On Tuesday night, Cirque confirmed for me, two aerialists were injured at the 7:30 showing of Zumanity at New York New York. They plummeted to the ground during their routine in front of the audience.
To those who have seen the show, the accident occurred to the couple who perform the "Ariel Silk" segment. The male performer was released from the hospital and the female performer is still at University Medical Center. Her name has not been released.
A magician once told me that his most important rule is to never do a trick on stage that is more dangerous to perform than the audience realizes. In fact, magic works on the opposite principal: Things are meant to look dangerous while being perfectly safe. Siegfried & Roy are the most famous example of violating this obvious rule. I don't think anyone understood before the mauling of Roy that it really was only Roy's magic protecting him from attack each show and that those lions, as is standard now, had no tether or other restraint to keep them out of the audience beyond predictability, instinct and Roy.
But in the world of acrobatics things are exactly as dangerous as they look. That, in part, is what makes Cirques' casts so talented and their five shows in Vegas so breathtaking.
Aerialists are one of Cirque's additions to the Vegas entertainment scene, too. Fashionistas creator John Stagliano, whose show also uses aerialists, once told me he was directly inspired to use them by seeing Cirque. He isn't the only one.
Anyway, awing people is what Vegas does best in shows. That is why audiences love aerialists. But nothing is more important than the safety of audiences and performers. Cirque has decided
to suspend the 8 minutes of "Ariel Silk" from Zumanity while they review the routine's safety.
This might also be a good time for some of the smaller shows, with fewer resources and less experience than Cirque, especially those working with aerialists, which have added acrobats in recent years (many being former Cirque performers, of course) to review their safety procedures as well.
Late Friday afternoon I spoke with Renée-Claude Ménard, director of public relations for Cirque du Soleil, about the Zumanity acrobat who was injured last week during an aerial routine. I called her after being told two previously unreported details: The injured woman was a new arrival to the Zumanity cast and that Cirque had already concluded the accident was human error by viewing the video. I also wanted to find out how long it took for Cirque to send help after the performer's fall, because audience members present have said a full minute went by before someone from backstage appeared to assist her. 
