The global limited aerial performance of “Cirque Bijou” from the UK is now at the Taiwan Lantern Festival and each night, their performance attracted thousands of audiences packed at the equestrian arena. Jade Kindar-Martin, a world renowned high-wire walker, is especially featured who created two Guinness World Recorder on high-wire walking, respectively, in 1997 and 2004 including crossing the Thames River in the UK and the Han River in Korea. He particularly created the fire-wire performance and has been known as one of the bravest men in the world. He amazes many audiences.
He is the wire-walking man! Jade Kindar-Martin, a Guinness World Recorder was born in Vermont, the US and joined the world’s famous youth circus, Circus Smirkus at the age of 14. At the age of 18, he entered Royal Canadian Family Circus, Canada. Up until now, he has accumulated 32 years of high-wire walking. He is brave and skillful and with only a pole, he manages to balance himself on the high-wire. Because of his unique creation of the “fire-wire” performance, he became known to the world.
In his past 32-year circus performance life, he has created many world records including the performance with his partner, Didier Pasquette, in 1997. They jointly crossed the Thames River in the UK with its length of 430 meters. In 2004, he crossed the Han River in Korea alone at the length of 1 meter. With these two rounds of performances, he created the Guinness World Records and has been second to none. Although he is so skillful and experienced, this time in the Taiwan Lantern Festival, he insists on practicing on the site five hours earlier before the daily scheduled performance. He demonstrates professionalism, persistence, and insistence required for the high-wire walking performance.
Jade Kindar-Martin said he arrived in Taiwan ten days earlier than the date of the first performance to work with the Taiwanese technical team to build towers and set up wires and relevant gas equipment. He in the beginning was concerned with the team’s experience, but after their cooperation, he was impressed by the team’s professionalism and efforts. His concerns for the performance were replaced with trust.
Talking about his thought towards the performance in the Festival, Jade Kindar-Martin frankly shared his joy for being invited to Taiwan. He had a brief visit to Taipei a couple of years ago and this time he has the opportunity to stay in Taiwan longer and to interact with the Taiwanese artists. He especially felt excited in his performance after feedbacks that were given by passionate audiences.
He said, “this is one of the best performance experiences that I ever had!” Other circus artists also highly recognized the skills and designs of the Taiwanese artists and they also said the Taiwan Lantern Festival presented the best and the most beautiful lighting environment. They would also like to thank the support of the Taiwanese team and they all liked Taiwan!
According to the Bureau of Cultural Affairs, the performance stage is the cooperation product between last year’s Festival Supplier Award Winner of Best Visual Spectacular, the British Cirque Bijou and Taiwanese top theater technician team. They jointly built the 11-meter high dual-tower rope, equivalent to the height of two floors. Fire is incorporated into the performance to lead the audiences to the challenge of adventure and fantasy.
“The Glorious Night” performance lasts for 16 days along with the exhibition time in the main exhibition area at 19:00 every evening in the “World of Arts” Exhibition Area at the Houli Horse Farm Park.
Alcohol hand disinfectants were provided by the staff at each entrance and exit of the equestrian arena and visitors can come to enjoy performance safely. For more information, please visit the official website of “the 2020 Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taichung” (https://2020taiwanlantern.tw).