In this tent, suspended high above you, there are people. Acrobats, trapeze artists, aerialists. Illuminated by dozens of round glowing lamps hanging from the top of the tent like planets or stars.
There are no nets.
You watch the performance from this precarious vantage point, directly below the performers with nothing in between.
There are girls in feathered costumes who spin at various heights, suspended by ribbons that they can manipulate. Marionettes that control their own strings.
Normal chairs with legs and backs act as trapezes.
Round spheres that resemble birdcages rise and descend while one or more aerialists move from within the sphere to without, standing on the top or hanging from the bars on the bottom.
In the center of the tent there is a man in a tuxedo, suspended by one leg that is tied with a silver cord, hands clasped behind his back.
He begins to move, extremely slowly. His arms reach out from his sides, rst one and then the other, until they hang below his head.
He starts to spin. Faster and faster, until he is only a blur at the
end of a rope.
He stops, suddenly, and he falls.
The audience dives out of the way below him, clearing a space of bare, hard ground below.
You cannot bear to watch. You cannot look away.
Then he stops at eye level with the crowd. Suspended by the silver rope that now seems endlessly long. Top hat undisturbed on his head, arms calmly by his sides.
As the crowd regains its composure, he lifts a gloved hand and removes his hat.
Bending at the waist, he takes a dramatic, inverted bow.
