Today I saw the part of the show America’s Got Talent wher Ivan “Urban Action Figure” screws up at the beginning of his act, falls over some chairs, then apparently hits his head, knocknig himself unconscious for a few minutes. They took him to the hospital and everything.
I thuoght there was something strange about it. At the very end, he falls off the pile of chairs, then, it seemed to me, did some kind of weird “head summersault,” by which I mean, his whole body straightened and stiffened, and he did a kind of flip with the top of his head connected to the floor.
This last bit seemed like a deliberate, choreographed action. But, I figured, maybe he’s trained to stiffen his neck so it doesn’t bend and break? Or maybe the body naturally, reflexively stiffens when there’s a blow to the head? Or something?
Then at the beginning of the next episode (which aired immediately afterwards), they showed the incident from a different angle–straight on from the side–and in slow motion. They were continuing to treat it as a horrible, nearly fatal accident. But watching the action, it seemed completely obvious to me. He fell onto the chairs, then threw himself onto the ground, landing directly on his hands and elbows, and manouvered himself into the “summersault” I mentioned above. His head never hit the ground. It touched the ground, but in a completely controlled, non-violent fashion.
Anybody catch this? What reason could there be for staging something like this?
My wife theorizes that the guy screwed up, and improvised the “head injury” in a play for pity in hopes of a second chance. This seems somewhat plausible to me. I can even imagine that stunt performers have plans in place to turn major screw-ups into “near fatal accidents,” thereby converting a dissappointing performance into an exciting demonstration of the real danger involved in their performance.
Is this, indeed, plausible?
-FrL-