Cirque du Soliel...Now THAT's true Athleticism

Well, on Friday evening, I left directly from work and headed Downtown to the Bicentennial Park to see Cirque du Soleil's "Varekai" (the 4 p.m. show). I had a bit of a time getting there, however, because, as anyone who lives in Miami knows -- Downtown, with all its dizzying construction cranes and hideous traffic, it's easy to get lost. I use Miami-Dade's public transit system quite frequently, but I've never had any reason to deboard the Metro Mover at the 11th Street station, so I got a bit lost trying to find the entrance to the Bicentennial Park. Of course, the 15 minutes I spent wondering around Biscayne Boulevard was well worth it! The show was a brilliant display of physical cunning, musical wonderment and just overall fun. I honestly felt as if I had been carried away into another world, another place. In Romani "Varekai" means "Wherever", and I certainly felt as if I was taken to a netherland where constraints of time and reality do not exist.

After seeing the show and being amazed at how these performers are able to contort their bodies into such amazing, awe-inspiring positions, I realized that that is "true" athleticism. Forget American football or basketball. The kind of acts that these Cirque du Soleil actors were able to pull off transcends anything that Shaq could ever do. Perhaps I'm being too harsh on traditional sport, but not only are most "team" sports boring, they certainly don't have the capacity to take me away to netherworlds as the Cirque du Soliel shows have.

I'm giggling in my mind. Could you just imagine seeing Shaq in one of those outfits? Now, that wouldn't take me away to a netherworld, per se, but certainly to a comedic one. : )