No Lions, No Tigers... No Bears... Oh My!

On Saturday night we went to the Shanghai Circus World and got some nose bleed seats for about $15 each. We showed up early and we weren't sure it was going to fill up, but by about 5 minutes after the show started, almost all the seats in the arena were filled. This was a little surprising because this circus performs every single day of the week, so this wasn't a limited engagement. I guess when you're located off a metro line in a city of 23 million people, there's always someone who hasn't seen your show. 

The show started with this ring of one way mirrors that had acrobats dancing inside. We didn't manage to get any pictures of the girls who would do flexibility performances, but it was pretty impressive. These girls were bending the feet over their heads and then stacking themselves 4 high to produce shadow puppets.

Next, a group of male acrobats came on stage and did some flips through hoops and some spring board tricks. Show below is a man preparing to be launched off of a see-saw onto a chair on a pole held by a man who himself was standing on a pole held by another man. 

 The next act up was a man and woman who performed a dance with two sheets of fabric hanging from the ceiling. They would wrap their limbs and then swing through the air. They would often hold onto each other and sometimes they would just hang on each other's legs as the spun around the stage.

The final performance was a motorcycle troupe. The theme of the circus was performances through the ages. Each motorcycle rider was wearing old Chinese armor from ancient times. They began with one man riding around a steel cage shaped like a globe.

And then they added 2 more.

And by the end of it they had 8 bikes inside that little cage. Shown below are all of them after they left the globe.

The circus was great and we would highly recommend it to anyone in Shanghai. We were glad to not see any abused animals or too-young child performers. It was clear that everyone involved was extremely skilled and had probably devoted most of their lives to the circus. There were even safety harnesses used for some of the riskier performances. China has lived up to most international standards since our arrival, and for that we are glad.