{"id":30,"date":"2004-09-27T03:16:17","date_gmt":"2004-09-27T07:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/2004\/09\/27\/notte-bianca-pt-2\/"},"modified":"2004-09-27T03:16:17","modified_gmt":"2004-09-27T07:16:17","slug":"notte-bianca-pt-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/2004\/09\/27\/notte-bianca-pt-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Notte Bianca Pt. 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Later that night, we
\nwent out with Dad and Marie.  The four of us walked to the Spanish
\nSteps<\/a> where there were throngs of people.  Cirque du Soleil had
\nset up a stage ON the steps and was about to start when we got
\nthere!  Unfortunately, about 30,000 people had arrived before us
\nand there was no way we could see the show.  In fact, when it
\nstarted, we were caught in a scary crush as people began moving en
\nmasse towards the stage.  <\/span><\/p>\n

So we went up via the back way to the top of the
\nsteps to see if we could watch.  Sara and I waited until someone
\nleft, and then we had a spot along the balcony looking out towards the
\nstage from behind.  We had a mostly obscured view of the show.<\/span><\/p>\n

But then a different drama began to unfold.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nAs I said before, at least 30,000 people were crowded into this piazza
\nto watch Cirque du Soleil.  From the top of the steps, we could see all
\nthe way down a popular shopping street that goes from the piazza
\nto Via Del Corso — probably half a mile.  The entire length of the street
\nwas full of people.  Just the view of all those people was
\nbreathtaking.  <\/span><\/p>\n

The act onstage was a stable of
\nC.d.S.:  two people using incredible strength, balance, and
\ncoordination to put themselves in seemingly gravity-defying
\nposes.  The performers were in the middle of one of their most
\nstriking and most beautiful poses:  the man standing with his back
\nto the audience, bent slightly forward — and the woman upside down,
\nfive feet in the air, perfectly vertical, with only the back of her
\nneck and shoulders touching the back of his neck and shoulders.  <\/span><\/p>\n

While the performers were getting
\ninto this position, a process that takes about 5 minutes of careful
\ncoordinated movement, an ambulance began to make its way from Via Del
\nCorso up to the Piazza.  Its siren was really loud, drowning out
\nthe amplified music of the show.  We had a straight-on view of this long sea of people
\nparting as the ambulance came up the street, all while the performers did this
\ncomplicated move.  The ambulance got all the way up into the Plaza
\nand then stopped.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, at that point we had to leave, but it looked like the ambulance was going to stay there for a while. <\/span><\/p>\n

By the way, the performers finished
\nthat move without a hitch.  I don’t think they were phased in the least.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1453],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jackstriptoeuropestories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}