Review: ERA: Intersection of Time

By Emily Yocco

Don’t worry, you won’t need to speak Chinese to show your appreciation for Shanghai’s newest acrobatic show, ERA: Intersection of Time. Your gasps of horror and cries of amazement followed by thunderous applause will speak international volumes. In fact, after two hours of watching young members of The Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe balance from ungodly heights and jump across unfathomable distances, you’ll probably have burned a few calories yourself.
How can you explain something in writing when you didn’t even believe it was happening in person? That feeling of surreal euphoria was overpowering as about two dozen Chinese men and women acrobats commanded the circular stage of the Shanghai Circus World in the stunning Chinese city itself. The show began with a misty fog and a rainstorm as the eerie vocals of a live female singer enveloped the audience. A mournful dance developed between performers until one acrobat rose above the rest – literally.

As the mystical opening number progressed, a 20-something performer hoisted herself upside down on one palm while contorting her body to form angles that still don’t exist in mathematics. As if her flexibility wasn’t impressive enough, a platform just large enough to hold the palm on which she was balancing grew out of the stage. Suddenly the woman was spotlighted in midair and upside down, all the while doing splits on a six-inch wide circle sprouting 20 feet out of the stage. Are you sure this isn’t the grand finale?

This one woman’s routine was only the beginning of a full evening of unadulterated, nerve-racking entertainment. It was soon apparent that the costumes were muted and the staging unpretentious because the talent was so astounding. Both men and women in the audience could taste the intensity on the stage – even those spectators with no knowledge of Chinese acrobatics could be impressed at the performers’ lack of safety nets and wires.

The risk of meeting gravity head-on was but one gamble these acrobats accepted. Take, for example, the routine that involved throwing eight motorcycles into a huge steel sphere. The anxiety of watching full-sized bikes circle the stage and weave through the audience while wondering how they would fit in a metal cage was hair-raising enough. However, to hear their engines rev and then watch as real people chased each other around a miniature-sized globe at 65 mph was almost perverse. The only question left to ask was, how did they practice for that?

For starters, seven days a week. The ERA performers rehearse every day, noon to night, through broken bones and muscle strains, with only one day off each year – Chinese New Year’s Day. Under the French-Canadian direction of Erick Villaneuve, these Shanghai acrobats have refined and revitalized a 2,000-year-old Chinese tradition since the show’s opening in September 2005.

As the ERA show closed, Villaneuve’s modern take on a time-honored art finally took shape as a duet – a trio, really – of a man (Chen Shu Miao), woman (Hua Jing) and a silk ribbon took the stage. The couple’s muscles pulsated as they wound the ribbon around their arms and legs and were lifted to the ceiling. As their bodies intertwined with each other and the silky fabric, the woman unraveled herself in midair only to dangle peacefully by one ankle from her partner’s foot. No wires, no special effects, just trust. It was an inexplicable and breathtaking sight – you’d have to see it to believe it.