Notte Bianca Pt. 2
Later that night, we
went out with Dad and Marie. The four of us walked to the Spanish
Steps where there were throngs of people. Cirque du Soleil had
set up a stage ON the steps and was about to start when we got
there! Unfortunately, about 30,000 people had arrived before us
and there was no way we could see the show. In fact, when it
started, we were caught in a scary crush as people began moving en
masse towards the stage.
So we went up via the back way to the top of the
steps to see if we could watch. Sara and I waited until someone
left, and then we had a spot along the balcony looking out towards the
stage from behind. We had a mostly obscured view of the show.
But then a different drama began to unfold.
As I said before, at least 30,000 people were crowded into this piazza
to watch Cirque du Soleil. From the top of the steps, we could see all
the way down a popular shopping street that goes from the piazza
to Via Del Corso — probably half a mile. The entire length of the street
was full of people. Just the view of all those people was
breathtaking.
The act onstage was a stable of
C.d.S.: two people using incredible strength, balance, and
coordination to put themselves in seemingly gravity-defying
poses. The performers were in the middle of one of their most
striking and most beautiful poses: the man standing with his back
to the audience, bent slightly forward — and the woman upside down,
five feet in the air, perfectly vertical, with only the back of her
neck and shoulders touching the back of his neck and shoulders.
While the performers were getting
into this position, a process that takes about 5 minutes of careful
coordinated movement, an ambulance began to make its way from Via Del
Corso up to the Piazza. Its siren was really loud, drowning out
the amplified music of the show. We had a straight-on view of this long sea of people
parting as the ambulance came up the street, all while the performers did this
complicated move. The ambulance got all the way up into the Plaza
and then stopped.
Unfortunately, at that point we had to leave, but it looked like the ambulance was going to stay there for a while.
By the way, the performers finished
that move without a hitch. I don’t think they were phased in the least.