Year of the Ratatouille
So Saturday night’s activities began with a trip to see the acrobats perform at the famous Chaoyang Theater. Here’s a few snapshots.
More after the jump.
The show was great. It needed a little Las Vegas-style spit and polish—“chintzy” was the word that ran through my head at the time—but other than subpar production values the actual acrobats were amazing.
Okay, here we’ve got a platform. On top of the platform is a cylinder and a board. Standing on the board is a man supporting on his head an elaborate platform for another acrobat, and on his sides a woman each. Then, on the top platform, is another guy on a cylinder/board roller who is catching plates on his head. Great stuff.
My favorite part of the act, though, were the plate spinners. Each one of these girls has four sticks in her hands, and on top are spinning four plates. So each girl is keeping 8 plates rotating simultaneously while doing various other acrobatic tricks.
What kind of tricks? Try this on for size.
Awesome, huh? There were tons of other acts, too. If you ever make it to Beijing I highly recommend checking it out.
Afterwards we went out to Le Petit Bistro, a little cheese-eating surrender monkey restaurant in the Sanlitun bar area. I’d never been, but the food was exquisite, and their wine list? C’est magnifique! Acrobats and French food in Beijing. A great night out indeed.
