15 for tickets. Little did we know that we would be having a planned (and free) field trip with our language classes to an acrobatics show two weeks later, which turned out to be pretty much the same thing. Oh well, at least now we can say we know most of the acts by heart. Plus, getting to go the second time around let me take some pictures, since the first time I was actually paying attention to the show.

It seems that the most standard piece is the contortionist act, where a woman folds her body in all sorts of unnatural ways and then looks out at you from underneath her own butt. In the first show we saw, the contortionist act had two women, which was even more impressive/grotesque as the stockier one would be holding herself on one arm in some strange position while the lighter one balanced on her abdomen doing something else equally disturbing. Then there's the plate spinning act: in the first show it was more of a comedy routine with an old guy spinning plates on tables; in the second there were dozens of women spinning plates on long sticks while doing gymnastics and walking on each others shoulders (pretty impressive). Then there are the whole range of acts involving men jumping through hoops or onto tall objects/each other. Both shows also had flying while holding onto fabric routines, although the first show made it a bit more interesting - they played it up to be a dramatic romance scene, with a man and a woman doing acrobatics while flying through the air and holding onto long billowy blue and silver fabric.

Maybe it's just the craziness of the traffic here providing some sort of artistic inspiration, but both shows also made a big deal of bikes and motorcycles. In the second show, one of the acts ended up with about 25 women on one bicycle being pedalled around the stage. In both shows, the grand finale consisted of a huge spherical metal cage in which five or six motorcyclists drove in circles around each other did loops up and off the cieling, revving their engines and honking.

Some pictures:

[1-Spinning plates;
2-Some very muscular women]


[1-Two dozen women on a bicycle (pretty much like driving on the streets of Shanghai);
2-Halfway through the grand finale with the big metal motorcycle cage]

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