Circus time

Seb and I received tickets to go to the circus. My friend went to watch it, loved it so much that she bought the tickets as Christmas presents for us.

Phenix circus presented the Jublié by the stars of the Moscou circus.

It was the first time in my living memory to go watch a circus. We arrived early in Parc Boulogne and there was an enormous top set up. We went into the reception area and there were vendors selling souvenirs of Russian masks, Russian dolls, Russian paintings, Russian brooches etc. There was a stall selling popcorns and candies for kids and a stall selling coffee and hot chocolate. When the time was near, we went to our seats and waited for the start of the show. The inside of the top was bigger than I thought and was surprising warm for a make shift tent considering that it was winter.

A Russian music started to play and at first I thought it was playing from a recorder. As I followed the eyes of the rest of the audiences, I saw that there was a stage set up just above the entrance of the ring and there were live musicians playing. A violinist was playing on her electric violin in the crowd. She was full of energy and walked and ran and shaked while playing music at the same time. She brought up a warm rapport as everyone clapped and our eyes followed her around the whole place. When the Russian music ended, the first performance began. It was a muscled man doing balancing acts mid-air with a metal globe. At one point, he was hanging in a contorted position with just his wrist holding his whole weight. The wrist was inverted in such a position that it was amazing how much strength and control he had. He had a V shaped body and Seb was totally in awe of this performance.

We continued to watch performances by clowns, jugglers, dangerous act on a solo trapeze etc. Each time, the music was played live and the co-ordination of the music and the act was perfect. Throughout the show, a man dressed in elastics frog costume showed up with silly acts. At the end of the show, he appeared this time with his female frog partner. He was a contortionist. He sat on a big turntable (rotating platform, such as a lazy Susan) and put his hands on a stand attached to the ground. As the music built up the suspense, his partner started to slowly rotate the turntable. Slowly, his lower body turned 15 degrees perpendicular to his upper body, then 45 degrees, then 60 degrees, then 90 degrees and she continued to turn the turntable until the contortionist could see his own butt when he looked down. That was a 180 degrees twist. It was scary to watch. How was it possible for anyone to be so flexible? He was really amazing.

But the highlight for me was the horse performance. The horses were just running round the ring and it was the riders who did the tricks. I find the horses magnificent and the co-ordination of animal and man impressive. At the end of the show, there were vendors selling balloons of horses. We did thoroughly enjoy ourselves. Thank you Anca for the tickets.