Chris Higgins
Unbelievable Chinese Acrobatics
by Chris Higgins - May 19, 2010 - 3:58 PM

If you watch one completely insane acrobatics video today, let it be this one. Want to see people doing things that don’t seem physically possible, jumping and tossing each other through the air, always landing perfectly? Want to see it happen over and over and over until you think you might lose your mind from the majesty and insanity of it all? Take a look.

(Also, if you know anything about the source of this video, please leave a comment. I got it from Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Click of Zen.)

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Click here to get a Risk-Free issue of mental_floss magazine
Comments (11)

  1. I was gasping at the part at 2:30.

    I might be wrong, but at 4:18 it looks like someone landed incorrectly and had to climb up a little to get where he was supposed to be… but that’s practically the only POSSIBLE flaw that was noticeable.

    Amazing!

    posted by Elissa on 5-19-2010 at 4:38 pm

  2. We got a grease man!

    posted by Mike on 5-19-2010 at 4:53 pm

  3. Are we sure this is in China? Our culture sits quetly during performances. In China, the audience continues to chatter and move about during the entire thing. It drives me mad. What makes these people more polite (by U.S. standards not their own.)

    posted by Kristy on 5-19-2010 at 5:26 pm

  4. Kristy — actually I’m not sure at all, that’s just a guess based on the language (appears to be Simplified Chinese) from the YouTube posting. Google claims the video is entitled:

    Spring Festival. Acrobatics “trial sky high”

    I think Spring Festival is part of the Chinese New Year celebration, but again, I dunno really where this video came from, or who these acrobats are.

    Looking at the audience shots at the beginning and end might give more clues to someone intimately familiar with Asian cultures.

    posted by Chris Higgins on 5-19-2010 at 6:06 pm

  5. SWEET FRAKING JEEBUS!!!!!!!!

    posted by Drew on 5-19-2010 at 6:07 pm

  6. This performance was a part of the 2010 Chinese New Years Gala. The Gala is a live tv show spanning several hours show broadcasting on New Years Eve.
    Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCTV_New_Year‘s_Gala
    This particular performance was

    posted by Jack on 5-19-2010 at 6:33 pm

  7. oh my word. OH MY WORD. there is no way that’s possible… I can’t even believe my eyes!

    posted by kelky on 5-20-2010 at 12:52 am

  8. Wow.

    posted by christina on 5-20-2010 at 8:35 am

  9. It’s awesome and it’s epic, but…I wonder what kind of training those kids are subjected to to reach that ability. :/

    posted by Ashley on 5-20-2010 at 10:25 am

  10. @Kristy: what “makes these people so polite” is the fact the ticket for this gala is *extremely* hard to come by. They are normally not on sale. Many of the people in the audience are state and/or local officials, their family or fiends. The audience who continues to move and chatter at the event you were at probably couldn’t get tickets.

    Also, this thing last for many many many hours. So depending when this act came on, the audience might have fallen asleep by then.

    posted by Lisa on 5-22-2010 at 4:39 pm

  11. This clip is from the China National Acrobatic Troupe DVD entitled “Splendid.” the group performs and competes internationally. the disk Whic is supposed to be a DVD is actually an enhanced CD (which accounts for the poor video quality. Furthermore it is in a somewhat propriety format. My windows & system system identifies it as in .ldl format, which is a Windows sequel server log file format. The recording itself, which does play on my Asus/W7 box, will not play on my Sony Blu-Ray player. The disk was bought at a performance in Worcester, MA by my brother. Since he could not view it he sent it to me to examine. The troupe has a web site http://www.cncircus.com if you wish to investigate further. As to the video, I can come up with only one word to describe it – AMAZING!

    posted by Tom Perry on 11-19-2011 at 4:51 pm

Comment

commenting policy