Cirque du Soleil is known for doing incredible things with the human body. Now it’s doing incredible things with quadcopters.

In a collaboration with ETH Zurich and its Swiss spin-off company Verity Studios, Cirque has gussied up a brigade of drones to look like lampshades floating about their creator’s workshop. I’ll leave the rest for the video.

I’ve been to a couple of live Cirque shows in the last few years. Each time, there was at least one act that left me scratching my head, trying to figure out how the hell they pulled some act or another. If they’re starting to dabble with automated props that can whiz around the stage or above the audience, these shows are going to get crazy(/crazier).



Here’s the behind the scenes:

[via BoingBoing]