The Expatriate Experience
Monday, June 21, 2004
Chinese circus in the old-school Vietnamese circus arena. steep seating in
comfortable, but worn chairs. grand music with roughly choreographed light
effects. (the da-da of the music with the red and the blue lights. the
red lights snap off at the next beat followed by the blue lights on the
previously mentioned beat -- or there about)
These were the acts in a nut-shell:
Chinese dragons: two big two-person dragons, two little one person
dragons. the dragons rolling in synchronization with human tumblers. the
two-person dragon on the one and a half meter ball.
balancing girls: girls in not-so-form-fitting costumes. two lead girls
balance a variety of things on 1) a mouth-guard, pole apparatus: faux
potted plant on plastic disk, 2) forehead pole: stack of plastic cups with
something else on top, 3) some other apparatus that had four anti-legs that
attached to a table
little balancing girl: 6 year old acrobatics. hand-stand on a
progressively taller series of wooden blocks. balancing on one arm on the
spinning platform at the end.
clown (part 1) balancing paper stunt. one training clown with two of the
tumbling boys playing double-duty as unintentionally clumsy side-kicks.
flexible tumbling boys: bending through rings and tubes. the highlight
being the boys in the two ends of a tube (about one and a half meters long)
cloth spinning: the same girls from before spinning one meter felt fabric
flowers. ending with a pyramid on a spinning platform. the pyramid was
aided by a metal skeleton, but the girls were definitely doing a lot of
balancing (there were six spotters on the floor)
hanging strap twist climbing: snake-like shimmery costumes. three boys,
three girls. climbing up the straps, spinning up the straps, falling
quickly toward the floor from the straps and catching themselves.
clown (part 2) knife throwing with audience member. the black hood to
prevent the participant from seeing that the clown was not actually
throwing the knives, instead the assistance was stabbing the board with the
knife.
grand finale with the scary monkey costume man and the tumbling yellow
costumed monkeys who were clearly not sure what the choreography was meant
to be while the king monkey sang -- excuse me, lip-synced -- his song.
Hanoi, Vietnam: 30-may-2004
Chinese circus in the old-school Vietnamese circus arena. steep seating in comfortable, but worn chairs. grand music with roughly choreographed light effects. (the da-da of the music with the red and the blue lights. the red lights snap off at the next beat followed by the blue lights on the previously mentioned beat -- or there about)
These were the acts in a nut-shell:
Chinese dragons: two big two-person dragons, two little one person dragons. the dragons rolling in synchronization with human tumblers. the two-person dragon on the one and a half meter ball.
balancing girls: girls in not-so-form-fitting costumes. two lead girls balance a variety of things on 1) a mouth-guard, pole apparatus: faux potted plant on plastic disk, 2) forehead pole: stack of plastic cups with something else on top, 3) some other apparatus that had four anti-legs that attached to a table
little balancing girl: 6 year old acrobatics. hand-stand on a progressively taller series of wooden blocks. balancing on one arm on the spinning platform at the end.
clown (part 1) balancing paper stunt. one training clown with two of the tumbling boys playing double-duty as unintentionally clumsy side-kicks.
flexible tumbling boys: bending through rings and tubes. the highlight being the boys in the two ends of a tube (about one and a half meters long)
cloth spinning: the same girls from before spinning one meter felt fabric flowers. ending with a pyramid on a spinning platform. the pyramid was aided by a metal skeleton, but the girls were definitely doing a lot of balancing (there were six spotters on the floor)
hanging strap twist climbing: snake-like shimmery costumes. three boys, three girls. climbing up the straps, spinning up the straps, falling quickly toward the floor from the straps and catching themselves.
clown (part 2) knife throwing with audience member. the black hood to prevent the participant from seeing that the clown was not actually throwing the knives, instead the assistance was stabbing the board with the knife.
grand finale with the scary monkey costume man and the tumbling yellow costumed monkeys who were clearly not sure what the choreography was meant to be while the king monkey sang -- excuse me, lip-synced -- his song.
