 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(June 2019) |
The use of chairs as props in acrobatics falls into three broad categories: balancing, vaulting and contortion.
| | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(June 2019) |
The use of chairs as props in acrobatics falls into three broad categories: balancing, vaulting and contortion.
In chair balancing, one or more acrobats balance on one or more chairs. The chair(s) may be balanced on other objects and/or on just one or two legs while the acrobat(s) themselves may also perform balancing acts on the chair.
The chairs used in balance may have notches [1] cut out or extra pieces of material added to allow them to be stacked at otherwise unstable angles.
Chair balancing acts have been featured in the Cirque du Soleil shows Nouvelle Experience , La Nouba , Dralion , Koozå , Kurios , and Crystal .
In chair vaulting, the acrobat jumps or tumbles over a chair. Sometimes the chair is used as a launching platform, and sometimes it is carried by the athlete while performing the vault.
Chair contortionists use the chair as a prop for moulding their bodies around.
Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, artistry and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shoulders, back, chest, and abdominal muscle groups. Gymnastics evolved from exercises used by the ancient Greeks that included skills for mounting and dismounting a horse, and from circus performance skills.
Juggling is a physical skill, performed by a juggler, involving the manipulation of objects for recreation, entertainment, art or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling. Juggling can be the manipulation of one object or many objects at the same time, most often using one or two hands but other body parts as well, like feet or head. Jugglers often refer to the objects they juggle as props. The most common props are balls, clubs, or rings. Some jugglers use more dramatic objects such as knives, fire torches or chainsaws. The term juggling can also commonly refer to other prop-based manipulation skills, such as diabolo, plate spinning, devil sticks, poi, cigar boxes, contact juggling, hooping, yo-yo, hat manipulation and kick-ups.
A unicycle is a vehicle that touches the ground with only one wheel. The most common variation has a frame with a saddle, and has a pedal-driven direct-drive. A two speed hub is commercially available for faster unicycling. Unicycling is practiced professionally in circuses, by street performers, in festivals, and as a hobby. Unicycles have also been used to create new sports such as unicycle hockey. In recent years, unicycles have also been used in mountain unicycling, an activity similar to mountain biking or trials.
Contortion is a performance art in which performers called contortionists showcase their skills of extreme physical flexibility. Contortion acts often accompany acrobatics, circus acts, street performers and other live performing arts. Contortion acts are typically performed in front of a live audience. An act will showcase one or more artists performing a choreographed set of moves or poses, often to music, which require extreme flexibility. The physical flexibility required to perform such acts greatly exceeds that of the general population. It is the dramatic feats of seemingly inhuman flexibility that captivate audiences.
Acrobatics is the performance of human feats of balance, agility, and motor coordination. Acrobatic skills are used in performing arts, sporting events, and martial arts. Extensive use of acrobatic skills are most often performed in acro dance, circus, gymnastics, and freerunning and to a lesser extent in other athletic activities including ballet, slacklining and diving. Although acrobatics is most commonly associated with human body performance, the term is used to describe other types of performance, such as aerobatics.
Chinese variety art refers to a wide range of acrobatic acts, balancing acts and other demonstrations of physical skill traditionally performed by a troupe in China. Many of these acts have a long history in China and are still performed today.
Tightrope walking, also called funambulism, is the skill of walking along a thin wire or rope. It has a long tradition in various countries and is commonly associated with the circus. Other skills similar to tightrope walking include slack rope walking and slacklining.
Stilts are poles, posts or pillars that allow a person or structure to stand at a height above the ground.
Saltimbanco was a touring show by Cirque du Soleil. Saltimbanco ran from 1992 to 2006 in its original form, performed under a large circus tent called the Grand Chapiteau; its last performance in that form was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on December 10, 2006. A new adaptation of the show started touring North America on July 31, 2007, with its first stop in London, Ontario, Canada. The new version was staged in arenas with fewer performances in each city it visited. The new version closed at the end of 2012.
Alegría is a Cirque du Soleil touring production, created in 1994 by director Franco Dragone and director of creation Gilles Ste-Croix. It takes its name from the Spanish word for "joy".
La Nouba was a Cirque du Soleil show that ran for 19 years in a custom-built, freestanding theater at Disney Springs' West Side at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. It was a contemporary circus performance featuring acrobats, gymnasts, and other skilled performers. The show's creation was directed by Franco Dragone, who also directed many of Cirque du Soleil's earlier shows. Its title derives from the French phrase faire la nouba, meaning "to party" or "to live it up".
Equestrian vaulting, or simply vaulting, is most often described as gymnastics and dance on horseback, which can be practiced both competitively or non-competitively. Vaulting has a history as an equestrian act at circuses, but its origins stretch back at least two-thousand years. It is open to both men and women and is one of ten equestrian disciplines recognized by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports. Therapeutic or interactive vaulting is also used as an activity for children and adults who may have balance, attention, gross motor skill or social deficits.
The Russian bar is a circus act which combines the gymnastic skills of the balance beam, the rebound tempo skills of trampoline, and the swing handstand skills of the uneven bars and the parallel bars. The bar itself is a flexible vaulting pole around 4 to 4.5 metres long, typically made of fiberglass; three vaulting poles may also be fastened together to create a flexible beam. The act involves two bases balancing the bar on their shoulders, and one flyer standing on the bar, with the flyer bouncing and performing aerial tricks and landing on the bar.
Nouvelle Expérience was Cirque du Soleil's fourth touring circus show, which premiered in 1990.
Enrico Rastelli was an Italian juggler, acrobat, and performer.
Acrobatic gymnastics is a competitive discipline of gymnastics where partnerships of gymnasts work together and perform routines consisting of acrobatic skills, dance and tumbling, set to music. There are three types of routines; a 'balance' routine where the focus is on strength, poise and flexibility; a 'dynamic' routine which includes throws, somersaults and catches, and a 'combined' routine which includes elements from both balance and dynamic.
Balancing Acts is a 2005 documentary film by Donna Schatz that chronicles the lives of Chinese acrobat Man-Fong Tong and his wife Magda Schweitzer, a Jewish acrobat from Budapest, Hungary. The two met in Europe on the eve of World War II. They were both at the peak of their careers, performing at the Moulin Rouge and Cirque Medrano, and alongside acts such as Maurice Chevalier and Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson. While their careers were full of success, the spread of Nazism brought them great hardships. Their marriage saw the trials of wartime Europe, post-war poverty, the birth of two sons, and a difficult ten-year separation from one another.
Zarkana was a Cirque du Soleil stage production written and directed by François Girard. It began as a touring show in 2011 and was converted to a resident show in Las Vegas in late 2012. It premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on June 29, 2011, and later toured to the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow and the Madrid Arena in Madrid.
Hand to hand acrobatics is a type of performance in which an acrobatic base and flyer balance on top of each other in either a gymnastic or acrobatic medium. It combines strength, agility, flexibility, and balance. For it to be considered hand to hand acrobatics, the top performer (flyer) must be making physical contact only with the base's hands, with the flyer's hands keeping them balanced. Positions the top can perform in this style of acrobatics are straddles, handstands, pikes, press to handstand, one arm handstands, planches, flags, and many others. Hand to hand acrobatics can also include dynamic catches and throws that either begin with a throw from a hand to hand position or end in a catch in the hand to hand position.
Slackwire is an acrobatic circus act that involves the balancing skills of moving along a flexible, thin wire suspended in the air, connected to two anchor points. Slackwire is not to be confused with slacklining.
