Welcome to A, B, Circus!
What makes an acrobat a circus acrobat?
It's a good question, because acrobatics are everywhere.
You can see acrobatics in sports,
particularly gymnastics, in dance,
and really in any activity
that involves throwing your whole body through space.
It seems like they're rooted in our very DNA as human beings,
which shouldn't be surprising given our lineage.
If you've watched our other episodes,
then you know the series
is about circus history and circus acts.
So our job today
is to define circus acrobatics,
particularly the form of acrobatics
that take place on the ground in the circus,
floor acrobatics.
And we're gonna do it in this episode of A, B, Circus!
The inside history of floor acrobatics.
We promise you'll flip.
Sorry!
If you've seen our episode about the history of the circus,
and if you haven't, you should,
then you remember the archeological evidence
from the ancient Minoan civilization.
It shows that acrobats jumped over bulls
in religious rituals about 4,000 years ago.
So from the beginning of Western civilization,
acrobatics were seen as a symbol
of our ability to surpass ourselves.
Either that, or there were a bunch of Minoans
who really, really did not want to get run over by wild bulls.
There's evidence of acrobatics going way back in the East as well,
to the Western Han dynasty, around 220 BC.
Since then, all over the world,
acrobats have entertained humankind
from the courts of kings to people in the street
with incredible feats of strength and agility.
Floor acrobatics have been part of the modern circus
since it was founded in the 18th century.
Over the centuries,
it became an Eastern European specialty
that was a lot about demonstrating strength.
And it's still true today.
You wouldn't wanna mess with our East European athletes, believe me.
The world of the circus was turned upside down in the 1970s
when the Peking Circus first appeared in the West.
Chinese acrobatics emphasized lightness over strength
and brought humor into the mix.
So yes, our acrobats are pretty bad-ass,
but it's okay to laugh at them.
When Cirque du Soleil was formed,
all of that became part of how we present floor acrobatics.
And another thing.
We were also the first company
to present international-level gymnastics competitors,
bringing the art to a whole other level.
So what, you're asking after all this,
are circus floor acrobatics?
If you've ever seen a Cirque show,
and we certainly hope you have,
then you've seen all of these disciplines.
The Banquine is an acrobatic discipline
performed on the ground by two carriers,
who, using their arms, catapult a flyer into the air
to perform acrobatic leaps.
The flyer then lands on A, the ground,
or B, the intertwined fingers of the carriers,
called a banquette.
Ouch! Sensitive fingers need not apply.
The flyer can also land on the banquette
formed by the hands of a second carrier team.
Yes, the Russian Bar was introduced by a Russian,
in this case, a man called Boris Isaev in 1958.
Standing on the ground, two carriers hold a flexible bar
on their shoulders or their arms.
A flyer stands upright on the bar
and springs from it to perform various acrobatic moves.
And no, shoulder pads are not allowed.
Contortion has existed for thousands of years,
to traveling shows in Europe
and the circus arts of Asia.
Contortionists demonstrate extreme flexibility
in three categories:
backbending, forebending, and dislocation.
They're also great at Twister.
Chinese hoops diving, as you can imagine,
originated in China.
A set of wooden and metal hoops of varying diameters
are balanced on top of one another from the ground up.
Acrobats propel themselves through the hoops,
performing various moves.
The acrobatic chair can involve one or many solid chairs.
Artists balance and do acrobatic moves on the chair.
The chair pyramid is a discipline in which chairs are stacked,
and acrobats perform on the top of the structure.
This discipline involves acrobatics
and something called antipodism,
a fancy word for lying on your back and juggling with your feet.
See, you can learn something new every day.
Like this word, a trinka, or low-sloping chair.
In the Icarian Games,
a juggler or carrier lies on a trinka
and propels another acrobat, the flyer, through space.
The flyer performs balancing tricks and risky jumps.
It gets even more fun
when a second team of carriers and flyers joins in,
executing even more hazardous tricks
and passing flyers back and forth like they were beach balls.
Yes, the more the merrier, we all say.
Hand to hand is a demanding discipline
performed by two or more acrobats.
One acrobat, called a carrier,
performs a series of moves
involving strength, balance, elevation and flexibility,
while carrying another acrobat, called a flyer, by the hands
and sometimes even the head.
No feet involved in this one.
Static hand to hand is performed in a smaller space,
and is intended to show off mostly strength and balance.
The performers typically move slowly.
Dynamic hand to hand
involves bigger movements over a greater area,
with the carrier propelling the flyer with his arms.
Dynamic hand to hand performances
can also include other acrobats
performing in complement to the carrier and the flyer.
Hand to hand doesn't usually involve high-fives,
but these artists certainly deserve one.
The Chinese pole act originates in Asia,
and consists of several three- to nine-meter poles.
Artists perform up and down the pole
and move from pole to pole.
The swinging pole is a version of the Chinese pole
that, you guessed it, swings around.
Because it's suspended by cables 60 centimeters in the air,
instead of being fixed to the ground,
it allows acrobats to perform more dynamic and diverse moves.
If you've got a backyard and a 10-year-old,
you probably own a trampoline.
Remember, they must be used with supervision
and no flipping.
The trampoline first made an appearance in the circus in the 20th century.
Trampolines allow everyone
from backyard flyers to circus acrobats
to get higher into the air
and perform crazy moves.
The teeter board is a teeter-totter on steroids.
It's a collective number in which one or two jumpers
jump onto a rocking board from the top of a pedestal
to catapult flyers into the air.
The flyers perform acrobatics in the air
before landing onto the jumper's shoulders
or a perch or a chair.
This is the specialty
of the bad-ass East European acrobats we were talking about.
Now remember,
even though people do fly through the air in these performances,
they are still considered part of the floor acrobatics family.
Once you leave the floor for longer periods,
say, on a trapeze or on hoops,
you're practicing aerial acrobatics.
But that's part of another episode
that you can see by clicking on another video.
What makes them special at Cirque du Soleil
is that we're constantly bringing in new equipment or techniques
to push acrobatics further
and make these circus floor acrobatics the best you've ever seen.
We've come a long way from jumping over bulls
and a long way from our venerable ancestors,
but for sure we haven't reach the limits of how far we can push this noble art.
But enough talk.
Mesdames et Monsieurs, on with the show.