WuqiaoRen.comAcrobatics

Foreign students learn acrobatics in China Wuqiao

Wuqiaoren — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 01:48:32 +0000

Under the Chinese government-sponsored exchange programs, twenty-four students from five African and Asian countries, including Egypt, Nigeria, Liberia, Mauritius and Myanmar, began in November their one-year training of acrobatics in Wuqiao Acrobatics Arts School, a vocational school well-known for its acrobatics performance in Wuqiao of north China’s Hebei Province.
Daily training began in a training hall as large as about two tennis courts in the morning of cold winter. Various basic skills of acrobatics, such as hand-stand, splits, straddle and somersault, were new to these starters, not easy at all. Repeating days after days and guided by their Chinese instructors with simple English words and various gestures, these students learnt Chinese acrobatics and sharpened their skills little by little.
Boring seems the acrobatic training, not their daily life on campus. Playing card games, listening to folk music and learning Chinese songs, surfing online to watch home movies or chat with families, and enjoying Chinese food or even ice creams at winter time, enriched their limited but relaxing spare time.
On the Christmas Eve, the school board held a party for these students with a small Christmas tree and some cakes in the dining hall. African students sang and danced while Myanmar students stayed quieter.
Known as the hometown of acrobatics, Wuqiao has received nine groups of foreign visiting students interested in this ancient Chinese culture since 2002. Among the total of 168 graduates so far, some turned to pillar actors or coaches in circus and some even started their own acrobatics school in their hometown, becoming cultural ambassadors on acrobatics promotion.

Tiger Kissing’ Animal Trainer: All in the Family

Wuqiaoren — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:47:21 +0000

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Tiger kissing’ animal trainer, who has also helped deliver the cubs, shares her simple formula of safety with Guo Shuhan

Chao Gaimin has been earning her stripes as China’s most famous woman tiger trainer with her “tiger kissing” stunt in 2007.

In this trick, the 29-year-old woman feeds a more than 200-kg Manchurian tiger a chunk of meat on a skewer which she clenches in her teeth. The big cat’s tongue nearly licks its trainer’s lips as it chomps the glob of flesh, flashing its 4 inch-long fangs in Chao’s face.

The crowd goes wild.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous,” she says, smiling. “I have to close my eyes and drum up my courage. I meditate before every show and hope it all goes smoothly.”

The woman rewards the tigress with a playful pat or loving hug. The way the creature relishes her affection makes it seem more like an outsize tabby cat than an enormous predator.

Chao was born as the third child of a poor family in Henan province’s Chaoxiaozhai village and was forced to leave school to help the family at age 14. She worked as a migrant laborer for the following two years, until a friend introduced her to the world of animal trainers in a local circus.

Since Chao viewed the animals she worked with – snakes, bears, monkeys and elephants – as family members, she proved able to train them quickly, she says.

This enabled her to land a job at the Wuqiao Qunyi Circus, China’s largest big top, in 1998. Qunyi was founded in Hebei province’s Wuqiao, the birthplace of China’s acrobatics and circuses, 19 generations ago and has remained a family business. The boss Yu Jinsheng claims it is the only circus licensed by local and central forestry bureaus to domesticate and breed performing animals.

Less than a month after starting the job, Chao began working with Manchurian tigers.

“Some of my colleagues envy my natural kinship with animals,” Chao says. “The secret is having the right attitude. I never physically punish them. And rather than look down on them, I speak to them as if I was chatting with pals.”

Of Qunyi’s 10 tigers, Chao is closest to 7-year-old Hu Niu and her mate, 8-year-old Hu Zai, who has been trained by her since he was 1.

Chao became the first Chinese to deliver tiger cubs when she helped Hu Niu through a difficult 10-hour labor. She took no extra precautions, even though she knew tigresses are particularly prone to aggressiveness when giving birth.

She and her husband, who is also an animal trainer, took over the care of two of the six cubs. The trainers slept with the cubs so they could feed them through the night.

Over the years, Chao has learned how to read the big cats’ moods by their facial expressions and sounds.

“If they’re happy, they’ll let their tongues hang out and narrow their eyes,” she explains. “And if they feel lonely, they murmur at night and gaze into the distance with a look of longing. When they growl, I know they’re rejecting my commands, so I let them rest rather than perform.”

She hasn’t had many close calls and only has a scar or two on her hands from tiger claws. The nearest she has come to danger was when Hu Zai, who weighs five times more than the 50-kg woman, pinned Chao to the ground when she disturbed the pair’s mating.

Chao says she isn’t afraid of being attacked.

She has heard about many trainers who have been mauled or killed by their tigers, such as German-American Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy. Horn was left partially paralyzed after being attacked by a 7-year-old white tiger on his 59th birthday in 2003.

“I never test my luck,” Chao says.

“I make sure my tigers are in a good mood and cooperative when it’s showtime and I firmly believe that if I respect them, they’ll respect me, too.”

Last November, the circus settled in Jiangsu province’s Suzhou for a half-year run in the Baixiangwan Scenic Spot.

But the two traveling entertainers don’t take their 5-year-old son with them to new locations. The little boy stays with Chao’s mother in her hometown.

While Chao’s mother is always concerned for her daughter’s safety, her son often boasts about his parents.

Chao earns 5,000 yuan ($732) a month and hasn’t yet planned for retirement, which usually begins in the 40s for animal trainers.

Until then, the lionhearted woman trainer will continue enjoying a career in which she has the tiger by the tail.

The 12th Wuqiao Circus Festival: The greatest show on Earth

Wuqiaoren — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:27:29 +0000

It’s a celebration of what the human body can do when a performer defies the force of gravity, locks a foot on a pole and extends vertically, arms akimbo and horizontal to the ground. It’s an affirmation of what human intelligence and mental strength can achieve, making bulky tigers jump through burning hoops, balancing drums on the soles of one’s upturned feet and even playing on them.

As the flag went down for the 12th edition of the China Wuqiao International Circus Festival (CWICF) on Saturday at Shijiazhuang, Hebei, each performance was also a story and a sublime experience.

A couple of gymnasts on the rope from China, flying, suspended precariously from a thick cord, showed their art in the form of a tragic love story, in a dreamy fairy tale setting. Paul Herzfeld from France invested his solo performance on the Chinese pole with a dark, brooding intensity. The straw-hat jugglers from Wuqiao Acrobatics Group, throwing their colored props to make garlands in the air, gave a happy, harvest feel to the show.

As Gen Funing, vice-chairman of the China National Acrobatics Association and chair of the jury at CWICF, says: “Circus is now a comprehensive art. There’s a focus on cultural issues. Lots of modern elements and drama have been incorporated. Chinese novels are being told in the form of Russian ballet, engaging elements of Chinese acrobatics.”

The hoop divers from Guangzhou, for instance, who throw themselves through rings at up to 3 m from the ground, are dressed like gladiators. The gymnasts from Liaoning province combine ballet with hand balancing, the lead player fluttering like a butterfly on a giant lotus, perched atop four tiers of fellow players arched on their backs.

Named after the acrobat’s hub in Wuqiao, Hebei province, the festival began in 1987 and has been held every odd year since. It has not only grown in size (over 200 performers from 22 countries participated this year) but also in terms of styling, technological input and international recognition. Barbro Nordstrom, artistic director with Ludvika Mini Circus in Sweden, feels CWICF is on a par with Monte Carlo, recognized as the biggest of all entertainment festivals.

The CWICF, says Dong Baojin, who first came to the festival in 1987 as a gymnast, performing the balancing act on a stand 10 m above the ground is “a bridge between China’s best and the world’s finest. Any international acrobatic festival today would be incomplete without Chinese participation.”

The range of innovations that Chinese acrobatic performances present to the world is overwhelming. Comedy is blended with foot juggling and shadow play, gymnastic skills with singing in a high-octane Hebei opera. Fifteen girls plant themselves on a running bicycle, fanning out on either side and manage to stay on course. It could be somewhat intimidating for a first-time performer.

“I am a little apprehensive before I go up on the human pyramid,” says Lin Shuai, an 18-year-old hat juggler. “But since the first show I am confident, in total control of my body movements.”

But skilled performances and spectacular dramas are only part of the story.

“We want to create the atmosphere of a happy carnival, even as we aspire toward creating a cultural industry,” says Xin Jieli, CWICF deputy director. “Those selected to perform here are China’s first rate acrobats. This is a platform to introduce them to the world through agencies, circus directors and impresarios from all over the world.”

The effort has paid off. Barbro Nordstrom has been attending CWICF as a member of the jury since 1989. She can’t stop gushing about the Hebei acrobats who have been invited to perform in Sweden three times. It’s lucky to be` a gymnast in China now, she says.

“Ten different circus schools may be performing the same tricks but each in its own style and character,” she says, adding that the Chinese always had top-class technique, now they have also learnt to package it well.

In fact, if Chinese performance directors have picked some of the sophisticated equipment and technological skills from other cultures, some of them are also leaving their own imprint on Western traditions.

An adorable satyr sporting a cute goatee scampers around in the aisles between set changes. He daintily kisses a lady’s hand, and then does a double summersault in the air, landing precisely on the stilts, concealed under the hairy costume, towering four feet above the crowd, astonished and eager.

Christopher Keller, from San Francisco Circus Center, who picked up the concept and the skills of playing Pan from master teacher Lu Yi has taken his training as a gymnast to the next level by adding the “clowny bit”.

“I am a huge fan of Greek mythology,” he says, “especially Pan, the only god who dies. But there’s no social message. This is just for fun.”

Contrastingly, for Sean Rooney, the CWICF is not just about showcasing amazing human feats. Dressed in bulbous pajamas, and wearing a red cherry perched on his nose, Rooney might look like just another comedian. But the performer from Toronto, Canada, who created a giant figure of the lion Zhuang Zhuang, the cheerful CWICF mascot, came to the festival with a mission.

“In the future flags will be replaced by balloons as a marker of peace initiatives,” says the creator of balloon installations, claiming that balloon art can help “loosen polarizations and dissolve divisions in a society” because of its positive association with childhood and innocence.

If you have been to the CWICF, maybe the next time you read about conflict resolution or climate change, you will think balloons.

The 12th Wuqiao International festival runs till Sunday at Shijiazhuang, moving to Cangzhou thereafter, where it will run till Nov 13.

Jing Haixing contributed to the story. By Chitralekha Basu (China Daily)

Opening Ceremony of the 12th China Wuqiao International Circus Festival

Wuqiaoren — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:26:41 +0000

The 12th China Wuqiao International Circus Festival opened on Saturday in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province.

More than 220 acrobats participating in the 9-day festival are from 22 countries and regions including Russia, the US, Canada, France, Australia, Italy, Switzerland, and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. 32 performances will compete for the Gold Lion Prize, one of the most prestigious prizes under the big-top.

The audiences are treated to traditional breathtaking programs such as the “Flying Man”, or the “Grand Seesaw”, and “Wirewalking”, along with some brand new programs that represent recent developments and innovations in the profession.

There’s “Electronic Screen Juggling” from the US, “Comic Trick-cycling” from France, and “Singer on Silk” from Australia. In addition to the large-scale competition, there will also be public performances, charity activities, and an international circus forum.

The festival was first launched in 1987 and is held every two years. This comprehensive international meeting of circus professionals is jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Hebei Province, in hopes of promoting the exchange and growth of acrobatics at home and abroad.

Ancestor of China Hand Skill: Yiliao

Wuqiaoren — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:36:21 +0000

It’s said that Yiliao was Song country in the period of Zhao Emperor in Xizhou. He was the first artist we known in acrobatism art. Before 3000 years, he could cast and receive nine bells adroitly, and he was still the outstanding even if he compared with modern artists. So he was worthy of the ancestor of hand skill.

There are many legends for Yiliao in history. It’s said that in period of Spring & Autumn, Chu country trespassed on Song country and two countries began a war.

This war was drastic very much, and the double solders were all at swords’ points and embattled. A bleeding affair would be happen at once. At this emergent moment, Yiliao risked the dying danger, and came to the front of the armies with hair disheveled aimlessly. He played the hand skill actually! He cast and received the nine belled adroitly, and the nine bells in his hands were flied up and down.

All of this make all the soldiers daze and fix their eyes on the play. They stood like puppet fixedly, cheering and handclap infatuatedly, and most of all, they forgot the war! After the brilliant play, the morale of soldiers was disappear and they were all praised Yiliao. A drastic without battle war was end easily.

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