acrobat show!

when i went to shanghai with friends at the end of september, we got to go to an acrobat show the evening we were there. i tried to find/remember the name of the actual show and performers, but i can't find it. anyway, i went thinking it was going to be fun, but not prepared for it to be AMAZING. i was literally on the edge of my seat waiting for what they were going to do next, and my friend sitting next to me had her mouth wide open in amazement half the time. =) suffice it to say, any description will not do it justice, but here's what i remember of what we saw. combine all this with incredible lighting, costumes, and live music that was perfectly in the sync with the show. (sadly, there are no pictures--we weren't allowed to take any.)

• super flexible people being amazing.
• a guy who could toss large ceramic pots into the air and catch them on his head or with one foot
• a troupe of guys would could launch themselves through very small hoops, and do crazy flips on giant trampolines.
• guys would could walk inside and on top of a giant circle that had other circles inside of it (part of this was done blindfolded and included leaping into the air)
• a person on stilts, holding a tiny chair above him on a very tall stick, while a person is launched perfectly up on to the chair
• picture a what you would consider a regular size barrel, on its side with a cloth over the opening. one by one, FIVE women in all come out of this barrel, gracefully, and walk away on their hands.
• now picture a giant hollow sphere that you can see through. one by one, motorcycles entered this sphere and drove round and round, sometimes parallel to each other, and sometimes paths crossing, until EIGHT motorcycles were in the sphere at once (at that point, no paths were crossing, thankfully!). i was cringing the whole time! i don't know how you practice something like that...
• looooong scarves hanging from the ceiling to the ground--then a man and a woman come and wrap the scarves around their their wrists or legs in just the right way, are lifted into the air, and do a beautiful dance in the air, sometimes with only one person actually attached to the scarves.
  
• and did i mention the music and the lights and the costumes? all beautiful
  

anyway, that's just about the best i can do, but defintely worth sitting in completely stopped traffic on a bridge in shanghai on the way home and getting home at 1 AM.