The Chinese State Circus
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London SE1
Balance is important to the Chinese - in life and in the circus. We are offered this bland information by the voiceover that introduces the Chinese State Circus (and which sounds like a distant representative from the Chinese Tourist Board). After the first few minutes, I was already reflecting that if one were to apply their ideal of balance to one's own life, one wouldn't last long.
The Chinese State Circus is a show of daunting athleticism and includes balancing acts that have been pleasing audiences for 2,000 years. The look is traditional and simple. The stage is decorated with scarlet paper lanterns, dragon-decorated, frilly as mob caps - but not much else. There are no tricks here, no Cirque du Soleil excess. There is nothing to get in the way of what we are seeing: human miracles. 'Amazing!' 'So flexible!' 'I can't believe it!' I've never heard such rave reviews from my sons: a collective gasp.
This circus is a surefire hit for boys because it is dominated by the 'World Famous Shaolin Wu-Shu Warriors', also known as 'masters of the martial arts', an understatement, really. This team of guys, dressed in bright orange robes, fights with furious grace, their battle a dance. But what I liked most about them were the moments of extreme stillness, before and after their arguments with the air, in which their faces looked collected, as if each performance were a gift to God. Other moments I could have done without: the lying on beds of nails, the smashing of piles of bricks upon each others' heads and the lying bare-chested on the point of a spear, a self-stabbing from which no ordinary mortal could hope to emerge.
At the interval, we quarrelled about the brick-smashing (the boys thought it 'awesome'), but agreed about the men in blue: fantastic athletes who jump and dive through hoops. They will all, I am certain, be reincarnated as dolphins. But there's no doubt about it - the Chinese circus favours the macho (even the beautiful woman with the long veils turns out to have daggers at the end of them which she was, astonishingly, able to hurl across the stage to puncture two balloons). And there was mannish juggling, too, with clumsy-looking ceramic jars, each sturdy enough to hold a large plant.
But the show was not without feminine reprieve. There was a charming dance between grinning, golden-jawed lions and a woman (and man) who teased them with golden baubles. And the female contortionist, 'The Human Chandelier', was delicacy itself. The high-wire act, too, could not have been more feminine: two pastel fairies with paper parasols, skipping daintily over one another.
But there was a frightful moment when one of them missed her footing and fell on to the wire like a collapsed moth. She recovered herself instantly. But it was a reminder that balance in the circus, as in life, may never be taken for granted.
