Cirque performer injured during Saturday show

Marisa O’Neil

A Cirque du Soleil trapeze artist fell to the stage during a Saturday

performance, breaking her wrist.

Cinthia Beranek, 28, fell from the trio trapeze 18 feet above the

stage during Saturday’s matinee performance of “Varekai” at the

Orange County Fairgrounds. Witnesses reported that she hit the stage

hard, alarming audience members in the 2,600-capacity big top.

Beranek was treated at a local hospital for a broken wrist and is

doing fine, Cirque du Soleil spokesman Tim Choy said. He did not know

how long she would be unable to perform.

Five women perform the act on a long, static trapeze separated

into three segments. In the act, a porter hangs from the trapeze and

suspends Beranek above the stage.

They work without a net or safety lines.

“But we do have two big blokes to catch us,” performer Sophie

Oldfield told the Daily Pilot in an earlier interview.

One of the originators of the trapeze act, Beranek appeared in the

Bravo reality TV series “The Fire Within,” which chronicled the

development of “Varekai.”

The Brazilian native has a background in dance, but started

performing on the trapeze in a Brazilian circus.

“When I told my parents, they said: ‘I thought you wanted to be a

dancer,’” she told the Daily Pilot last month. “I said, ‘I am. I’m

just dancing in the air now.’ But the first time I fell, they said,

‘You’re not going back to work on Monday.’”

She added that she has fallen in training but never on stage. The

trapeze, she said, “becomes your home.”

Performing on the trapeze fulfills her love of dance and her

tomboyish side.

“I always was kind of a boy,” Beranek said. “I liked hanging from

things, climbing from trees, I wanted to be in the air. This is still

like dancing, but I’m in the air, so it’s a very good match.”

“Varekai” is running through February at the Orange County

Fairgrounds.