Circus Visions

A young woman balances en pointe on one foot atop a man’s head. Then gracefully, she turns a full circle. A little later, a torch, lighted at both ends, flies onto the stage from the wing, A man catches it and proceeds to make flame his tango partner. A keystone cop fire brigade comes out. They use their hoses as long jump ropes before getting completely tangled up in them. Meanwhile, an S & M policewoman at the front of the stage rotates a girl’s jump-rope ‘round her body faster than my amazed eye can follow. Whole groups dive through hoops, toss silver pins at rapid fire. By the finale, the quickest way between two points is not walking, but a full-body flip. We in the audience see a world whose laws seem not to be our laws. Such miracles do surgery to our eyes, removing cobwebs of unconscious life. We see a Dali world, full-blown upon the stage— never the years of arduous labor that brought that world to birth.