That's Entertainment!

What is with this week? Before I've completely come down off Wild ARMs 3 and yon new GTA game, in the same day I come across a dirt cheap copy of Gunbuster (So what if the english subtitles are gibberish?), and I'm met with the pleasant surprise that I evidently put a down payment on Resident Evil 0 half a year ago. (11 hours, innovative new gameplay, but not scary at all past the first few minutes really.) The following day I took in some live theater, day after that someone begged me to see the new Harry Potter movie and then gave their ticket to someone else at the last minute. So anyway, over the next two days I finish my first run of RE0, and in the morning those two new Metroids hit the shelves. I wouldn't be able to afford'em if not for someone I know going out gambling, winning big, and sharing some of the wealth.

So... it's a good thing I don't owe you people more than just rants this month. Anyway though, back to the theater bit. As usual with this sort of thing, I'm too lazy to make sure none of this is aimed directly at the person I mailed it to before copying it into this rant.

A friend of my mom's works at a theater near here, so he's always getting free tickets to stuff and trying to shove'em off on us. This is how I was exposed to the lameness of ballet as I think I told you. Anyway though, tonight, he had free tickets to see a group of...

Chinese Acrobats!

Years of watching cartoons and stuff has taught me that Chinese Acrobats are a bunch of freaky contortionists with quasi-magical abilities who stand around on stage jumping up into the air and forming bizarre sculptures of limbs in only a second. So, going to this I was pretty sure my pre-conceived notions wouldn't quite match up to the real thing.

I was right. The real thing is FAR more impressive!

First off, there was a lot of that sort of thing, including a lot of that sort of thing with nine people riding in a big fan formation on the shoulders of someone riding a bike around, and the whole human jumprope bit. Then there was a lot of other stuff you expect too, like a bunch of people dancing around while spinning half a dozen plates on sticks each, and then there was a lot of other really funky stuff. For example:

While someone has a large tray full of candles and oil lamps on her nose, she gets on a 3 foot red ball, starts doing a hoola hoop, spinning a plate with each arm, and walks the ball over a see-saw.

Someone balancing upside down by her head on a spinning pedestal on 8 precariously stacked tables (which she built as she climbed it using table that were constantly being handed to her with long metal poles) being held up by someone's legs. The person on the bottom then starts spinning the whole thing.

I use those as examples as they were straightforward enough to describe. The most impressive bits were way too fluid fast paced and complex to describe.

Anyway though, as nifty as all the freaky balancing and jumping and flipping through the air bits were, there were some other things in there too, because you know, the limitations of the size of the stage and how many places there are to balance stacks of things on someone limit how impressive that stuff can be. (They passed 5 stacks quite a few times though.)

At one point there was a lot of play with weapons and martial arts. I'm not sure which is more impressive really, the two guys who stuck then ends of a double-tipped spear in their necks and then danced around seeing how much they could get the spear to bend, without ever flinching or doing anything about the bloody punctures this left until at least intermission half an hour later, or the guy who stacked four bricks on his head and had someone else smash'em with a sledgehammer and then went on to do various aerial acrobatics.

Oh and then of course there were the contortionists. The male contortionist pretty much went through a barrel that was narrow enough I couldn't even stand in it normally, while doubled over, in every conceivable variation. climbing up through it with all his limbs pointed down was particularly impressive. The female contortionist was just plain scary though. I believe at one point she actually twisted her SPINE 180° but it's hard to be sure since she was balancing about 30 candles on each limb and 4 times that on her head at the time. Even more impressive than the on stage contortionry though is that from where I was sitting, I could see back stage perfectly, and saw this person stretching to prepare for this. I know longer find the ball powerup in Metroid to be unrealistic. 'Nuff said.

Anyway though, the whole thing was very cool, and set to pretty spiffy music which ranged from traditional Chinese violin stuff to techno and even combinations of the two. Plus the pacing was incredibly fast. You don't even have time to say "Woah! They couldn't possible have more things spinning at once here" before they throw in two more plates or tables or vases or people or something, and there's no breaks between routines/themes either. There is the OCCASSIONAL break in the real action for everyone to catch their breath, people to change costumes, and for the audience to jam their eyes back in their heads, when the two goofy guys (who I would assume since all groups like this are constantly recruiting are the relative newbies that provide comic relief while learning how to support 4 guys from your freaking neck) do silly stuff which mostly involves tricking members of the audience into thinking someone is about to be maimed. Especially the member of the audience who was called on stage to have knives thrown at him.

So anyway, if you ever get the chance to see such a thing, TAKE IT.