Most Boulderites who stroll along Pearl Street are familiar with the city’s colorful cast of street performers. There’s Peter Irish, the juggler and weapons wrangler who makes spinning a burning chair on his forehead look easy. There’s Masterblaster G , the tap-dancing trumpeter dressed like he’s on his way to prom. The iconic ZIP Code Man, who can guess your hometown with slightly unsettling accuracy based on five little digits.
But no day walking in downtown Boulder ever felt complete without a sighting of Ibashi-I, the contortionist who could fold his 6-foot frame into a plexiglass cube with proportions not all that different from a tote bag.
Even among Boulder’s most storied mall performers, Ibashi-i stood out, mostly because he was often not standing at all. He’d be folded in half, or in thirds, or fully folded into a little pretzel that made it hard to believe that he had bones and not string cheese for a skeleton.
Throughout his act, he kept up a running commentary, mixing dry humor with bits of his Rastafarian worldview. He would remind people to stretch, to take care of themselves, to be generous and to eat fruits and vegetables, all while bent into positions that didn’t seem conducive to breathing, let alone talking and cracking one-liners…