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A Circus That Makes the Others Look Like Peanuts

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Circus, like ballet, speaks a universal language, and the Soviets, who wrote the book on ballet, may have done the same with the circus.

The Moscow Circus, visiting here in its last stop before San Diego (Wednesday through Sunday at the Sports Arena), offers a display of talent so dazzling as to run through the superlatives before intermission, leaving the second act for mere “oohs” and “aahs” of appreciation and astonishment.

Circus is an old and honorable tradition in the Soviet Union. The Leningrad Circus Building, where the Muscovites rehearse, dates to 1877, commissioned by an Italian circus master named Gaitano Cenzelli and designed to be so flexible it can be used today.

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This version of the Moscow Circus, with eight new acts since the group’s first U.S. tour--especially the aerialists and the jugglers--made practically every other circus I’ve ever seen look minor league, and was even good enough to make me join enthusiastically in a standing ovation, an extremely rare tribute where I am concerned.

They’re that good.

The performers were enthusiastic, and so was the audience of more than 6,000, which stood through two national anthems with outstanding patience, then rose to its feet again and roared excitedly through the finale as Caucasian horsemen sped around the ring displaying the flag of each nation.

In between, children were bewitched by a pair of nifty clowns, grown-ups goggled at the skill and coordination of jugglers and everyone simply flipped out over the Hertz group, which showed off trapeze work never seen here before.

The Hertzes set the two standard swings farther apart than usual. Between them, and much higher, just below the auditorium ceiling, was a fixed platform. The swingers and catchers, taking longer and higher (and therefore faster) swings than usual, caught and threw men and women between themselves and, even more spectacularly, threw them upward, in a series of flips, to the fixed platform.

The gold-clad troupe flew in a series of intricate, breath-catching, gravity-defying flights using both swings and the platform.

As a diversion, one young woman kept four hula hoops (yes, hula hoops!) in action at the same time while she hung by one hand from the platform.

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And as a climactic moment, a Hertz, soaring the fullest extent of the swing’s arc, took off on a 22-meter flight the length of the net.

The Gibadulin jugglers demonstrated hands so quick and sure they could give major league catchers, goalies and wide receivers some tips. The five-person group flings Indian clubs with enough speed to make them look blurry, and they work standing up, lying down, on each other’s shoulders and in varying other combinations.

But the Indian club work takes a back seat to a plate trick where one of the Gibadulins stands at one side of the ring and the other four at the other. Then the four start spinning plates toward the one, practically as fast as they can. The catcher snared all 16, using his right hand to catch and simultaneously shift them to his left. He caught the last two while lying on his back.

As an encore, he rises and throws them back, first four from one hand to four receivers, then five, then six plates soaring in as many different directions from one simple slip.

Valery Serebriakov and Yakov Popov are clowns, and their routines are similar to those used by clowns through the generations. They’re better than most, however, and they have the same marvelous affinity with children that every clown seems to have, no matter his native tongue or country of origin.

Alexander Frish and Albert Makhtsier share the ringmaster duties, and Frish joins the clowns, and the children in the audience, for some juggling tricks.

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Other high spots were Sarwat Begbudi, who works with the tigers, among other duties, and the Doveykos, who do acrobatics off a teeterboard with an uncommon degree of skill and daring.

Begbudi handles a cage full of tigers in good style. More impressive is watching him juggle, which he does while standing atop the back of a trotting horse. Not for amateurs.

The Doveykos have taken their routines one step farther, just as the Hertzes have. The Doveykos’ ultimate trick involves an acrobat on a 10-foot stilt. He hops into position on the teeterboard, and when two teammates leap to the other end, he flies into the air, does two back flips and lands, without falling, on the single stilt.

The Moscow Circus is more than circus; it is a display of incredible athletes at work, and it is an absolutely dazzling evening of entertainment.

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