Mirror Online: A three-time Olympian gymnast has been seriously injured after falling during a trapeze show at the Cirque Du Soleil circus.
Lisa Skinner, 35, lost consciousness after falling from about five metres during the show in Brisbane, Australia today.
6 comments:
What is scary about this is that Cirque du Soleil has a lot of safety precautions in place to prevent these types of accidents from happening, but they still do. This may seem a little apathetic, but accidents happen every day in theatre; it just seems as though Cirque accidents are more prevalent in the news because the stakes are higher and the stunts are riskier. I do feel for the gymnast and hope she is ok, but I think this is one of the risks associated with deciding to join the circus. This article does not beg the question of will anything else be done to make the shows safer, but I am certain we will see articles about this in the future. This spotlight on Cirque is both good and bad because it makes it more difficult to put on acts due to the safety restrictions but makes the acts safer in the long run. I would guess that the only reason we are seeing information about this accident is because the artist is well known outside of the Cirque world.
I wish we had more information about what happened. I can see why they haven’t said much more because they don’t know her status at this point and are trying to get a statement together to produce to the press but this must be hard for everyone involved. I always get confused when an accident like that happens and the show continues after she is taken away. I understand that these people have paid to see this show and why should they stop the show altogether because of one person but sometimes it seems a little disrespectful. But to be honest I wouldn’t know how to handle it any other way. I know that her whole team on the production is worried about her and I’m sure she was greatly affected by it but it seems to be treading on a line of respect. I hope that she is well and can recover with time and nothing permanent has happened.
I’ve always hated reading accident or crime articles. They make me feel a little queasy, not only because the injuries are described but I imagine myself with those injuries. Thinking of myself accidentally falling while working is a hard thing to stomach. I get nervous when I’m up on the grid, because I can’t help thinking of myself sliding through the beams and plummeting. I can’t imagine how the audience members felt watching this poor woman being carted off by paramedics. I was surprised that the show continued after the accident, but I guess it makes sense, they audience paid for a full show, and if the performer who was hurt wasn’t in any other acts there’s no reason the show shouldn’t continue. That being said, I’m sure the audience was extremely shaken up for the rest of the show. I’m glad that Lisa survived her fall, and I’ll have to keep an eye out for future articles to see how her recovery is fairing.
I always feel like the first response to Cirque injury articles is to immediately wonder about and criticize the safety standards that were at play in a particular performance/theatre/etc. However, I really think that over time the pattern of performers being injured mid-performance begins to beg the question of whether or not these injuries are truly avoidable. It seems like similar and sometimes worse injuries occur during sports games (which certainly could be considered a performance of some kind, particularly when broadcasted on television), and yet no one seems to jump immediately to the notion that someone was directly responsible for the injury at hand. I don't agree with the idea that aerial acts of this variety can be made totally safe, and I know that the athletes who perform these kinds of acts for Cirque definitely understand the risks at hand. It would be interesting to hear directly from the performers who have been injured themselves in order to have a more clear perspective on these kinds of accidents.
This is one of the hard parts of performing a dangerous show. Part of the appeal of Cirque is that not only art the acrobats incredibly talented showing excessive flexibility, strength, and trust, but that they are performing dangerous acts. Something dangerous cannot be fully safe, and therefore it is inevitable that someone will be hurt. Thats part of the wonder of Cirque, is watching and having those moments where you hold your breathe because you don't know if that performer will actually be able to make that jump, or can actually lift something. I sincerely hope that it is a quick and full recovery physically for the performer, but I also wonder what the last psychological impact will be. I hope that if performing is what she loves and is passionate about that she continues and does not let fear of repeating stop her, but I also hope that she doesn't put herself at more risk to worsen the injury. From a management perspective I would like to know the protocol they followed when she did fall, I'm sure that something is in place, but with the (thankfully) rare occasions that it does happen, did they follow the standards or just react to what the situation was at hand?
It still amazes me when I see deaths occur at Cirque du Soliel. I am mostly shocked because of the extreme safety precautions that they have in place. When I was with cirque 2 years ago they showed us what looked like a giant tree- or should I say a forest- of flow charts with branches. They have things in place for situations like “If A fails we go to B and if B fails then C, and so on and so forth until it is determined that it is no longer safe to perform a certain act. They are so good with keeping in contact with performers as well. As a viewer, what you don’t know is that the performer is actually wearing an ear piece where they get an extremely precise live feed so that they can take their cue and if possible, modify their actions to represent different versions of the chart. It’s a true shame when they fail.
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