The three main performers massaged each other and made jokes before starting the bike tricks.

My parents and I had the great fortune to stumble into an experimental bicycle circus while visiting GAM, the new Museo Gabriela Mistral that opened last year on the Alameda in the middle of Santiago.

GAM. Image via www.lunasuite.com

The show featured three main performers, a musician, and a master of ceremonies. The wife of one of the performers and her adorable son greeted us at the door of the tent. Later we found out that she was the choreographer.

The troupe is called Circo de A’Onde. The performers made all sorts of jokes in mime, and rolled around the tent, and climbed on top of one another, playfully. Then they brought out a customized bike and began to do tricks. The entire crowd was hypnotized. Even hyper little kids!

The show stopped abruptly after about an hour, and the performers started a feedback session. One performer’s two-year-old son ran up to the stage and started playing the drums and demanding daddy’s attention. Very cute.

“Great work.”

“Amazing show.”

At that point they explained that the show was all about the challenge of being a man in the modern world. And it took place in a lighthouse and on a ship.

“Hmmm…could you make the story a bit more explicit, so we can see the beginning, middle and end?”

This was a beta version of the show. A more complete version will premiere this summer.

I thought of the show when I read Jeff Jarvis’ essay “Beta Think” in the book End Malaria. Here’s Jarvis’ short post about the project:

Beta-think and ending malaria

Amazon, Seth Godin’s Domino, and other good folks collaborated to come out with a book of essays whose proceeds go to buy mosquito nets to end malaria. My essay for End Malaria Day is actually the topic of the next book I was going to do until I got all hopped up on publicness and privacy and wrote Public Parts. The essay is on beta-think. Here’s a snippet from the start:

 

* * * 

Voltaire was half right. “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien,” he said: The best is the enemy of the good. The best is also the enemy of the better. Striving for perfection complicates and delays getting things done. Worse, the myth of perfection can shut off the process of improvement and the possibility of collaboration.

That myth of perfection is a byproduct of the industrial revolution and the efficiencies of mass production, distribution, and marketing. A product that takes a long time to design and produce is sold to a large market with a claim of perfection. Its manufacturer can’t have customers think otherwise. The distribution chain invests in large quantities of the product and can’t afford for it to be flawed. Mass marketing is spent to convince customers it is the best it can be. Thus perfection becomes our standard or at least our presumption. But perfection is delusion. Nothing and no one is perfect.

The modern cure to Voltaire’s paradox—and a gift of the digital age—is the beta: the unfinished and imperfect product or process that is opened up so customers can offer advice and improvements. Releasing a beta is a public act, an invitation to customers to help complete and improve it. It is an act of transparency and an admission of humility. It is also an act of generosity and trust, handing over a measure of control to others.

Bravo to Circo de A’Onde for releasing a beta version of their bike circus, open to audience feedback. Jarvis is right: this is a public act of transparency, humility, generosity and trust.

Not to mention a highly entertaining show!

To see Circo de A’Onde in action, check out this YouTube video of a different show: