We're pathologically social. We're professional leisurists. We're burrito lovers, bar flies, art whores and music nerds. We dish the good dirt, and we'll risk a parking ticket for a cheap sample sale. Sometimes, we blog drunk.
Weekend of Ward: Cirque Berzerk run extended
“Wait, are you near the huge exploding fireball?”
I’m on the phone with my date, who’s waiting for me in the shadow of a circus tent in a field near downtown. Flinching past a crane rigged with a flame thrower and through a crowd of urban hippies in Burning Man bellbottoms, it’s difficult to tell the performers of Cirque Berzerk from the audience. Until I realize our usher isn’t wearing pants. Just a leotard and a top hat.
We nab seats in the front row, the lights dim and so begins an hour or so of choreographed experimental dance numbers, Goth chicks in hotpants, trapeze routines, and cirque members climbing ribbons of silk like monkeys wearing Hot Topic. There's also a contortionist who gives me psychic back pain. When my date notices that my hands are sweating, I’m forced to stammer a hypothesis about the circus and its effect on people with tendencies toward mild anxiety. That woman clinging with one hand to a bar 15 feet above us? I’m sorry, but it freaks me out.
Cirque Berzerk’s run was set to end this past Sunday, but after selling out their first weekend of shows, the L.A.-based troupe convinced the Parks and Rec department to give them an extension for shows this coming Friday and Saturday, August 1 & 2. So if you missed it last weekend, you’ve got one more chance.
After all, it’s not every day that you get to watch a man dangle from his feet, swinging a flaming mace. At least not where I come from.
Click here for a link to tickets »
Click here for a photogallery of this weekend's Cirque Berzerk run »
Click here for a story on the resurgence of the circus...and what it has to do with George Bush »
Click here for more circus troupes coming to town »
And click here for classes on learning the circus arts »
See you under the big top,
Miss Alie Ward
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