The tickets are pitched almost as sky high as the acrobats, but Cirque du Soleil's show, Saltimbanco, promises gasps from the family as well as the bank manager when it opens on Tuesday in the huge 'Le Chapiteau' Big Top tent at the former Tamar site in Admiralty.
The Quebec-based circus company has arrived in town with 132 people, 60 containers, 800 tonnes of equipment and a bright and spectacular choreography reminiscent of Alegria - the show that took Hong Kong by storm three winters ago - but with less of a dark side.
Plenty of jugglers, trapeze artists, bungy jumpers and multi-coloured creatures. Tickets $690, $559 and $359 from 183 6888. Handling charges are $18 a ticket.
Boxes of fine artistic value American artist Joseph Cornell was famous for his boxes - in which he presented big concepts in small display cases. Now, as part of the City Festival, the University of Hawaii Art Gallery has organised an International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition, which includes 18 small-scale sculptures-in-a-box by artists from the United States, Japan, Korea, Peru and France, at the Fringe Club Montblanc Gallery until January 27.
On Sunday afternoon from 3pm to 5pm, Hawaii gallery director Tom Klobe will give an illustrated lecture on how these shows have attracted interest from artists and museums around the world. It is one of many talks in a busy workshop-lecture series at the Fringe Club this weekend, called Creative Rap. Other events worth catching are Automatic Writing (English Sunday 2pm; Cantonese Saturday 2pm) by Linda Lai of City University, and Generating Support for the Arts - a talk by Julia Rowntree, director of the London International Festival of Theatre Business Arts Forum, tomorrow at 10am.
On the more active side, Michael Finch of Circus Oz promises to teach a lucky 21 participants How To Be Creative in Life-Threatening Situations on Sunday morning, while Hong Kong's Harry Wong will give a workshop tomorrow at 5.30pm (Cantonese) and Sunday at 4pm (English) on 10 magic tricks that might be useful in a business-negotiating situation. Call 2521 7251.