CMU School of Drama


Saturday, September 06, 2014

“O” performer injured during show; “Doing well”

www.cirquefascination.com: A Cirque du Soleil acrobat, whose name has not been released, was injured during a performance of “O” at Bellagio on Wednesday, August 27th after hitting the stage while dismounting from the show’s Russian Swing act.

3 comments:

seangroves71 said...

It is great to hear that the performer is doing well and has been released. None the less its unfortunate such an incident happened but such is the life of acrobats. This accident seems to be a singularity, any acrobatic stunt that requires a performer being launched in excess of 20 feet in the air there is always the chance of an accident. An accident is just what this may have been. People will ask "well why wasn't there any safety gear? why wasn't there a crash pad?" its because these are trained professionals who are highly skilled at these performances and for the history of the show with an act as dangerous as the Russian swing it is impressive that nothing else has happened. In fact this is the only recorded incident with Cirque's Russian Swing since 2008 when a performer in training willingly disregarded several safety regulations and let to his own death.

Lastly my biggest issue with this article is the statement "struck the padded concrete stage", either the artist struck padding or the artist struck concrete. I love when news articles try to and fluff their reports of incidents with statements like these.

Unknown said...

Another one? Cirque Du Soleil is pretty good about safety but injuries in out industry are still pretty common. In a lot of cases things could have been done safer and there might have been precautions that could have been taken. I doubt there were for this one though. In performances like this there is often nothing that can be done. If someone is going to flip through the air then the best you can do is make sure they ground underneath is padded. Since it was this seems to have been handled pretty well. The performer is okay and the show went on as it always does. (unless its Spiderman). As Sean points out, the phrasing here seems to be trying to make it look worse than it is. It sounds like the performer hit a pad, it seems a little silly to mention what was underneath the padding, unless you are going for dramatic effect.

Drew H said...

So I guess they are human after all. I have never seen Cirque Du Soleil live, I have seen videos and similar acts but never the real thing happening right in front of me. Needless to say, from what I have seen, they are incredible. I can't help but wonder what special effect they are playing. How can anyone risk themselves to such a degree? Are they all that good that they can just perform stunt after stunt after stunt without even wiggling the slightest bit of balance or off line? Well, the answer is, apparently no. Now, they are that good, to be able to perform those stunts perfectly the amount of times they do is incredible. But, as it turns out, they are human after all. Now I do feel bad for saying this, but I think it is good someone got hurt, ok, that does sound wrong, It terrible that someone got hurt, but at the same time it makes me appreciate the production that much more. I now know that you can be hurt and I see hundreds of people time and time again not being hurt and I just appreciate the realization that these performers are human. I know this sounds bad, and it is bad that I'm saying this, but I do kind of believe in what I'm saying. I appreciate Cirque more, now that I know someone got hurt. (but I'm really glad the performer is doing well).