Spoleto Festival USA is one of the highlights of the year for Charleston, SC. I had heard of it when we moved here and when we got our brochure last year, I was excited until I saw the prices of tickets. As one of Doug's friend's wives said, you understand why people who have lived here their whole lives have never been. Most events are over $40 a ticket. This year, MUSC gave Doug a voucher for $20 and someone gave him theirs, so we went to the circus. It was a long and hot show (over 95 outside!) show-over 2 hours, but pretty interesting. We weren't allowed to take pictures during the circus, so this may be contraband even. They had lots of kids performing in the show and I found out that 3 of Doug's cousins were in the circus when they were little. Amazing! After the show, the performers stood outside to thank you for coming so I asked a couple of the kids how they learned all this. They said practice and good teachers, but I am still curious as to how they got started. How do you get a kid into the circus if you wanted that for your child? One of the kids was maybe 4 years old. He could do a flip just standing there. He was hilarious, eating up all the attention!
We also saw the flying Wallendas perform. I had heard of them, but wasn't sure why so I came home and read up on them. They are a very interesting family. Some of the performers we saw were 7th generation circus people. They did a 7 man/woman-3 layer pyramid crossing the high wire with no nets. The top girl sat on a chair. Pretty spectacular! They are famous though because at least 4 members of the family have died when falling from the high wire, but they still will not use nets or any safety gear.
When they were performing, the band played "Majesty" which I thought was kind of an odd selection, but reading about them, they are Christian. One of the guys actually goes to churches to walk the tightrope and then gives his testimony. God can use all talents!
