When was the last time you touched your head to your butt? How about balancing on a unicycle while wearing a straight-jacket?
The Solo Circus pulled out tricks, jokes and student volunteers onto the stage Thursday night in the Ceddia Union Building (CUB).
“There’s no way you drove all the way out her to juggle five balls,” performer Michael DuBois said the audience must be thinking as red orbs blurred high above his head.
DuBois is his own act for the Solo Circus and has done about 600 professional performances, but for Thursday’s act he was accompanied by contortionist Viktoria Grimmy, a fifth-generation circus performer.
Together, they put together a performance that included laughter on DuBois’ part and incredulous sighs for Grimmy as she twisted her body like a wad of Silly-Puddy.
Her bright smile, framed by deep red lips, hardly faltered in her precise movements.
DuBois was as much a circus performer as he was comedian, judging by the laughter bursting from the audience. His performance was not flawless, but included strategic mess-ups intended to make people laugh.
“If I don’t drop any [balls] by the end I just start trying stupid hard tricks,” DuBois said of his juggling.
For one act, DuBois said it was not at all dangerous for him, but it was for his assistant.
Senior Allen Koederitz was plucked from the audience, not realizing what he was getting into as he was told to lay down on the stage with his face toward the ceiling.
“By trust me, I mean don’t move,” DuBois said. “If you move, your nuts might get smashed.”
DuBois then mounted his 3-foot unicycle and began to circle Koederitz around his head and between his legs as Koederitz lay with eyes closed and hands protectively guarding whatever he did not want smashed.
“If it’s actually dangerous for me they’re going to make me sign a waver,” Koederitz said after the performance. Although he attended the Solo Circus when it came to Shippensburg University his freshman year, Koedertz said he did not remember that act being a part of the performance.
DuBois then put himself in a risky position. With two student volunteers holding his 6-foot unicycle steady, DuBois scaled to the top and then secured the ties to his straight-jacket. With arms locked to his body, DuBois wobbled 6 feet in the air on a single wheel that skimmed the edge of the stage.
After successfully ripping off the straight-jacket, Dubois jumped off the unicycle unharmed.
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