The Moscow State Circus Will be Performing in Costa Rica.

The Circus of Moscow is here and it never fails to cause a sensation. I saw it many times when I was a kid in Paris, so I was more than excited with the prospect of seeing their show again. It was one of their smaller presentations, but the quality and the standards were all there. The only change I noticed was that there were no animals, which is of course a good thing.

The show started with a bicycle act; the artist was not a young man by any means, yet there he was balancing himself on his bike from as many angles as could be imagined. Then he made it more dangerous by placing the bike on a stand. At that point my grand daughter did not dare look. Indeed the poor man fell as he attempted to try an impossible position. It appeared that he had hurt himself, but as is common in a circus, he tried it again, and this time, with great success!

A contortionist was next and her grace and flexibility charmed us all. She made it look so easy yet some of these stretches and contortions were simply awesome. She was followed by a group of gymnasts performing an act I had personally never seen; it consisted of two men holding a long perch horizontally on which a girl performed various triple and quadruple summersaults, with great assurance and style.

The following trapeze act never fails to take one’s breath away as a woman threw herself in the air fearlessly. A bunch of young men gave a fantastic performance on the parallel bars; the six of them seemed to take flight and had the most amazing way of letting go and landing at an extraordinary speed!

One of the most spectacular sets was by a couple that performed a balancing act. The man was holding a bar and walking while the woman was perched on his head like a ballerina on the tip of her toe. The next move was breathtaking. She stood on quite a long, high perch, which he had placed on his head, and they crossed the stage balanced on the cable like that, her standing on her tiptoe or Pointe. At one point, he lost his balance slightly, the cable started to sway, and while the audience held their breath they both stood totally still, waiting for the cable to stabilize itself. Next they repeated the show on a perch he seemed to be holding in his mouth, but this time on a different cable; they went upwards on quite a steep angle, and then, when one thought it was over, he proceeded to walk backwards, alone this time, going back down to the other side.

Next a woman, an expert with Hoola Hoops, gave us quite a spectacle, twirling, rolling and throwing them in the air, using up to 50 of them together along her body. The final show was fast and very noisy. A bunch of motorcyclists raced in circles in a large cage in the shape of a globe, all going in different directions and crisscrossing at a crazy speed until it all became fast flashes of colors, yet never crashing! The entire show was quite exciting! My grand daughter loved the clown, of course, he made a funny presentation, always inviting the crowd to interact with him and putting them more often than not in some embarrassing positions.

Time flew by and before we knew it, it was over! The circus is in Zapote, by the bullring and has up to three shows daily. Prices range from $15 to $22 for adults, depending on the time and day of the week. Look for information about the “Circo Ruso” in the daily newspaper La Nacion, or on TV channel 7.

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Filed under: Living, Press Releases on September 4th, 2008