Thursday, June 11, 2015

"I Can't Watch!" - Gymnasts on Stone Pavement - Wednesday, 10 June



I’ve written before about the surprising, delightful and unexpected entertainment you find on the streets here.  It might be a drum corps with jugglers on stilts (Drum Parade) or an installation of bustiers (Bustiers) or a huge range of musicians in the Métro (Klezmer Band) or a rollerblader with very fancy footwork (Rollerblader) or who knows what! 

Well, this afternoon the “what” was a group of about eight very brave gymnasts/drummers taking their act up and down the stone-paved rue Montorgueil. There I was, drinking a café and minding my own business, when they set up shop right across from me. Shirtless and very muscular (with several of them sporting knee braces), they proceeded to leap and karate-kick and perform aerial flips and twists and other maneuvers that I don’t know how to describe, while their pals gave them rhythm on drums and tambourines.  Did I mention that they were doing this on stone pavement? (No wonder that some of them were wearing knee braces.)  I almost had to avert my eyes, I was so afraid that one of them would break something. (I can't handle circuses either.)   

I should have pulled out my camera right then, but fear of capturing a gruesome scene prevented me!  They did move around the corner, and I managed to capture a few seconds of video for you.  But you should have seen them up close, and YOU should have captured video that I could watch later (once you could be assure me that it didn’t contain any nasty injury scenes!).



No comments: