Chinese Acrobats

Abstract

Broadcast Transcript: Acrobatics are an important part of the Beijing Opera or Beijing jingju. The Monkey King's hijinks are impressively acrobatic: flips and aerials and high leaps as he roundly defeats the gods of heaven at every show. But Beijing jingju is not for the faint-hearted. The ultra-high falsetto singing is an acquired taste. So what if you held the music and just brought on the acrobatics? Then you'd have the National Acrobats of the People's Republic of China who are appearing at the Lied Center on October 21st. They can balance on one arm on one chair on one leg atop a tower of stacked chairs. These athletes can bend backwards the way we ordinary people bend at the waist. They can touch their toes... to the backs of their heads. One look at their performance and you'll never think of China as an inflexible world power again. #ceas #china #hacker