At the festival grounds in Yangon I headed to a colorful fair of food stalls, game booths and carnival rides. A giant Ferris wheel was powered, not by a motor, but by eight young men doing death-defying leaps around the wheel. They jumped from one rung to the other in the direction of the turning wheel, to keep the momentum going, and when it was time to stop, they would leap from rung to rung in the opposite direction.

There were plenty of people near a bamboo scaffolding where some vendors had set up booths. Sword swallowers and fire-eaters were performing their feats beside a puddle of gray filthy water.

As I weaved through the crowd, making my way to a giant tent, a barker called out the program for the evening’s entertainment. I bought a ticket and squeezed into a vacant spot on the floor in the middle of the huge tent. Hundreds of people were already seated on the floor. Many families had spread their evening meals on mats around them and were enjoying their fragrant, spicy dinners while watching a puppet show on the red velvet stage. Marionettes bobbed heads in the famous Hindu saga the Ramayana, the story of Prince Rama rescuing his beautiful princess Sita from the demon king Dasagiri.

After the puppet show, the master of ceremonies introduced the circus troupe and four men appeared on the scene to the rumble of the 21 drums of the patt-waing. They unfolded a safety net, each raising a corner, until it was positioned under the trapeze. The sound of the saing with its gong section, bamboo cymbals and xylophones intensified the atmosphere with musical suspense as a young man and a girl appeared in the spotlight and bowed to the audience. The spotlight split and followed each of them as they climbed a knotted rope on opposite ends of the platform to their trapeze.

The drums rolled once again as they leapt off their platforms and swept through the air, the young girl releasing her trapeze, performing a double flip in the air and for a brief moment suspended in flight as her hands gracefully reached for the safety of her partner’s strong, firm hands. When their fingers touched, he failed to get a grip. A wave of shock drifted across the room.

To everyone’s horror, the young girl’s body plunged toward the net. I held my breath. The security crew pulled the net taut and raised it as high as they could, but when the young girl hit the net, it collapsed to the ground with the force of her falling body. The stoic security crew quickly, but gently wrapped the motionless body in the net, carefully picked it up and carried it away.

A composed master of ceremony made a brief announcement and the orchestra immediately ushered in trained monkeys riding bicycles, smiling clowns walking on stilts and a group of acrobats doing flips and somersaults.