City News

For the first time in four years, the shaolin monks, legendary warrior monks of China’s Shaolin Temple, bring their unique display of physical feats to the UK with their hit show Wheel of Life. Direct from the fabled Shaolin temple in the foothills of the Song Shang mountain range in China’s Henan province, 20 Shaolin monks and five young trainees will be taking to the stage to demonstrate their martial arts expertise in an awe-inspiring performance. The show tours eight venues throughout the UK from 25 October before a three week run at London’s Hackney Empire from 4-22 November.

The shaolin monks are the ultimate masters of Kung Fu: Buddhist soldier monks who have refined defensive martial arts over a period of fifteen centuries to a rare and spectacular point of perfection. Wheel of Life showcases the near-miraculous feats of physical endurance, which are the outward expressions of an inner peace, harmony and iron will.
    
Wheel of Life tells the inspiring story of how the monks’ loyalty to their Emperor was betrayed, of how they were almost destroyed, and how five young monks survived to continue the Wheel of Life.

This is a show that combines the rich vocabulary of the Chinese theatre, the traditional iconography of oriental Buddhism and the technical sophistication of the contemporary rock arena. But at its heart are the awe-inspiring skills of the monks themselves.

Their art enables them to shatter wooden staves which attackers smash against their heads, arms and legs, balance the entire weight of their bodies on sharpened spears, perform handstands on two finger tips and break bricks and iron bars against their heads. They spin on their heads, bend their legs around their ears, turn inside out and fly through the air in a series of incredible back flips with a dizzying facility that defies belief.