Chinese State Circus to stage gravity-defying acrobatic show

Date Published: 20-Mar-2013

A 2000-year acrobatic tradition will explode on the stage of Galway’s Black Box Theatre on Tuesday, April 16 when the Chinese State Circus comes to town with what promises to be with a spectacular two-hour show.

Thirty Chinese artistes will perform Yin Yang in Galway as part of a 53-date tour of the UK and Ireland.

The London Evening Standard’s critic has described the show as ‘the most exhilarating circus it has ever been my privilege to see’, while the critic of the Manchester Evening News declared that "never has such excitement been generated in a theatre’.

In Chinese culture, the terms Yin and Yang are used to create an understanding of how things exist – depicting how seemingly opposite energies work together to create everything in life. This unique captures those diverse energies to showcase the best in entertainment from a country that is renowned for its culture of circuses and acrobatics. Spectacles in the show will include acrobats defying gravity as the ancient circus discipline, Icarian Games returns to centre stage. This act is steeped in tradition, but is rarely seen in circus arts these days. It is a remarkable display of human juggling where the human body becomes catapult and catcher in an elaborate, explosive and highly choreographed presentation of power, poise and agility.

Other traditional Chinese acts will include the amazing legendary ‘Bicycle Act’ which promises to keep the audience on the edge of their seats as 12 acrobats manoeuvre onto a single bicycle.

There will also be unpredictable and exhilarating twists of foot juggling with drums, the famous swinging poles, a sensational contortionist and dynamic hoop divers with amazing somersaults, leaps and jumps, which all go towards completing this action packed programme.

Yin Yang, will also feature the formidable Shaolin Warrior known only as “The One" sourced specifically by the Chinese State Circus’s director Phillip Gandey.

Gandey, a UK circus director, is the man responsible for bringing The Chinese State Circus to the stage in Ireland and the UK. He got the idea of setting up the company in 1991 after he witnessed a group of Oriental acrobats performing to great acclaim at the Monte Carlo Circus Festival. Gandey was blown away the quality and diversity of these Chinese acrobatics. After working out the logistics of transporting 45 artistes, plus directors, interpreters and five tonnes of props half-way around the world, he got the show on the road and the rest is history.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.