This Saturday, Jan. 28, marks the start of another Chinese year of the rooster. Depending on which calendar one observes, it'll be New Year's Day of either 4654, 4714 or 4715. Traditionally, celebrants dine on communal hot pot, seafood and cured meats. They exchange packets of money or other gifts, wrapped carefully in red - the luckiest color in Chinese culture. They hang firecrackers, pose for family photos (all dressed in red, of course) and toast each other with various auspicious phrases. All too soon, however, as is sadly true of New Year's celebrations in many cultures, it's time to get back to work. On the morning of Monday, Jan. 30, that's exactly what the jaw-dropping circus performers of The Peking Acrobats will do at the Pantages Theater in downtown Tacoma.

The Peking Acrobats are a troupe of performers who've earned international fame and approbation. They derive their name from a pre-1958 English transliteration of Beijing - which, in turn, is not only the capital of the People's Republic of China, but also the earth's third-most-populous city (after Shanghai, China and Karachi, Pakistan). They first toured the West in 1986, quickly expanding their American audience via TV specials - in both two- and three-dimensional versions - and the recent trilogy of Ocean's Eleven heist films. Yet nothing beats seeing them live, as enraptured spectators around the globe have eagerly attested. Curmudgeonly critic Clive Barnes of The New York Post, for example, described The Peking Acrobats as "the kind of athletes capable of doing twenty-one impossible things before breakfast ... (They) push the envelope of human possibility." In other words: superheroes.

For example, The Peking Acrobats hold the world record for the so-called "Human Chair Stack," in which six acrobats balance on a leaning tower of furniture 21 feet above the floor with no safety gear. Seven performers balance on one another, grinning and waving ornate fans as one acrobat wheels the septet around on a bicycle. Then there's the contortionist who performs her act while balancing glasses of wine on her feet. And you thought mastering the downward-facing dog was impressive.

For further incentive, note the ridiculously low cost of a ticket, equivalent to a bargain-day Marvel matinée. It's The Peking Acrobats' 30th anniversary show in North America, so they're pulling out all the stops. Yes, of course there'll be a dancing lion puppet, a Buddhist character symbolic of spiritual renewal and the reversal of ill fortune. Expect aerial stunts, a human pyramid, and enough spinning plates to lure Ed Sullivan back from the dead. Best of all, you'll start your own year by paying tribute to the "Hundred Entertainments" popular in the court of China's Han Dynasty. If that seems an abundance of entertainment, consider: Since that era, the Chinese have had about 2,200 continuous years to perfect the craft. It kind of puts the 37-year history of Cirque du Soleil in perspective, doesn't it?

THE PEKING ACROBATS, 10 a.m. and 12:15 p.m., Monday, Jan. 30, Pantages Theater, 901 Broadway, Tacoma, $7.25-$8.25, 253.591.5890