Fall At Zumanity

Left: Las Vegas Review Journal file photo.

Always a performance danger:

Audience members watched in horror Tuesday night as two performers fell 15 to 35 feet during a "Zumanity" show at New York-New York.

One of the Cirque du Soleil performers injured in the fall, a woman, remained at University Medical Center's intensive care unit in critical condition on Wednesday. The other, a "little person" named Alan Jose Silva, was treated for minor injuries Tuesday night and released from the hospital, said Anita Nelving, spokeswoman for Cirque du Soleil.

While details of the accident varied slightly from witness to witness, one consistent comment was that the audience was aghast.

"It was traumatic," said Glenda Andress, a Dallas resident who was at the show.

The accident occurred near the end of the 7:30 p.m. performance. Witnesses said the woman was hanging 15 to 35 feet from the stage on a long white drape during an "aerial silk" segment of the show when she lost her grip.

As she plummeted to the stage floor, she knocked Silva off the same drape. He had been hanging onto it about a foot or two below her. Both hit the stage with a resounding thud and bounced several inches into the air, witnesses said.

"We thought that was just how the act ended. But I thought no. They hit really hard," said Veronica Harris, another tourist from Texas. "Our bodies are not meant to have impacts like that."

The spectators gasped loudly after the performers hit the ground, and as the woman and Silva moaned in pain on the stage, witnesses said.

Cirque du Soleil staff began assisting the performers about a minute after the fall, witnesses said. They took the performers away on stretchers as people in their seats looked on in dread.