Anyone who's been reading this blog for long enough knows that I love Cirque du Soleil. For the longest time, Alegria has been the only show which I really love; I've only seen Quidam live, but I still love Alegria more. Dralion didn't really seem like a very coherent story to me and Saltimbanco didn't really do it for me either. So yep, I just remained stuck on Alegria and its beautiful Flying Man act and the contortion and the Russian bars.

Until during the recent exam period, I don't know why, but I did a search for Cirque stuff on Youtube and a whole lot on Varekai popped up. And then I saw the second most beautiful Cirque act that I've ever seen: the Fall of Icarus, Anton Chelnokov's aerial contortion in net act.

Icarus is a character from Greek myth that many people are probably already familiar with; Wiki it if you like. Cirque du Soleil takes the story of him falling from the sky and runs with it; Varekai is the result.

And Anton Chelnokov here tells the story of a boy who's fallen from the sky, lost everything, and now has to start all over again. This boy does things in a net 20 metres off the ground that most people can't even do on flat ground.



The act and the music together is just... love. Sad that he's not in the show anymore though; such a beautiful boy.

And for gratuituous ogling: