by Bill Giduz

 

A pair of talented Russian performers have been presenting a combination juggling / antipodism act at Busch Gardens since March, and are scheduled to perform there through December.

 

Alexandre Ousatchev (30) and his wife Viktoria Kniazkina (29) begin with synchronized three club work, then pass six. As she holds one, he takes two passes from her directly into a five club cascade. She steals them from him with a front takeaway and then passes them back to him. He then does six for about a dozen throws.

 

He then lies on an antipodist table and she hops up to stand on his raised feet. In this position, she cascades five clubs while he juggles three upside down.

 

She jumps down but he remains on the table to piddidle a square rug. They pass it to each other until he is manipulating it with his toe. He kicks it high into the air and jumps quickly off the table in time for her to take his place and catch it on her foot. For the finale, Viktoria lies on the table and spins a plate, which she puts on a long stick and transfers to balance on her foot. At the same time, she spins a ring on the other foot and juggles five balls while lying on her back. She also manipulates two cylinders with her feet, ana two cylinders with her feet while doing two with her hands.

 

In another act, Alexandre and Viktoria manipulate five pyramid-shaped objects made of tubing which allows them to be grabbed with the hand. They pass them back and fourth, and Alexandre briefly handles four by himself. At the end of the act, the pyramids are caught nesting inside each other.

 

Alexandre also cascades five six-pointed objects shaped like large children's jacks, and can briefly shower all five. He does a three club act, and does about a dozen tosses of seven clubs. He claims to be the only person in Russia currently doing seven in performance.

 

The couple is in America as part of the Akishin Troupe of Russian performers. At Busch Gardens, the troupe does three or four performances a day of a 30-minute circus show, and Alexandre and Viktoria comprise about seven minutes of that.

Alexandre is from Novecherkask in the Rostov region of Russia, and Viktoria is from Lvov in the Ukraine. His parents are engineers, but supported him as he began attending circus classes at age 11. That initial study was interrupted when the studio closed after six months. But Alexandre was serious about juggling and was eventually accepted as one of 200 students in the Kiev Circus School in 1982. Taking a break for military service, he graduated in 1987 with the major on his transcript listed as "solo juggler." He went to Moscow to audition for Soyuzgoscirk, and was accepted as an employee to begin working in circuses all over the Soviet Union.

 

He met Viktoria at the Kiev circus school, and they graduated the same year. She was studying anti pod ism, and had developed a team act with another young woman. But she was also working on juggling on the side.

 

She also went to Moscow after graduation and they ended up together for almost a year performing for Soyuzgoscirk in Azerbaijan. That circus began to break up, however, and performers started leaving. Though the couple wasn't performing together and weren't officially married, they negotiated with their supervisors to travel together. As they traveled from place to place in 1990, they began practicing on an act they could do together, and had developed one by the end of the year.

 

Alexandre created his unique "pyramid" props from a wood/plastic material while a student in Kiev. He also invented his six­pointed jacks there, and spent almost three years perfecting their construction.

 

They have enjoyed their time in Florida tremendously, but have no idea what work they'll be able to obtain when they retum to Russia. Alexandre said Soyuzgoscirk no longer exists as the single, state-run circus company. Instead, many different circus companies have sprung up, some of which are run by local or regional governmental bodies. That creates the anxiety of not knowing if you'll have a job, but it also gives the artiste the previously unknown privilege of choosing where to work. It is also much easier for Russian artistes to travel abroad, he said. Besides his current work in the United States, he has also traveled twice to Japan.