Social Contortion
Just a little free advice to youngsters who go see the Peking Acrobats: Kids, don’t try this at home.
In their two-hour show, which launches its Southland tour this weekend at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa and the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, the acrobats perform acts that fly in the face of physics.
They’ll do handstands atop an 18-foot-high stack of chairs, juggle an insane amount of cutlery and bend themselves into positions that would send Gumby screaming to the chiropractor.
“It’s ridiculous the things they can do with their bodies,” says the show’s producer, Don Hughes, who, even after a 25-year-association with it, is still amazed by the 2,000-year-old Chinese art.
In China, aspiring acrobats who have the skill and the right family pull typically begin training around age 6, about the same time most of us master tying our shoes. If they’re good enough, and they catch the eyes of the right people, they can find themselves on the road by age 9 or 10, performing at venues ranging from urban factories to nondescript buildings in remote villages.
Hughes estimates there are about 100,000 professional acrobats touring China and the world today. He says that touring acrobatic shows are so tightly woven into the fabric of everyday Chinese life that they are rarely advertised, making it difficult for outsiders to track down a performance.
Despite an international career as a show producer, the 60-year-old South African says he had barely heard of Chinese acrobatics in 1973 when he booked what would become a three-month, sold-out tour of a troupe. That troupe’s leader, Ken Hai, a fourth-generation Chinese acrobat, now serves with Hughes as co-producer of IAI Productions Inc., which also presents such groups as the Moscow Boys Choir and the Peking Opera. The two started the Peking Acrobats in 1985.
Highlights in this Peking Acrobats show, which began its 40-stop tour earlier this month in Washington state and closes in mid-April on the East Coast, include a contortionist act called Squeeze Play, in which the performers squeeze and twist their bodies through 14-inch-wide tubes.
There’s also a heart-stopping ode to ride-sharing in which 14 performers share a single bicycle, and the previously mentioned “pagoda of chairs,” in which one man supports a stack of six chairs on his thighs while performers do handstands and other gymnastics at the top of the heap. The acts are performed in brilliantly hued costumes to live music played by a six-piece ensemble using traditional Chinese instruments.
As Hughes points out, even those who haven’t seen a Chinese acrobatic troupe perform may be familiar with some of the acts, providing you’ve ever sat in on a traditional circus or more avant-garde troupes such as Cirque du Soleil, Mummenschanz and the New Pickle Family Circus. (In fact, a breathtaking two-person balancing act featured in the Cirque’s current “Quidam” was part of the original Peking Acrobats tour. Except, Hughes adds, his performers did it covered in gold paint.)
Early sages apparently believed the practice of acrobatics enabled performers to steal the will of others. It’s said that the first gala performance of Chinese acrobatics so inspired the attending dignitaries that they agreed to align their military forces with the reigning Han emperor.
As a businessman, Hughes is more interested in unbending people’s wallets than in bending their wills, and he sees an all-ages market in the Peking Acrobats’ audience.
“You’ll see 16 different acts, and if there’s one you don’t like, there are 15 you’re going to love,” he boasts. “Will you have a fantastic time? As I like to tell everyone, it’s a no-brainer.”
BE THERE
The Peking Acrobats perform at 8 p.m. Fri. at the Robert B. Moore Theatre, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. $9-$25. (714) 432-5880. SOLD OUT. Also at 2 and 8 p.m. Sat. and at 2 p.m. Sun. at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. $20-$35. (562) 916-8500 or (800) 300-4345.