Soviets Bring Acrobatics to Costa Mesa : Performance: Anatoly Yamahanov does a balancing act with career and family. He and his Soviet troupe will entertain today at Orange Coast College.

After five weeks on the road with the Soviet Acrobatic Revue, troupe member Anatoly Yamahanov concedes he’s eager to be back in the U.S.S.R. But performing the same routine--five times a week--is neither monotonous nor exhausting, he said recently. In fact, he’d rather have a busier schedule.

“We like our job, I enjoy my work,” he said cheerfully through interpreter and fellow troupe member Elena Lopatina. As part of a grueling 65-city, four-month North American tour, the revue stops for two performances today at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

“We have a couple of hours to practice before each show. But when we have a couple days off, we can’t practice. You can’t practice in a hotel room!”

Yamahanov does balancing feats in the small-scale revue, a colorful mixed bag of about 15 acts by some 20 performers who also juggle, walk or cycle on slack rope and tightrope, folk dance and do magic. There’s a contortionist and a clown who ties the show together with several mime skits.

For his slow, lyrical routine, Yamahanov gingerly positions himself on a narrow platform a few feet above the ground. Then he stands on his head, carefully lifts his arrow-straight legs above his head to catch a large, glittery ball between them.

His other number is more vigorous. Standing atop a white ladder--he starts with one 4 feet in height, then mounts another twice that high--he walks, prances and dances as if the unwieldy apparatus was a pair of connected stilts.

As his finale, Yamahanov grasps the ladder with both hands and does a quick back flip into a stationary handstand.

The trick doesn’t always come off without a hitch; sometimes it takes several tries. But that’s all part of the game, Yamahanov said during an interview at a hotel here. When he falls off the ladder, he summons all his dramatic ability to make each next attempt look impossibly difficult.

“You have to be a little bit of an actor. If nothing goes wrong during the performance, if no one falls, then the audience sits and thinks ‘OK, we can do that.’ You don’t want them to take anything for granted.”

Yamahanov, 36, exudes the same bristling energy in person as he does on stage. Flipping his room key like a quarter, he explained that learning to land safely from a fall is also fundamental to his craft, as mistakes are inevitable.

Once, while executing his trademark back flip, “I jumped into the orchestra pit! There wasn’t enough room to land on stage,” he said. “But that was a success because I didn’t break (any bones). Another time, I fell into an aisle in the audience. But that was a good success too.”

Born in western Siberia, Yamahanov said he first ventured into acrobatics at age 12.

“When I was young, I wanted to move all the time, to run and jump and dance.”

So, he enrolled in an acrobatic academy near his home. At 18, shortly after graduating, he enlisted in the Soviet army for two years of obligatory service. Once that ended, he launched his professional stage career, performing throughout the Soviet Union and in Europe with various Soviet troupes.

Like most athletes or stage performers, he finds his work mentally as well as physically challenging. It can take years to master a new trick, and a positive attitude is everything, he said. After spending lots of time trying out his back flip, he achieved it only when he “felt the spirit.”

“When you think you can do it, you can do it,” he said.

This tour is Yamahanov’s first visit to the United States, though the Soviet Acrobatic Revue made its U.S. debut in 1989.

Even though he is traveling with his wife, Lubov, who is also his acrobatic partner, they both look forward to April 27, when the tour is scheduled to end and they can go home and see their 9-year-old daughter again, who is staying with her babushka (grandmother).

He’s been impressed with “wonderful, excellent” America, however, particularly its abundance of material goods and friendly people, he said.

“Right now, many Russians spend so much time trying to get food and other basic necessities” because of current political and economic upheaval, he said. “There is no time for friends. We hope that things will be better though. I think we have to believe our government. We took the way (of change) and I think we have to continue on the way.”

The Soviet Acrobatic Revue will perform today at 2:30 and 8 p.m. in the Robert B. Moore Theatre at Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $10.50 adults; $6.50 for children under 12 by advanced purchase ; $13 and $8 at the door. Information: (714) 432-5880.