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A day in the life of ‘Zumanity’ biker chain acrobat — VIDEO

Updated August 20, 2017 - 8:06 am

Brandon Pereyda once dreamed of becoming a doctor.

Now, there are days when he needs a doctor. Which is understandable, considering what he does for a living: hanging from a chain, high above a showroom stage, suspended by his arms, his back, his heels, his chin.

As “Zumanity’s” resident biker character, Pereyda performs 10 shows a week, 470 shows a year, in New York-New York’s Cirque du Soleil show.

“There are some mornings when I wake up and feel like I’ve been hit by a bus,” Pereyda admits during a pre-show interview. “My lower back takes a pretty good pounding from the chains. My ankles get extremely worn and bruised. My elbow, inside my elbow, there’s a drop that I do — the skin is torn sometimes and ripped open.”

Then again, he has no one to blame but himself for his aches, pains and chains.

That’s because the self-trained aerialist — one of the few Las Vegas natives featured in Cirque’s Strip productions — created his “Zumanity” act himself.

Pereyda, 33, joined the cast almost a decade ago, after Cirque officials invited him to audition.

He’d been performing a hoop routine in “Chippendales: The Show” at the Rio (he joined the show at 18) and was “very comfortable with my clothes being off,” so the chance to expose his talents in Cirque’s racy production (Cirque bills it as “an erotic thrill ride”) was irresistible.

Just one problem: When a “Zumanity” role opened up a few months later, it was a dance role.

Pereyda told them, “ ‘I’m not a dancer, I’m an aerialist. You know that I’m an aerialist.’ ” They knew; they just wanted him in the show so he’d be there when an acrobatic slot opened up.

A few months later, he segued from dance pas de deux, assuming his current role. His predecessor wasn’t an aerialist, however, so Pereyda created the distinctive chain routine that continues to dazzle audiences.

“They wanted me to create something that was special and unique to ‘Zumanity’ that hadn’t been seen before, so I went to the drawing board and designed an apparatus for the show,” he explains. Although the uniqueness factor is “really cool,” it also was a struggle because he knew he had to create something amazing.

The result: “a very high-impact number” that “really gets the show revving in the beginning,” with “a lot of ‘wow’ moments for some of the tricks that I do.” Sometimes those “wows” turn into “eeks!” because “it scares a lot of people,” he said. “I think it gets the adrenaline running.”

And not just for the audience.

When Pereyda appears, “40, 50, 60 feet in the air,” high above the audience, “it’s like the revved-up personality of who I am,” Pereyda acknowledges. “Sometimes I drop in and I don’t even know who that person is, because it’s so intense.”

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