A Date with My Sister

Kelly came in to town yesterday; we met at the Performing Arts Center for an extraordinary production. Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy was performing, and they were spectacular.

Bright lights, flashy costumes, great music; “An international cast of graceful aerialists, spine bending contortionists, vine swinging characters, strong men, and balancers bring this jungle dream to life in a lush, Broadway setting.”

Check out their web page at: www.cirqueproductions.com

Each piece in their show brought gasps from the audience, as each one strived to out-do the one before.

The jump rope piece was exciting: at one time, they had three guys jumping individual ropes, while at the same time all three were jumping one bigger rope, while at the same time all the of them (the 3 jumpers and the two holding the bigger rope) were jumping an even bigger rope. There were guys jumping rope on their hands while holding their bodies stretched out level to the floor! Truly amazing.

The four members of the troupe from Mongolia came out and did some astonishing feats of contortionism. Having been to Mongolia last year, I know that this is actually a cultural heritage for them. These girls (and guys, too) start their training at a very young age. These four had on lizard costumes with glow-in-the-dark colors, so it was difficult at times to discern body parts – mainly because the body parts in question were never where you’d expect them to be.

The naturalist in me couldn’t help but notice a few things they got wrong, however. Female peacocks do not have the big beautiful tails – only the males have them. And it’s the male Emu that takes care of the chicks, not the female. But, only I would notice things like that, so their presentation was not compromised too much for enjoyment.

After the show, which lasted a good two hours, we went out to dinner together at The Brewhouse. This is not my first choice of places to eat (it’s very loud in there) but it was the only place open at that time of day – so eat there, we did.

The food was quite good (miso-glazed salmon on flat bread with a wasabi sauce) but of course, the conversation was better.