My name is Mikhail Bogdanov. I was born on June 8, 1985 in Kiev,
Ukraine. I can speak Russian and English fluently. I don't really have much
of an accent because I've grown up around English speaking people. My
mother, Irina, however speaks English with a rather thick accent.
Does it bother me? Well not really. I suppose it would if I went to a normal school with normal kids but since I don't, I've just kind of accepted it as just one of those things.
We tour around the country playing various venues. Sometimes we are in an arena, other times we're a mud show. A circus performer learns to roll with the punches and accept what has been given to him.
I am one of the Russian acrobats in the Circus Boheme. Sonja and I are the youngest Russian acrobats. She's from St. Petersburg. We are flyers in the Russian bars and the banquine act.
The Russian bar is a long flexible piece of wood a couple of inches across. Two porters hold the bar on their shoulders while the flyer stands on top of the bar. The porters launch the flyer and send him flying into the air. We do flips and twists before we land safely on the bar.
The banquine act is different. It involves no props other than human agility. My favourite part is when Sergey and I are launched across the stage while Elena dives over us. We pass each other so closely that I can almost touch them.
Yeah, we hurt afterwards. There's a saying among acrobats: If an acrobat wakes up and nothing hurts, chances are he's dead. Pain is just a part of our everyday lives because nothing we do is normal. It's not normal to be launched through the air and expected to land on a thin, wooden bar a couple of inches across. We walk on pins and needles to entertain the audience.
I shouldn't expect you to understand these things. I gave up years ago trying to explain to outsiders why we do something, day after day, that causes so much pain. No one seems to understand why I sacrifice a normal life for something that'll only last until my late thirties tops.
They just don't know what it means to fly. That's what my mom tells me and I guess it's right. When I do my trick, I am launched high into the air and for a moment, time stands still and I feel like I'm flying. Then I hit the ground and am forced back into reality. It's that insane high we acrobats live for.
I'll tell you something my English and History teacher, Mr. Mischke, told me: Passions always seem strange to people who don't have them. After all, he says, there are people who can't balance a checkbook to save their life but can give the batting stats of anybody who's played in the World Series.
Mr. Henrie, the director, always tells us to perform with everything we've got. Invest every tear, every ache, everything both beautiful and ugly about our world. Sometimes it's tiring being a performer because regardless of what personal trials we may be going through, we have to put them aside for the time being and go onstage and perform. I should be grateful I'm not a clown. Clowns seems to be the most tightly wound people and often before show time, they're the ones snapping under the strain. They're supposed to go onstage and make everyone laugh and they're bawling! Somehow everything works out and the performance goes splendidly.
After every performance, our coach, Boris Semenov, goes through and criticizes our performance bit by bit. He's almost a stereotypical Russian, loud, quick-tempered, and always demanding nothing short of perfection. It's very rare one ever gets a compliment from him. Sonja and I sometimes mock his thick accent. We whisper to each other, "Vhere ees moose and squirrel?" trying to see how outrageous we can make our accent.
After criticism, we fight over who gets the first massage. It's not only a fight between the Russians, but also a fight between the Chinese and American performers. Usually Mr. Henrie comes and breaks it up.
My mother is the masseuse; she used to be an acrobat until she grew too old. It's rare that a female acrobat's career lasts beyond her early thirties. Once her acrobatic career fizzled, she learned how to give massages and that's how she earns her living.
Life here isn't too different from regular kids. We attend school from 10:30 to 4:30 or 10:30 to 2:30 depending on the number of shows we have in the evening. In between we practice. Meals are served at 8:30, noon, and six every day. Our six' o'clock is usually our lightest because that's around performance time and during a performance, we don't want our bodies to weighed down by a huge meal.
Mondays, we are free to explore around the city and just hang out like normal kids. I hang with a couple of the Chinese performers. People may marvel about how people from so many different parts of the world can coexist so peacefully but it's just life here. When you're crammed in such a tiny area together, you have no choice but to tolerate the people you're crammed with.
Does it bother me? Well not really. I suppose it would if I went to a normal school with normal kids but since I don't, I've just kind of accepted it as just one of those things.
We tour around the country playing various venues. Sometimes we are in an arena, other times we're a mud show. A circus performer learns to roll with the punches and accept what has been given to him.
I am one of the Russian acrobats in the Circus Boheme. Sonja and I are the youngest Russian acrobats. She's from St. Petersburg. We are flyers in the Russian bars and the banquine act.
The Russian bar is a long flexible piece of wood a couple of inches across. Two porters hold the bar on their shoulders while the flyer stands on top of the bar. The porters launch the flyer and send him flying into the air. We do flips and twists before we land safely on the bar.
The banquine act is different. It involves no props other than human agility. My favourite part is when Sergey and I are launched across the stage while Elena dives over us. We pass each other so closely that I can almost touch them.
Yeah, we hurt afterwards. There's a saying among acrobats: If an acrobat wakes up and nothing hurts, chances are he's dead. Pain is just a part of our everyday lives because nothing we do is normal. It's not normal to be launched through the air and expected to land on a thin, wooden bar a couple of inches across. We walk on pins and needles to entertain the audience.
I shouldn't expect you to understand these things. I gave up years ago trying to explain to outsiders why we do something, day after day, that causes so much pain. No one seems to understand why I sacrifice a normal life for something that'll only last until my late thirties tops.
They just don't know what it means to fly. That's what my mom tells me and I guess it's right. When I do my trick, I am launched high into the air and for a moment, time stands still and I feel like I'm flying. Then I hit the ground and am forced back into reality. It's that insane high we acrobats live for.
I'll tell you something my English and History teacher, Mr. Mischke, told me: Passions always seem strange to people who don't have them. After all, he says, there are people who can't balance a checkbook to save their life but can give the batting stats of anybody who's played in the World Series.
Mr. Henrie, the director, always tells us to perform with everything we've got. Invest every tear, every ache, everything both beautiful and ugly about our world. Sometimes it's tiring being a performer because regardless of what personal trials we may be going through, we have to put them aside for the time being and go onstage and perform. I should be grateful I'm not a clown. Clowns seems to be the most tightly wound people and often before show time, they're the ones snapping under the strain. They're supposed to go onstage and make everyone laugh and they're bawling! Somehow everything works out and the performance goes splendidly.
After every performance, our coach, Boris Semenov, goes through and criticizes our performance bit by bit. He's almost a stereotypical Russian, loud, quick-tempered, and always demanding nothing short of perfection. It's very rare one ever gets a compliment from him. Sonja and I sometimes mock his thick accent. We whisper to each other, "Vhere ees moose and squirrel?" trying to see how outrageous we can make our accent.
After criticism, we fight over who gets the first massage. It's not only a fight between the Russians, but also a fight between the Chinese and American performers. Usually Mr. Henrie comes and breaks it up.
My mother is the masseuse; she used to be an acrobat until she grew too old. It's rare that a female acrobat's career lasts beyond her early thirties. Once her acrobatic career fizzled, she learned how to give massages and that's how she earns her living.
Life here isn't too different from regular kids. We attend school from 10:30 to 4:30 or 10:30 to 2:30 depending on the number of shows we have in the evening. In between we practice. Meals are served at 8:30, noon, and six every day. Our six' o'clock is usually our lightest because that's around performance time and during a performance, we don't want our bodies to weighed down by a huge meal.
Mondays, we are free to explore around the city and just hang out like normal kids. I hang with a couple of the Chinese performers. People may marvel about how people from so many different parts of the world can coexist so peacefully but it's just life here. When you're crammed in such a tiny area together, you have no choice but to tolerate the people you're crammed with.