Acrobats of China

Acrobats of China featuring The New Shanghai Circus
Review by Richard Freihofer, Editor & Publisher

Filling the stage is the pageantry, the dreamlike artistry and the mystique of the Orient.

It's tricks and magic and feats of daring. It's comedy, drama and ballet, choreographed with the finesse of an artist's brushstroke and executed with
all the muscle and power of Olympic champions.

It's The Acrobats of China featuring The New Shanghai Circus!

Adding oriental architecture to the Branson skyline, The New Shanghai Theater Branson's home for the hit show, now playing it's 10th successful season. Besides appearing on Broadway and regularly on the top network TV shows, the company alternates performers with their famed home venue in their native land; the Chinese megapolis of Shanghai, a city of over 14 million.

The show is breathtaking from the first moment the curtain rises and the splashing cymbals and exotic music gives fanfare to a full stage spectacle of dragons and dancers and colorful costumes. It's a celebration of Chinese culture in all its glory, creating an atmosphere of beauty, grace and elegance that will so smoothly transition to astonishing displays of physical strength, high-flying stunts that defy both gravity and death, mind-bending contortions, and thrilling moments of high drama, high comedy, and pure magic.

The show is also a valuable preservation of ancient Chinese traditions and skills dating back to the Han Dynasty of 700 BC. Many of these incredible feats come from village contests between competing craftsman held at annual Harvest festivals. Out of that came disciplines handed down through the generations-- for over 2000 years!

A cast of forty ranging in age from twelve to twenty-three brings those traditions from a lifetime of training to the Branson stage, amazing their audiences, and filling each one of us with an enduring sense of wonder.

Performers at The New Shanghai Circus School begin training at the age of 8.

She show has been the subject of a popular PBS documentary

In 1999 The New Shanghai Circus was the first company of Chinese Acrobats to perform on Broadway. They remained for a record-breaking 28 sold-out shows!

New Shanghai Circus performers train in the same school as China's Olympic gymnasts, but the inside joke is that "the short and ugly go to the Olympic games, and the tall and beautiful go to our troupe!"

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