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At
left,
Wayne Huey demonstrates his skill at juggling, one of
the traditional elements of Chinese acrobatics, as well
as of western circus arts. Above, Nancy Huey
works with the diabolo or Chinese yo-yo.
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Feats of equilibrium
are frequently part of circus and acrobatic performances.
Above, Wayne grips one stick in his teeth and balances
a second stick (with a glass and flower balanced precariously
atop it) on its tip. He gradually
shifts position so that the sticks meet end-to-end in
a full vertical, then slowly returns them to a perpendicular
arrangement.
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At left
and below, Wayne performs
one form of contortionism, in which he maneuvers his
doubled-over body into and out of a narrow hoop and
a tight barrel. This act is sometimes called the "barrel
squeeze play."
PHOTO, left: Pico
Van Houtryve, SF
Examiner, used by permission |
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The "unicycle bowl
flip," demonstrated by Nancy, above and at right,
demands the mastery of several skills at once: riding
a unicycle with one foot, balancing an ever-taller, increasingly-wobbly
stack of bowls on her head, and kicking and catching on
her head several bowls at a time. Each successive flip
is done with a greater number of bowls--and the bowls
already caught are stacked high upon her head. As the
stack of bowls on her head grows taller (and thus less
stable), Nancy must exercise greater care to keep them
from falling. At a certain point, she must catch the flipped
bowls blind, since she cannot look up without dropping
those already perched on her head. Nancy holds the world
record for this trick, and her feat was broadcast on the
Guinness
World Records television show in 1999.
PHOTO, right: Pico Van
Houtryve, SF Examiner,
used by permission |
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