Family Life Under the Big Top : Relationships: For Cirque du Soleil’s young performers and their parents, who believe normal doesn’t necessarily mean better, circus living is a balancing act.

Anton Tchelnokov is living an adventure most kids only dream of.

He attends school two hours a day and spends his afternoons practicing gymnastics and acrobatics. He earns his own money without having to take out the trash or walk the dog, bounces on a trampoline whenever he pleases, and has swapped autographed photos with his hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He knows he will be the center of attention at least once a day, has free rein in a restaurant where cooks prepare his favorite foods to order, and sees his best friend--a 37-year-old-clown--no less than six days a week.

A normal childhood? Hardly.

The only child of renowned rope-climbing Russian contortionists Nikolai Tchelnokov, 32, and Galina Karableva, 34, Anton made his artistic debut with the Moscow Circus at the ripe old age of 3 and the 7-year-old is now touring North America as the youngest performer with Cirque du Soleil, which opened a five-week Orange County engagement at South Coast Plaza last Saturday.

“I know his world is very different, but it’s a beautiful life my son is living,” says Tchelnokov, who performs two numbers in the show with his son and wife. “He is exposed to so much artistically and culturally. He speaks three languages (Russian, French and English), and he is seeing the world. It is an experience few young people ever have.”

Tchelnokov, whose own childhood growing up in the former Soviet Union was much more traditional, feels passionately that normal doesn’t necessarily translate into better.

“I was a regular kid,” says Tchelnokov. “My mother was a construction worker and my father was a soldier who was imprisoned by Stalin during the war. When my father died, she raised six children alone. It was simple and it was, yes, normal, but was it better than what my son is doing now? I don’t think so. Anton has a very good life.”

And a very busy one. In addition to afternoon rehearsals and nine performances a week, Anton attends school from 12:30 to 2:30 every afternoon in a circus trailer situated a stone’s throw from the blue-and-yellow big top. Teacher Robert Ballard, whose job it is to educate Anton and the four older minors who travel with the show, readily admits that his littlest student often proves to be the biggest handful.

“Anton has a lot of energy, and he really needs to be kept stimulated,” says Ballard, who taught at a Montreal elementary school before joining Cirque de Soleil’s North American tour 2 1/2 years ago. “He has the attention span of most boys his age. After 10 minutes he wants to do something else.”

While two hours of school a day may sound academically lightweight, Anton’s father is quick to point out that the education his son is getting extends far beyond the classroom walls.

“When I was in school for eight hours every day, I was always tired,” recalls Tchelnokov. “It was too much information. I think for his age, he is getting what he needs. He has already taken in so much information about this world by being with people and just living life.”

In addition to the time Anton spends in the classroom, he’s also expected to study in Russian for another two hours a day under the supervision of his parents as part of an agreement with the Russian government. Every two weeks, he takes proficiency exams in math, French, English and science.

Copies of Anton’s exam scores are submitted to the Education Ministry of Quebec and administrators at a Montreal elementary school, who oversee his education. Copies are also delivered to circus management when Ballard meets with them to review how Anton and the other child performer, 13-year-old acrobat Sonya St. Martin, are progressing with their studies.

“We sit down once a week and assess whether the kids are getting what they need,” Ballard says. “If they need to practice less and devote more time to their schoolwork, I explain why. I have a strong commitment to giving them a complete education because I know they won’t be performing with the circus for a lifetime. I want to make sure that they will be prepared once this part of their lives is over.”

Because it’s the only place where Anton regularly spends time with children close to his age (two of the students are 11, one is 13 and one is 17), Ballard says he makes a conscious effort to create a healthy, balanced environment “where the kids can be kids.”

“My first year with the show, four of the students were performers and one was not,” Ballard remembers. “It was very difficult for the one girl because she always felt she was in the shadow of the others. I see the classroom as a great equalizer. The artists have no special privileges here. They’re here to get a good education, and my job is to make sure that they do.”

But what about the developmental passages that children experience by interacting with their peers? Tchelnokov admits that while the adults his son considers playmates are “young at heart,” there may be some disadvantages in not having same-age friends your.

“Not too long ago, Anton was playing a game with an 11-year-old whose parents work for the show,” he recalls. “The older boy wanted to go first because he was bigger. Anton couldn’t understand why that should be, because in his world, everybody is bigger. He sees adults differently than most kids because he’s around them so much.”

As much as Tchelnokov and Karableva say they’d like for their son to meet children closer to his own age, it rarely happens.

“Sometimes kids send nice letters to Anton and say, ‘If you want to see our city while you’re here, call us’,” says Tchelnokov. “That makes us very glad. But we have only Mondays off, and he usually sleeps most of the afternoon. Yesterday, we went up the (freeway) to play little (miniature) golf and there were some children there.”

Though Anton is the youngest performer in the show, he’s not the baby of the 110-person Cirque du Soleil community. That distinction belongs to 18-month-old Guillaume Gauthier, whose father, 31-year-old acrobat Alain Gauthier, agrees with Anton’s parents that growing up beneath the big top can be “fantastic for a child”.

“There’s a phenomenal energy here, and the kids absorb that,” says Gauthier. “I bring Guillaume into the artistic tent during the show, and he’s surrounded by all these friendly people wearing colorful costumes and makeup. He goes from arms to arms. He has lots of aunts and uncles, and he loves it. He’s not afraid of anyone or anything. For him, it’s a wonderland.”

But Gauthier agrees with Tchelnokov and Karableva that raising a child in such a world presents certain challenges.

“It’s tricky and you always have to keep your eyes open,” says Gauthier, who lives with his wife, Marie-Eve Dumais, and son in a small trailer on site. “It can be a dangerous place, especially for an infant. There’s lots of electrical wiring, lots of equipment being moved. Backstage, people who are rehearsing can fall on him, and there are plenty of places where he can fall. It keeps you on your toes.”

Even though his son won’t start school for three years, Gauthier says Guillaume’s education is something to which he’s already given plenty of thought. Gauthier values education (he holds a university degree in geology and has done classical course work in Latin and Greek).

“There are pros and cons to every way of living,” Gauthier says. “Circus kids spend less time in the classroom, but they also get much more attention when they’re there. In classes of 30 or 40 students, teachers can spend as much time disciplining as they do teaching. Here, it’s like having a private tutor.”

Private tutor or not, Anton Tchelnokov is still no fan of the classroom. He returned to school last week after a month break, and he’s clearly not thrilled about it.

“I don’t like it because I have to sit too long,” he says with a sigh of resignation.