Flying with Cirque
Our reporter goes head first into the act.
Some work can flip a reporter out.
After watching straps artist Stephen Brine rehearse his watery number for Cirque du Soleil’s “Luzia: A Waking Dream of Mexico,” I wanted to know what it takes to fly like that. I fly in my dreams all the time, but that’s so fleeting.
Brine, a 27-year-old from Connecticut who has been with Cirque for about a year and a half, stars as an Aztec prince doing a moonlit, aerial rain dance. He flings his hair a lot, sending sprays of water arching out to catch the light as he spins toward the sky.
That requires whole body control, and a a strong, flexible back and neck so you don’t wrench yourself out of whack. Brine flies with just one hand in the strap while spinning like a tornado and flinging his body like a wet but beautiful rag.
But back to me. In a tent that holds the artists’ workout and warm-up areas (along with a physical therapy room, the costume shop and the lounge where they watch the show on a monitor), we stepped, barefoot, onto a mat below some straps and other hanging apparatus.
At first I’m thinking, I got this. But I can’t even tie a proper bow, and Brine wanted me to slip my fingers and thumbs through the straps in a particular way, then wrap them loosely around my wrists so they would become slings that tightened with my body weight. Did I mention that I usually type all day? My wrists are the weakest point of my body.
Brine told me to bend my knees to push off the ground, wherein I would hang there with my arms tight at my sides. On the third try, I finally got up, with him very close by, spotting me. Who knew I weighed so much?
It felt anticlimactic, but Brine deemed it good enough to try another challenge. With the straps raised above my head and my wrists still wrapped in them, but my feet touching the floor, he gently suggested I lift my legs and pike them up above my head. Somehow my feet obeyed, and in a second or two I was hanging upside down. No swinging. Just hanging there. I put my legs against the straps to help steady myself.
The world went catawampus around me, but for some reason this was easier than holding myself up straight. Also terrifying: How would I get down without wrenching my back and shoulders?
“Bend your knees in close to your chest, then straighten your legs,” Brine said. Right. My legs decided they wanted to go a way I wasn’t expecting, and I ended up in a deep, upside-down curl. Kind of like rolling down from a shoulder stand on a yoga mat. Just without the mat. Or the ground under it.
“You’re flexible!” Brine said. “You do that better than me.” He’s funny, that Brine. Also a good, very generous teacher.
So, what did it feel like to fly? Well, I can only tell you what it felt like to hang out: The world looked even more chaotic upside down, and blood rushed into my 62-year-old head. It was over so fast.
During the show’s opening Thursday night, Brine had the tension-of-the-Aztec-prince thing working beautifully. And there was flying every which way by other performers — most dramatically, the swing-to-swing aerialists truly did fly, with no straps, dizzyingly high. I could never attempt that. I’ll stick to flying dreams and leave the waking stuff to the pros.