I tried out for Cirque du Soleil’s wild, high-flying holiday show — here’s how the dizzying experience turned out

When it comes to capturing the spirit of Christmas, there are few grander ways to celebrate than by seeing Cirque du Soleil’s holiday show “’Twas the Night Before…” at Madison Square Garden. 

The seasonal spectacle, based on Clement Clarke Moore’s classic poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” features 26 artists, plucked from a global ensemble of 1,200 world-class acrobats, who go through grueling training to perfect the high-flying, dizzying and just plain dangerous stunts in the shows.

So when I was asked to “try out” for the Garden’s troupe, my first thought was: I haven’t done gymnastics since the fifth grade. 

Yet as I watched clip after clip of cast members catapulting and somersaulting through the air with an ease I’d typically reserve for flipping through Netflix, my second (surprising) thought was: Let’s do this!

Show writer and director James Hadley, while impressed with my gung-ho attitude, confirmed that my glaring lack of athletic prowess was atypical of an aspiring Cirque artist, who must have “a variety of acrobatic skills,” such as being able to tumble and “flip off” of a surface such as a table.

With no tumbling (much less flipping-off-a-table) skills to speak of, I had no idea how I would make it through, much less keep all my limbs intact.