Circus, also known as horse play, originated from the ancient Roman arena.
Nowadays, most of the performances are animal taming performances, mainly giant animals such as ligers, bears, and elephants.
There are also small animals such as dogs and monkeys, but they are not the finale of the show.
In fact, wild beasts themselves have spirituality, and after mastering their habits, they can be gradually tamed.
This kind of skill existed in the Han Dynasty of China.
In the Tang Dynasty, the level of performance reached its peak.
Among them, the "Tou Jian Men Ji" is particularly exciting, which is to insert swords upside down on the ground, divided into several levels at intervals, like the rafters of a house, with cold light shining, making the People are intimidated by the performance, and the performers ride ponies, galloping and leaping, passing by without any injuries, which is amazing.
However, "Tou Jian Men Ji" is only for nobles, and it is rare for ordinary people to see it.
In the old days, there were many folk artists who could also perform all kinds of strange tricks to please the people.
Some of them were good at training birds and insects, which was a rare method. , there seems to be some kind of secret technique that has been lost for a long time.
There is one called "Turtle Stacked Pagoda", which has seven turtles of different sizes.
The audience beats the drum as a command, and they climb on the table in order from largest to smallest.
Then the largest one stays still and the one smaller than it is The trumpeter climbed on its back until the seven turtles overlapped like a pagoda.
Each turtle stretched its legs and stared at the sound of the drums.
The appearance was quite funny, and the spectators all cheered and applauded.
There is another method called "Toad Theory", in which the performer draws a circle on the ground, opens a wooden box, and a large toad jumps out of it, followed by nine small toads, squatting in a row opposite to the big toad.
As long as the big toad at the head cries, the small toads in the opposite row will follow suit and crow, and they can also make gestures of nodding and saluting.
Another type is "ant horn martial arts", which involves training two types of yellow and black ants.
Each side chooses the largest ant as the general, puts up a flag as a signal, and arranges troops separately.
It is completely based on the ancient warfare method of "advance upon hearing the drum and ring the gold."
Then retreat."
The folk artist beat the first drum, and the two groups of yellow and white ants formed a formation; beat the second drum, and the two sides began to fight and fight.
After ringing the gold and beating the gong, the fighting immediately stopped; the drums were beaten again and the troops returned to camp; the four drums Line up to enter the nest.
It is said that the most unique one is the "spiritual bird drama", in which a wax-billed bird puts on a paper farmer's hat as a puppet, and is guided by the performer's mouth singing songs.
The wax-billed bird will imitate the actor's actions and kneel down for a while.
He stood up, then flew up and danced with a small flag in his mouth, full of strange changes.
The grosbeak is also called "Wutong" or "Copper-billed".
This bird has a nice and loud song.
Three types of grosbeaks, including "spotted wing, white wing, and black wing", can learn skills such as kissing and shooting after training.
Nowadays, these performances can still be seen at Spring Festival temple fairs in the north, but they are not as fantastic and unpredictable as the "spiritual bird performances" in ancient times
.
: