by montréal perche » Sun Oct 18, 2009 7:51 pm
Hi,
Indeed, people from le cirque du soleil thought about using the pole vault for their shows. Since their headquarters and main trainining center is in Montréal, I was contacted by them to coach their acrobats and some of their coaches how to pole vault ( at the end of 2006). So I work with 5-6 confirmed acrobats, 20ish or so boys and girls. For about 4-5 months, they came to our indoor facility twice a week. Their goal was to jump and be projected high enough to execute some figures ( Somersault, twist, etc..). At the end, we practiced at thier training center, in a foam pit. They had put a track good for 10-14 steps and a box right on the edge of the pit. One of the guy could do back and front flip, adding sometime a twist. I also serve as an adviser for their scenic set up. They were to have a covered box on the scene and the acrobat would have taken his run on some inclined plane. What did not work for them was the security issue. Dont forget that they have no pit on the scene, only a 10' by 10' or so foam mat that they move around during the act.... the landing was not controled enough and they never tried it on their scene set up. So it was a good coaching experience for me and I think they still have the idea of doing something with what they learned, sometime...
By the way, Le cirque du Soleil does a trampoline number like the one on the video. Sadly, one of their acrobat, a Ukranian, just killed himself, landing badly , this past friday.
Montréal perche...