running away with the circus

last night i went to see cirque du soleil's "kooza" which was, as i expected, completely amazing, but this particular show was sort of a throw back to the roots of cirque, with more focus on traditional death defying circus acts, and on clowning as well. that sort of made me roll my eyes when i got the tickets, because i, like every other normal human on the planet, am afraid of clowns. they are CREEPY. these clowns, though...they were FUNNY and not at all creepy, and had me laughing so hard my stomach still hurts today. there were three female contortionists (which i actually aspired to be when i was younger, but upon seeing that act, i'm actually glad that there are things that i cannot do with my body, because, oh yeah, it's not NORMAL for your limbs to bend that way!!) and i swear their act was the most insane thing i've ever seen, i don't understand that level of flexibility. i mean, i do yoga. i'm bendy. but this is a completely different game. i can't even describe what this girl was doing with her legs over her head and flipping herself around, but i will say this: i just can't imagine that contorting yourself that way can be good for your internal organs. at one point i was watching and thinking, where on earth is her stomach right now? - cause she was completely bent in half, with her rear end on her head and her feet on the floor in front of her. and i was also thinking...how on earth do you discover that you have that talent? i mean, i used to watch tv standing on my head, but i can't imagine what these girls were doing and how their parents must have reacted every time they heard "hey mom! look what i can do!" the music was also incredible, which i remember from another cirque show that we saw, but what i find most amazing is the engineering and the "backstage" work that goes into traveling productions like this. they set up this whole little village with these incredible tents and then bam, 2 weeks later, they fold the whole thing up and put it in a couple of trucks and off they go. i just finished reading "water for elephants" which was a great read, by the way, and i'm so interested in that whole lifestyle, and how so much of it is illusion. i also must say, as much as i hate to see any of the performers screw up, the last show we saw, not even a pinkie toe was out of place, but this show seemed more human - we saw a tightrope walker fall off the rope (um, after he leap frogged over another walker in front of him, so we forgave him his shortcoming!!), and after being catapulted through the air, another performer fell short of landing on top of a man standing on another man's shoulder and the whole thing came toppling down. it's nice to know that even these performers aren't perfect, and that what they are doing is actually hard to do, becuase when there is no flaw at all...it just seems like i could walk up there and do the same thing. there was also this realy amazing act that i don't know how to describe other than saying 2 guys who clearly have no fear of falling to their deaths did an amazing and highly entertaining performance on this giant metal circling ring of death thingy. i'm sorry but that's the best i can do. all in all, it was a great night, i'm so glad we got a chance to go and i hope we get to see cirque every time it's in town. in light of all this financial and political doom and gloom - especially here in washington - it was the perfect way to spend an evening thinking that there is nothing i would like to do more than run away with the circus.