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Muscat: Omanis take pride in their old heritage and culture and that reflects amply when Muscat Municipality annual hosts Muscat Festival.
So much so that an American family sees similarity in their own family traditions and traditions followed for centuries in the Sultanate.
Floridian (from Florida state in USA) family of Nocks have returned to Muscat Festival this time to perform their daredevilry and gravity-defying stunts at the Festival Plaza in Azaiba.
“What we like about Oman and its people is keenness to preserve family traditions, like we have been doing for the last 160 years,” Michelangelo Nock, lead performer and owner of The Nerveless Nocks, told Gulf News.
He stressed that it was important to preserve once traditions and Oman was at the forefront in that regard.
The Nocks first came here in 2006 and would like to come again and again. “We’re so happy to be back,” he said.
The Nerveless Nocks (www.nervelessnocks.com) is a full service theatrical, stunt and circus company based in Florida, US. The entertainment corporation specialises in live action productions ranging from extreme thrill and stunt competitions and swashbuckling aerial adventures to ski, sky and stage themed shows.
The show is an all-family affair featuring Michelangelo, his wife Carolina, 16-year-old daughter Angelina, and nine-year-old son Cyrus, and well as Michelangelo’s brother-in-law Ramon and 18-year-old niece.
He said when he first came to the Middle East two years ago, he only knew the region from what CNN had to say. “I realised that this place (Oman and rest of Gulf region) was so different from what it was projected to us,” he said, adding that when he came to Oman, he felt like he was close to Florida.
“The smell of the ocean is the same at both the places and Florida too gets warm like here,” he said with a gentle smile.
After the darkness sets in, the Nocks take the field to perform their half-an-hour action-packed programme of aerial and ground-level escapades that takes ones breath away.
“Our stunts are like one-of-a-kind Hollywood stunts,” points out Michelangelo, who will kicks off the show with a fast-paced act involving a 60-foot revolving aerial pendulum - billed as the largest, original space-wheel in the world.
As the revolving pendulum begins to spin rapidly, the Nocks launch into a series of gravity-defying stunts, which they perform without any harnesses or safety devices.
“People do say that we are crazy to be doing these things, but we have been doing this for over 160 years and it takes a lot of training,” says the genial American as he starts preparing for the first show of the day.
While the Nocks prefer Oman to any other European destination that they have been to, in the neighbouring plot Russian acrobat entertain visitors to the Festival Plaza with their own brand of daredevilry.
“This is our sixth visit to Oman, we love to perform here and each time the friendly Omani people make our visits more memorable,” Natalya Radosteva, Company Manager of Russian Entertainment International from Perm in Russia, told Gulf News.
She thanked Hamoud Al Hashmi for facilitating their visits to Muscat Festival. “There’s a typically traditional charm to Muscat Festival and we like that,” she commented.
They perform for 15 minutes three times a day and children enjoy their shows the most as a clown entertains them with his antics while performing breathtaking manoeuvres on poles.
In reply to a question, Natalya said that the tradition of circus artists was still going strong in Russia. “We have children as young five coming to our training school and getting trained in circus acts, we have over 500 members,” she said.
It was all about keeping alive traditions, Nocks are keeping family traditions going, Russian group is keeping their country’s circus traditions alive while Omanis love everything that has been handed down from generations to generations.
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