Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy acrobatic team wowed the audience on Monday displaying their skills of balance and acrobatic moves in an open air programme held under the banyan tree at the Suhrawardy Udyan at Shahbagh, which has become popular as Chobir Haat.
The show was organised as part of the month-long 10th founding anniversary celebrations programme of Chobir Haat, a platform for artists and cultural activists.
The artistes presented several tricks and games including roller balance, hand skill, neck iron bar, ring jump, rope round, mouth skill, cycle balance, human pyramid and others in the 75 minute show. A very risky trick was neck iron bat, which involves two men climbing and rolling on a huge iron frame placed on the neck on a man. The show was so daring that the audience unconsciously made exclamatory sounds out of amazement.
Another very striking game was rope round skill, played by two men. The artistes whirled two buckets full of water tied at two ends of a rope. They jumped, sat or even lied down, but never stopped spinning the buckets, and amazingly not a single drop of water spilled out of the buckets. Wind jump was another entertaining game at the show. The game involved several men jumping in different postures through a small plastic ring. While human pyramid was played by many artistes where each artiste displayed their balancing skills by standing on another’s shoulder and creating a triangular, pyramid like human tower.
A very funny game that made the audiences blast out in laughter was played by two artistes, who quarreled for one chair. The artistes, who acted like clowns, comically fought and somersaulted to be the first to sit on the chair.
People from all walks of life enjoyed the show with the same delight. Nazrul, a businessman, said, ‘It is surprising to watch how people do such extra ordinary tasks,’ said Nazrul.
Toufique-Ul-Rashed, a student, said it was beyond his imagination that local acrobatics artistes can do such daring acts.
-With New Age input
