Lisa Xing takes a daring behind the scenes look at Cirque
The name "The Russian Cradle," makes it sound vaguely comforting. It's not.
Strapped into a harness almost 10 metres off the ground, I grip with everything I got onto the chalked-up forearms of Alexander Grol, who is firmly planted on a platform.
He swings me back and forth to gain momentum. When I hear him say, "platform," I get ready for the final swing that lands me on a tiny dinner plate sized surface just above his head. Now I'm even higher up.
Cirque du Soleil's latest travelling show, OVO, has 50-plus cast members from 12 different countries playing insects as they try to solve the mystery of an egg that appears in their midst.
Grol, 31, plays a scarab, tossing and catching other tumbling and flipping scarabs as they fly through the air. I'm not that graceful. My experience feels more like bumbling.
Experience doesn't help
I've been lucky enough to go backstage with Cirque a couple years ago to try my hand at the trapeze. With a very rudimentary background in the aerial arts, the trapeze was a relatively natural fit.
Relying on your own upper body strength, pulling off any move is all on you. This time around, things are different.
Trusting someone else, while flailing around 10 metres above the ground, is absolutely terrifying.
Grol tells me trust is something he's learned since he began performing with Cirque du Soleil in 2007.
"The trust [is important]," he said. "And the responsibility [of needing to catch someone mid-air] has a good effect on your life. It makes me feel more adult, in some ways."
Circus family
But, Grol's experience dates back to well before Cirque. He grew up in a circus family, and decided to carry on the family tradition when he turned 16.
"It's fun for me," he said. "I like working hard and being silly at the same time and here. It's all combined."
The production involved six to eight months of training, six days a week, and five to six hours nonstop every day.
Nansy Damianova plays one of Grol's counterparts as a scarab, who gets tossed through the air. She's been with Cirque for less than a year, though she's been doing gymnastics since she was two years old.
"Even with a gymnastics background, I didn't really know what I was signing up for," she said. "It looks the same as uneven bars in gymnastics. I was really used to doing everything by myself, but [with the cradle], it's a human throwing me. It's a lot of partnership and you have to trust each other. That was the hard part."
Damianova is gracious in her assessment of my own cradle attempt.
"Don't worry. You did as good as me the first time," she generously offered.
Cirque's OVO show continues this weekend. Here are the show times:
- July 2: 7:30 p.m.
- July 2: 4 p.m.
- July 3: 1:30 p.m.
- July 3: 5 p.m.
