Show Review: Chinese State Circus 17th February 2007

The Chinese State Circus came to town earlier this month. I thought it would be a cool surprise to take dad to go and see it. The show is hosted by “The Splendid Monkey King” who is one of my favorite fictional characters. He introduces each act as well as telling you a bit about Chinese history along the way. The show lasted about 1 1/2 – 2 hours with an interval in the middle. It had alot of fine acts including amongst others:

• Ring Jumpers – these guys are pretty crazy, they take long run-ups and jump through spinning hoops
• Contortionist Girl – her act was very impressive although in the back of my mind I did think she would be a spooky girlfriend what with some of the bends she could do 😉
• Jug Jugglers – this would of been one of my least favorite acts as it was kinda boring except that one of the jugglers kept messing up accidentally which made it quite fun to watch
• Plate Spinning Chefs – I thought the plate spinning would be boring but they made it really funny, thumbs up to them for that one
• Pole Climbers – ra these guys rock. They just run up to it and suddenly their 20 feet in the air somersaulting off one pole onto another
• Lion Dancers – These were similar to the dragon dancers except they were in big lion costumes. They had two “Lion Tamers” that had a hard time keeping these mischievous beasts at bay
• Dragon Dancers – they had massive, long luminous dragons running around the stage. All the little kids in the audience loved this
• Shaolin Monks – I saved the best for last, the Shaolin monks performed a host of kata and demonstrations. I love these guys. There was alot of breeze block breaking action as well as weapon displays and chi control. I’d go to a show just to watch these guys so having them there with everything else was amazing

If you get the chance you should definitely go and watch this show. It’s one of those “Once in a lifetime” things that you’ll always remember.