A Cirque Like No Other

Sometimes it seems like every other show to hit Miami is Cirque This or Cirque That. You might think you’ve seen enough cirque shows in Miami, but until you’ve witnesses a grown man squeeze his entire body through a hollowed-out tennis racket, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Mind-blowing contortionism is...

By John Thomason

January 2, 2014

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Sometimes it seems like every other show to hit Miami is Cirque This or Cirque That. You might think you’ve seen enough cirque shows in Miami, but until you’ve witnesses a grown man squeeze his entire body through a hollowed-out tennis racket, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Mind-blowing contortionism is just one part of Cirque Zuma Zuma, John Jacob’s international production, which has cornered the market on African cirque shows. There’s also juggling — using not only hands but also feet, and with materials such as tables and barrels — high-flying aerial stunts, Olympic-caliber pole climbing, and human pyramids, which rise and then topple just as gracefully. All of this happens to a soundtrack of African music, its tribal rhythms lending a unique pulse to the action. This appearance will include performers taken from Jacob’s cast of 120, plucked from 16 African nations after graduating from training schools in Kenya and Tanzania. Jacob has described the Zuma Zuma concept as “part Cirque du Soleil, part Harlem Globetrotters,” but even that doesn’t seem to do the talent justice.
Fri., Jan. 3, 8 p.m., 2014

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