ACROBATIC LIFE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 33, 16 August 1890, Page 6

ACROBATIC LIFE.

eF acrobats the equilibrists are the most artistic. The gymnast excites admiration by the marvellous development of his thorax and limbs and by the relief of his muscles. The equilibrist does not require the same effort in his work. The beauty of the performance lies in the delicacy, variety, facility and grace of the artist’s movements, ft is because of this that women excel as equilibrists. Men cannot reconcile themselves to the suppression of strength for the sake of skill and grace, and therefore take second rank as gymnasts. The lowest step of the equilibrist’s art is the globe performance. Walking upon the rolling ball backward and forward and dancing upon it are the ab c of the profession. This elementary accomplishment is therefore never used, except when some new invention or complication adds to the difficulty of the feat. Among those the most noted are the ballasttub and spiral ascent. The latter resembles the winding turn upon a screw and is twisted round a mast twelve or fifteen feet high. The ascension is not so very difficult, but the descent gives trouble. It is necessary to restrain the enormous wooden ball always on the verge of escaping, and the feet patter frantically, vibrating like the sounding-board of a mandolin. But the spiral is not likely to become popular. For if continued too long it spoils the shape of the leg by undue development of the calf. ° A TIGHT-ROPE DANCER. It is easier to become a globe spiral ascensionist than a tight-rope dancer. Only after much patience and many failures can the equilibrist run easily across her narrow path. All the strength of the rope dancer lies in the back and legs. The apparatus used is simple, and has not been improved upon since the days of Nero. The cord is raised upon two crossed sticks at each end, forming two xs of different sizes. The xat the back is highest, so that the back of the performer may be rested at intervals on the incline. Thesecondxbearsthe * objectof sight,’ from which the dancer never moves his eyes. The fiist time the dancer attempts to cross thecordheissupported bystripsoneitherside. With the balancing pole held in both hands he fixes his eyes on the object of sight and turns his feet out as much as possible. After a few months’ practice he can dance a little. After this the other exercises come slowly. The ‘ walk forward,' the ‘.jyalk backward,’ the ‘ dangerous spring forward,’the ' spring backward,’ the ‘horse spring,’ and the ‘ spring from one plot to the other,’ make up the classic series of exercises. After this the dancer must use his wits and devise new feats to amuse his patrons. LADY IBRAHIM’S FEATS. A noted performer from the Orient was known as Lady Ibrahim. She was raised to a high platform from which she started far above all heads. Once there she opened a Chinese parasol which she used as a balance. Then she stepped upon the nickel-plated wire. When she reached the centre she caught a steel hoop in its flight : for a second she placed it behind her head, then slipped it over the head and slowly made it glide down the whole length of her body to her feet. After other feats she capped the performance with a promenade on a plank balanced on the wire. After repeating a number of feats on the plank she picked it up and carried it off upon her shoulder. ACROBATIC SPECIALISTS. The first business of a family of acrobats is to perfect each member in some special branch of the profession, for an artist who would become famous must be a specialist from birth. But at the foundation of all Specialities are a number of exercises which consist for the most part of an innumerable number and variety of somersaults, culminating in the ‘ triple somersault, ’ which is the realisation of the highest am bition ofthe carpet acrobat. But there are other individuals, not strictly acrobats, who are worthy of quite as much interestas the regular performers. Among thesearethecontortionist, the India-rubber woman and a lovely ‘serpent man,’ J. H. Walter by name, the only one of‘his kind. The former are sometimes known as ‘ boneless acrobats.’ They are all dislocated. There are some naturally disarticulated men, and a beggar in Paris was celebrated" as the ‘ humpback of the Port d’ Austerlitz.’ This mountebank caused his hump to pass from his back to his chest as he liked. The vertebral column turned without any effort from back to front and from front to back again. ’The skeleton of this man is now in the museum at Paris. But this man was an exception. DISLOCATED MEN. Dislocated men are usually manufactured, and the manufacture is begun during infancy. Nobody knows the secret of the contortionists, but it is supposed that the bones are joined naturally, not by articulations, but by a fibrous membrane. This is very flexible and capable of great tension. The natural, anatomy is developed by training, and the human ball is the result. J. H. Walter, the so-called serpent man, is an interesting example of what morbid ambition can do. He is as flexible as a serpent, and apparently there is not a stiff bone in his body. He can throw his head backwards until it touches the back of his knees. Almost every grotesque and seemingly impossible position is successfully assumed, until finally he drops his feet and knots them under his head, and in this attitude, with staring eyes and rigid open lips, he resembles a skull on crossbones. THE SERPENT MAN’S FATE. A curious spectator once asked him what the women thought of him. His answer is almost heartrending in its pathos— ‘ Sir, you will guess that I did not obtain this complete flexibility in a day. On the very morning of my birth, my father commenced to bend my joints. I grew up with the idea that I would be the greatest disarticulated artist of the country, perhaps ot the ages. I never had any other ambition. I have all the appearances of a strong man, my chest is wider than yours, but I conceal beneath it the lungs of a child. "They are stunted by the daily pressure of my thoracic cage. Consumption threatens me and will carry me off* very early unless I break my neck in the circus some evening, which I should certainly prefer.’ In which preference all merciful people will certainly concur.