Beijing Acrobats light up the stage

Phew! Just in time to meet up with Ale, Rénaud, Léa and Camille for the latest presentation of the Beijing Acrobats at Chaoyang Theatre. The show has changed a lot over the last 15-odd years since we last saw it! The team has introduced more modern elements, like the motorbike stunts so popular right now in Asia, as well as the giant rotating rings for which part of the ceiling of the theatre had to be cut out. They also kept some of the core traditional acts, like the dozens of girls on a bike, and converted others from plate-spinning to umbrella-spinning.

The show was compacted to one hour and they are clearly running these things like clockwork. Three shows a day and the narrator starts them bang on time, with no attempt to guide folks to their seats quickly, quietly or punctually. Even after the show started - it took a shocking 2-5 minutes (into the second act) for the audience to settle. Not the most professional last minute crowd control.

Barring the messy start, we did generally enjoy the programme and marvelled at the daring technical feats performed by the artists. Compared to newer productions like the House of Dancing Water though, we felt that they had a lot of ground to catch up, especially in dimensions like overarching plotline, customer experience (less factory-like would have been appreciated), and act sequencing (Davy felt that some dragged and others were too short).Read more