Complete: 07/21/2012
Courtesy of Cirque website
July 2012 was a month of crazy travel for me. My family took our annual
trip to Canada to see my day's side of the family (highlight I always
look forward to every year), spent some time in New York to see the
sights, and and then I made my way to Atlanta to attend the Golden Key International Summit. But back to New York.
In the heat of the summer was when I was in New York. My family spent four days there together, where we checked out a bunch of tourist sites like the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park (my personal favorite activity being a bike ride around the park), and some other popular destinations and good food.
Central Park
After the four days, my family headed back home Hawaii-bound while two friends met up in New York. We did a bunch of other stuff, like seeing Book of Mormon on Broadway, sitting in the studio audience for The Jimmy Fallon Show, eating at a few spots participating in Restaurant Week, paying a tribute at the 9/11 Memorial, exploring Brooklyn...and watching a live Cirque du Soleil show!
The Zarkana show was performing at Radio City Music Hall during our time in New York, and I was pretty excited to have tickets! I was hooked from many years ago when the Cirque performances aired on Bravo channel. The combination of athleticism and artistry is remarkably stunning; Cirque performers never cease to amaze me with the near non-human feats they demonstrate are physically possible and with sophistication to boot. So to see them live in action could only heighten my respect and awe for their feats.
Outside the venue
The 90-minute performance included an array of skill and talent, from a tap-dancing juggler, flag jumpers, and a sand artist, to ladders, a Russian bar, highwire, silks, trapezes, and a contraption appropriately named the Wheel of Death. This is the one act that stood out above the rest. Not only had I not seen this before, the danger factor had me on the edge of my seat and was perhaps the only act that really made me feel it was totally worth it to be there live than watching it at home on TV.
Yeah, the man at the top is doing a flip outside of the Wheel of Death.
Courtesy of another blog
So
what happens is two men are in the two circles at opposite ends, which
they run in as though they're in a hamster wheel while the entire Wheel
of Death spins on its middle axis like a ferris wheel. Then they take
turns getting out of their wheel to run along the outside edge of the
wheel as it spins around. They have to make sure their timing is right,
because running too fast or too slow and they risk falling to their
death, or very serious injury. Then after a few rounds of running the
outside, they add jumps and flips for the heck of it. Talk about
concentration and focus when adrenaline is sweeping through the body.
All
in all, watching this live Cirque show was quite entertaining, though didn't live up to the excitement I set myself up for. Seeing
the show live from a seat that was quite a ways away did not really have much advantage over
seeing it with a clear and close-up view as can be done from TV, except
for this one Wheel of Death act. I'll always be impressed though by the
abilities of these performers and appreciative of the dedication and
sacrifices they make to entertain the lesser talented like me.
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