Peking’s yin and yang

The male performers in the Peking Acrobats show are almost always in motion—tumbling, leaping through rings, engaging in mock battles with spears and breaking stacks of bricks. The women, on the other hand, are often fixed, perching on stacks of chairs or the heads of male acrobats with practiced, static smiles, their elastic bodies bending like twist ties as gentle, melodious music plays and dry ice fog roils over the stage. It’s a compelling and beautifully orchestrated dichotomy, making for a performance that’s not just physically astounding but a theatrical wonder.

A Saturday night Peking Acrobats performance at the Eldorado Hotel Casino’s Showroom began with a group of male acrobats scaling, spinning on and sliding down two lofty poles as thunderous drum music played; for the next act, the lights dimmed and female acrobats entered with earthenware vessels, which they balanced gracefully on their bodies. As the show progressed, the acrobats suffered only a couple of blunders, blunders that came with particularly difficult stunts. Such reminders that the acrobats do indeed put their bodies at risk heightened the excitement.

One of the show’s most charming acrobats was also its youngest, a seemingly boneless girl who is probably 12 but has uncannily grownup poise. At one point, she was used as a human jump rope and, at another point, she balanced a stack of bowls between her feet, brought her legs around back to her head, rested the bowls on her head and her feet at her ears—all the while balancing on a man’s head with one hand and smiling broadly. When she came down, she flailed her arms and legs in a little-girl dance, a bizarre contrast to the unbelievable act of balance and concentration she had just accomplished.

The show’s more intentionally charming, dynamic acts were not always the most fascinating. Toward the end of the show, two female acrobats performed a balancing act played out so slowly that watching its buildup was almost agonizing: One woman lay on her back, her legs in the air. Her feet supported a plank upon which rested four glass bottles, and on the lips of the bottles rested a chair. Chair was slowly stacked upon chair, with a second female acrobat—dressed in bright blue spandex, an outfit uncharacteristic of the normally elegant women’s costuming—standing on top of the chairs. With the successful addition of each new chair, the acrobat swept out her arms like an angel bringing good news, waiting for the audience to respond with applause. She put her hand to her ear, her beautiful, painted face bearing an unwavering, expectant grin, yet the audience remained hushed.

Amid the leaping and bounding of the male acrobats—stunts that the audience cheered on without reservation—this balancing act was somehow exceptionally tense. The acrobat’s feat had already become so incredible that, with each new chair, the audience, holding its collective breath, seemed to want to tell her to stop. As the acrobat reached the Showroom’s high ceiling, two giant video screens came down, revealing a huge, washed-out image of her face. As the melody of a flute, set to a wild, mounting beat, filled the room, the acrobat’s smile, magnified on screen, was strange and haunting.

A male performer might have frowned in concentration, yet even as she shifted her weight to one arm and balanced, the female acrobat continued to smile, and the audience persisted in its quiet discomfiture. It was a wild, uncomfortable, unforgettable moment that made all the show’s leaping and bounding pale in comparison.