43-1,p22

It was 1972. I kept reading more and more about art. No matter what city I was working in, there seemed to appear on my table all the recent books published about art and its history. It was my fortune to spend time Paris, Madrid and Rome. I became familiar with the collections of the Louvre, the Prado and the Vatican. And if I was unhappy because of anxieties or problems, my library shelf allowed me to escape. I opened a book and let my mind wander through the paintings of the Louvre, the Prado or the Metropolitan Museums. I saw again Van Gogh's (3) Sunflowers, the divinely musical canvases of Murillo(4) or the extraordinary realism of Courbet.(5)

Russian painting has always greatly excited me - Rubliav(6), Levitski(7), Fedotov(8), Surikov(9), Repin(10) and Levitan(11). In them one sees a unique connection with the Russian land and its history. All Russian painters are united in their faith in the past, present and future of the Russian people.

If one is to speak of things which have truly shaken me, then I must recall Pokrov on the Nerl River(12), Venice, Fujiyama(13), the impression of Liszt's hands in the museum in Milan, Michelangelo's 'Slaves' in a small room in the Louvre(14) and, of course, Murillo's 'Madonna and Child' in the Budapest Museum. While looking at it I was absolutely convinced that I could hear the music of a sonorous organ playing.

The time is five o'clock in the afternoon. After a quick nap I immediately begin to prepare myself for the evening's performance. My muscles are rested and restored and I'm ready to perform.

The highest level of juggling is when on stage you can perform those tricks which you worked on during rehearsal.

As soon as I finished circus school I started to work for Soyuzgostsirk(15). At that time I lost my 'eyes' on the world which had been those of Violetta Nikolaevna Kiss. The knowledge, which should have taken the place of my teacher, did not come at once. For the next eight years the task which I set myself was to perfect the technical aspects of my juggling and to increase the number of objects I could juggle. I rehearsed about seven hours a day. Moscow, the city where I worked for a year, gave me the opportunity to move forward. I worked with larger numbers of balls. I learned new tricks and changed the music and composition of my act. In 1976 I was already juggling eleven rings in rehearsal and was able to finish by pulling them all down over my head. I juggled five clubs nonstop for sixteen minutes and twenty seconds. I juggled five large balls without a drop for ten minutes.

In 1977, feeling both assurance and confidence, I embarked on the highest 'flight' in terms of my juggling technique. That year, IJA president Dennis Soldati, during a performance of the Soviet Circus in New York, awarded me a diploma as "World's Best Juggler." At the same time I received a medal and a certificate as an honorary member of that association. My performance was taped for the Boston archives of the history of the world's circus.

In June of 1978, in a performance at the Sochi circus, I juggled eleven rings. Depending on my form I continued to perform with eleven rings throughout that year in Sochi, Leningrad, Magnitogorsk and Dniepopetrovsk.

Over a period of five years I performed a series of tricks with seven rings which were combined into a two minute long presentation. They included a half-pirouette, half-shower and the most difficult trick with seven, juggling them with pancake throws - the so-called 'revolving door.'

At the same time I was able to achieve a very exact rhythm in my throws. "Rhythm is the most important feature of music," said Rimski-Korsakov(16). The journalist Galina Marchenko was able to sense the musicality in my juggling. Using the music of Chopin I embarked on new explorations. The fusion of music and juggling was the goal of my new work. Today it is the main direction in the development of the style of my act.

To find one's own place in the world of art it's necessary to think and work a great deal. Van Gogh overcame many limitations of his artistic background. He had no formal training in art but learned through experience, inner reflection, reading and acquaintance with people and nature.

After reading Van Gogh's Letters to His Brother Theo I understood how true art is born. It is within you, yourself. Within the world visible to you. The strangest thing about art is plagiarism. A copy is an insignificant imitation of the original, however good it might originally have been. Plagiarizing degrades the person who does it. A plagiarist steals from themselves. It's necessary to travel one's own path, however difficult it may be.

Be observant and alert. Don't neglect the fine details, they'll help you find your way out of dead ends and give you creative impulses. From time to time we awake, not from the deafening sounds of the throngs but from the subtlest creak of the door or from the unexpected turning of the key.

Outside it's dark - I'm on my way to work. The moment of contact with the audience is fast approaching. It is during these moments that the circus exists. The circus in which we exist - and with us our art!

In 1974 I was performing in Japan. To this day I recall the karate expert from the city of Nagoya. He taught in his own school. He invited us over as guests and demonstrated some of his abilities: he crushed tiles and bricks and broke wooden boards. Then he executed a number of simply supernatural jumps, demonstrating the forms of karate. We were captivated by all of this, but he said forcefully: "That was not karate. Karate exists only in the mind. Broken tiles and boards are only the external evidence of it's presence."

Thinking about succession I recall a generation of celebrated artists: Alexander and Violetta Kiss, Mikhail Egorov, Nikolai Ol'khovikov, Vladimir Dobeiko, Vitta and Zigmund Chernyauzkaz and the Zapashni Family. Their artistry developed in 1940's and 50's, over a period of 20-25 years in close connection with the development of the world and of their audiences.