The Beijing News (reporter Liu Zhen) As one of the productions taking part in the 2022 Beijing Performance & Arts Group "Talent Performance Season", themed "New Generation · New Beijing Splendour", the special performance of "Astounding Skills", specially planned and presented by the China National Acrobatic Troupe, was staged on 30 September at the Beijing Dongtu Theatre.
The performance was built on a star cast made up of Cao Kai, champion of the television variety show "Astounding Skills", and a number of gold-medal-winning acrobats, restaging several "hit" acts from television variety programmes and newly created gold-medal acts by the troupe. It drew waves of cheers from the audience in the theatre and an enthusiastic response from viewers online, and the commentary and act-by-act guidance offered on stage by professional guests carried the show to its climax. This special performance of "Astounding Skills" innovatively adopted a format of "acrobatics in dramatic situations plus three-way dialogue". The acts combined artistry, storytelling and spectacle, vividly showing both the front and the back of the stage at the China National Acrobatic Troupe, as well as the new generation of young performers' fresh presentation of traditional acts such as ball skills, umbrella foot-juggling and diabolo.
The magic act "Secret Realm".
Magicians Hu Linglong and An Na together presented "Secret Realm", the magic act that won the "Golden Chrysanthemum Award", the highest honour in Chinese magic. Adapted and further developed from traditional dove magic, it conveys the cultural meaning of harmony between people, nature and animals, and its exquisite stage design and matching music make it visually striking. "Yu Linglong — Umbrella Foot-Juggling", performed by the five beauties of Linglong, takes its inspiration from the China National Acrobatic Troupe's classic act "Moonlight over the Lotus Pond — Group Umbrella Foot-Juggling". Performers Li Shengjing, Song Keran, Sun Jingyi, Zhou Jinling and Qiu Meng not only showed the audience high-difficulty technical moves such as passing umbrellas along a row, changing umbrellas in a side flight and passing umbrellas in the "reaching for the sea" position, but also broke new ground by performing barefoot, creating a thoroughly poetic scene in Chinese style that held the audience spellbound.
On the stage of "Astounding Skills", Cao Kai's "Passion · Tap — Ball Skills" achieved an innovative fusion of traditional Chinese acrobatics and Western dance: effortlessly controlled ball work and free, unrestrained tap dancing shifted with the rhythm of the music, bringing out the appeal of both acrobatics and dance to the full. Worth noting too is Xing Yunwei, who in "Bitter and Sweet — Head Balancing" silently "told" of his own original aspiration to pursue acrobatic art to its limits, and of the younger generation's pursuit of and persistence in acrobatics, showing the boundless possibilities of expression in acrobatic technique. "The Pretty Huadan — Group Diabolo", which has repeatedly won top international acrobatic honours such as the "Golden Clown" Award and the "Golden Crane Award", astonished the house in the fine performance of a new generation of diabolo artists — Li Liping, Liu Qianying, Li Anna, Tang Guangrui, Liu Yuan, Luo Siyu, Wang Yijia, Li Hanyi, Xia Wensi, Zheng Xiangqian, Guo Yajie and Yang Qing — and gave still more of the audience a deep sense of the distinctive appeal of the "new Beijing flavour" that emerges when Peking opera elements and acrobatic skill are fused and reinvented.