The Shanghai Acrobat

Here’s a true story about something I once saw that changed the way I think about “failure”.

In 1985 I travelled to China, and one night attended a performance of the Shanghai Circus. In Shanghai, oddly enough. I had seen the Shangai Circus perform in Canada and the US before, and was a big fan. Their performances are a spectacular combination of acrobatics, dance, animal acts, juggling, contortionists, and magic; think Cirque Du Solei times ten, but with screechy Han music (not to everyone’s taste) and lots more ribbon dancing.

I was excited: this was a visit to their home centre, a combination school, business centre, and performance space. Our guide told us we were going to see something special that didn’t get performed outside China.

Like most Chinese theatres, the circus ring was large, old, a bit shabby, and jammed with people (to whom we Westerners seemed to be at least as exotic as the performances).

The show was breathtaking. But it was the last act of the evening that has stuck in mind for twenty years.

From his position on the program and the enthusiastic applause that greeted his entry, he was clearly an important performer. It wasn’t immediately clear why. He was a forty-ish, slightly pudgy guy, wearing a nondescript dark blue blue cotton shirt, loose cotton pants, and slippers, quite unlike the brightly coloured silks the rest of the performers wore. He was accompanied by a young woman with a large, covered cart.

The lights dimmed to a wide spot on him. He took a glass rod, about the length and thickness of a pencil, and balanced it on his nose.

His assistant reached into the cart, and handed him a pane of clear glass, about 16″ square. He carefully balanced it, flat, on the top of the glass rod on his nose.

She then handed him four wine glasses, which he slowly placed at the four corners of the glass square.

He then balanced ANOTHER sheet of glass on top of the four wine glasses.

Then he added a lit candle in a candle holder. On top of the glass pane, on top of the four wine glasses, on top of the first glass pane, all balanced on the glass rod on his nose.

With each new added layer, the applause got louder and louder – when he added the candlestick, most of the audience were on their feet.

His assistant then brought out a ladder. Not a step-ladder that folds open, with a solid base: just a ladder. He held the ladder in front of himself, and slowly, slowly, placed one foot on the first step. And then he stepped up, balancing himself on the ladder, without support, with the entire tower of glass still balanced on his nose. The audience gasped, then roared.

Then he took a second step up. Then a third; and the whole works came crashing down. He maintained his balance on the ladder, stepped carefull down, took his bows, and departed.

As we headed out to our bus, I remarked to our guide/translator that that was the most extraordinary act of its type I had ever seen. “Too bad he didn’t get to finish it”, I said.

She laughed.

“He NEVER gets to finish it,” she said. “Every night, it ends with a crash like that. It looks like a failure. But it’s not. It’s what happens because every night, every show, he’s pushing himself right to the edge of what he can do, and then just a little more. And every night, every show, he gets a little further.”

True story. Draw your own conclusions.