Is seeing believing? Watch this
[Hat tip: the Anchoress.]
I don’t know quite what to make of this You Tube video, except it made my jaw drop at around minute 3:22 and thereafter.
Before that, it’s somewhat weird, but rather boring and silly. After minute 3:22, however, it suddenly becomes riveting, and only gets more astounding as it goes on.
I kept watching to see whether the female dancer involved (you’ll know the one I mean when you see her) was wearing a wire. But no.
It appears this woman has taken steeliness to new heights, as it were. I say “steeliness;” but if this woman is made of steel, it’s molten steel. She has a combination of extraordinary strength and maximum flexibility rarely seen on earth (one of the commenters wonders whether she’s an alien, and he doesn’t mean an illegal one).
I’m not sure I like it. It certainly doesn’t seem to be art. It astounds rather than touches the emotions or the intellect. The “Swan Lake” these folks are producing is more like a circus.
But oh what a circus it is! That’s entertainment. This performance defies not only gravity, it defies belief.
And so, without further ado:
Wow!!! Having watched many ballet dancers perform and knowing how much strength it takes to do some of the milder poses – this was simply astonishing! I kept looking to see signs of strain… there were NONE – simply astounding. I don’t know if it’s art – but it is riveting!
You’re right. It simply defies belief. I can’t imagine whose performance is more incredible, his or hers.
I was going to send that to you since I first saw it at Bookworm, but forgot about it.
this was simply astonishing! I kept looking to see signs of strain… there were NONE
The cost is that the Chinese start training them young. They have to hold, what people would call stress positions, for long periods of time as children and they are encouraged not to stop. That’s the traditional Chinese training method, old school you may say, full of discipline and physical pain.
Not sure how much she got of that, but you don’t get that way unless you train really hard really young. When your joints and bones and muscles are literally already growing to fill your body structure, before they lock in place.
I see art as more of a field concerning beauty rather than that it must invoke some intellectual insight, for that I leave it to philosophy.
Their implied message: We can beat you up.
Amazing. Hard training is definitely required, but every good thing that’s worth achieving is worth the pain required. An amazing hybrid of Chinese acrobatic traditions with European classical dance. It’s definitely beautiful.
Definitely a combined effort of chinese acrobatics and ballet. I’d agree that it isn’t art, though I think acrobatics honest to itself can be artistic, but it seems like an interesting inroad to literally pick up the ‘ballerina’ and have her defy gravity (in part) literally. I also have to agree with Harry- his performance is not to be overlooked. Even if she only weighs 85 pounds, when she’s on point on his shoulder, that’s quite a concentrated load.
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Watched it again and I have to say that this time I saw that there was no ballet in it. No emotion, no evocation of a deeper feeling or spirit.
In the end, nothing more than the same old totalitarian acrobatics in a tutu.