#cirque du soleil saltimbanco
My God… After TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, I captured my White Whale. Holy shit. And even though I know not one single person will care about this AT ALL, I welcome you to come with me on this journey – a journey into pointless obsession, single-minded tenacity, and ultimately… the discovery of the circus video I spent my entire life searching for…
See, when I was around 7 years old, my parents introduced me to Cirque du Soleil via Saltimbanco. It was a VHS of the 1994 production, and I was OBSESSED. I would literally watch the show multiple times a week if I could. So, my parents bought me the CD of the official soundtrack and it was AMAZING! Except… there was a song on it called Pokinoï, and it was, like… literally the most beautiful song I’d EVER heard. Link to song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_Bsp83fCLI
I couldn’t stop listening to it, over and over, because my God, it was gorgeous. But here’s the thing: the song never appears on the VHS, and I didn’t even know what kinda act it was used for…
And thus, the hunt began…
The internet wasn’t a thing yet, and while Saltimbanco WAS touring, the stars never aligned, and I never got to see the show – not that it would’ve mattered, because Cirque acts are swapped out constantly. In fact, my dad went to see Saltimbanco in Germany (Without me! BOO!), and he confirmed that Pokinoï was long gone by then. But I went to many other Cirque shows, such as Dralion, Quidam, O, Corteo… and at each show, I’d seek out old Saltimbanco art books, photo books, etc. – anything that might give me SOME information on this lost Pokinoï act. I was DETERMINED. And I learned FUCK ALL.
Now, y’all gotta understand… thanks to my Cirque du Soleil obsession, I LIVED in the circus world. Ballet, gymnastics, ice skating… you name it, I was involved in it. In fact, I was a competitive figure skater for over 10 years, and I used Pokinoï as a song for one of my routines, which meant I was listening to this damn song day in and day out for months while I practiced my number. Yet, I still had no idea what kind of act the song was originally used for and had no hope of ever actually seeing the act for myself.
Fast forward a few years, and the internet finally existed. Research was a lot easier now, and I was at least able to discover that the song Pokinoï was used for the “Vertical Ropes Act” that ran from 1992-1994. Okay… that’s interesting and all, but… CAN I SEE IT?!! Can I PLEASE just capture my White Whale?! NOPE! Not even the advent of YouTube in 2005 could help me because cell phone cameras didn’t exist in the 1990’s. It’s not like a random audience member could’ve just FILMED a Cirque du Soleil show back then, and I’m pretty sure anyone who tried to lug in the recording equipment you needed at the time would’ve been promptly thrown from the theater.
And that’s when I started to realize that maybe… just maybe… footage of Pokinoï genuinely DIDN’T EXIST. And as someone who DID grow up with the internet (even if it was pretty useless when I was a child) the thought of simply NOT being able to find something was INFURIATING. Call me an ungrateful Millennial brat if you want to, but the idea that there was an act that tens of thousands of people had seen with their own eyes yet NEVER RECORDED because there were no cell phones… it was the most enraging thing I could think of. And I refused to accept it. So, once or twice a year for about FIFTEEN YEARS, I’d find myself scouring the internet once again for a video of the elusive Vertical Ropes Act featuring the song Pokinoï. And I found NOTHING. I searched archives. I searched circus wikis. Hell, I even asked around on Reddit and YouTube, and my fellow circus nerds told me I was wasting my time. They told me footage of the act literally didn’t exist.
But I refused to accept that. It was the PRINICPLE of the thing, damnit. Every year, I thought, “Surely, SOMEONE has the footage. Maybe, uh… the son of the keyboardist from 1993 was allowed to film the show, and then thirty years later, he started archiving his dusty home videos, and he found this old VHS of Saltimbanco, and now he’ll upload it to YouTube as some ultra-rare historical gem for all of us to see.” But such a thing never happened. The NERVE!
Then, about a year ago, I went on the hunt again, and came across a couple official photos of a family posing on a rope, and the photo was labeled as Saltimbanco’s Vertical Ropes Act! Holy shit! And according to the blurb, the performers were Nicolai, Galina, and Anton Chelnokov, which caused my brain to have a complete spasm. You mean to tell me that the Vertical Ropes Act was performed by the CHELNOKOV family?! THE Chelnokov family?!! As in, the Russian family that performed the Adagio Act in Saltimbanco and whose son, Anton, grew up to become the absolutely stunning aerial net performer who played the starring role of Icarus in Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai?!! Holy shit!!! I HAVE to see this! I NEED IT!!!
Then I came across a video on YouTube with LIVE AUDIO of Pokinoï. Are you KIDDING me?!! Talk about adding insult to injury!!! How the hell did someone even record audio of a show from THIRTY YEARS AGO?!! And if the audio existed, WHERE WAS THE FOOTAGE?!!
Okay, so now I was PISSED. I had the official song, a couple photos, and LIVE AUDIO… yet I’d never seen the damn act. Well, last night, after listening to the soundtrack, the rage took me again. The determination. The refusal to accept that there is literally NO footage in existence Pokinoï. So, I adjusted my search strategy. Rather than focusing on the usual keywords… what if I focused on the Chelnokov’s? And that’s when I finally came across THIS video, which was uploaded almost exactly a year ago. The Evolution of the Adagio Family. I clicked on it, and… damnit, it’s just the Adagio Act. Uuuugh, I’ve seen this footage a HUNDRED TIMES!!! But then I noticed that the video was waaaaay too long to contain JUST the Adagio Act… so, I decided to skip ahead…
And my God… I can’t believe it… starting at the 6-minute mark… it’s the fucking Vertical Ropes Act. It’s ACTUAL FOOTAGE of the Chelnokov’s performing Saltimbanco’s Vertical Ropes Act in 1992. Holy… Fucking… Shit… I have no idea who filmed this or why they filmed it, or what the footage was meant to be used for, but here it is, right before my very eyes… MY WHITE WHALE!!! And it’s BEAUTIFUL!!!
Oh, how the circus nerd in me weeps to see such beauty. Nikolai Chelnokov pioneered the use of aerial ropes, and he brought masculinity to an art form previously associated only with female performers. And my God, those death-defying flips and roll-downs… absolutely incredible! And Galina Chelnokov! Oh, lord, what an ANGEL. When she starts performing at the 12-minute mark, oh my GOD. Piss off, Black Swan, this is what an absolute QUEEN looks like. Galina’s an aerial ballet GODDESS. The beauty… the grace… the effortless way she performs stunts while swinging from the most unstable support possible. PERFECTION!!!
So, there you have it. My journey. My conquest. My White Whale captured after twenty-five years. But this is not a metaphor for chasing your tail and having no idea what to do once you catch it. Fuck that. This is pure joy for me. A true victory! I wasn’t in it for the thrill of the hunt, I was in it for the WIN, and VICTORY I HAVE ACHIEVED! At long last, I may finally rest. After twenty-five years, I can listen to the Saltimbanco soundtrack without feeling haunted by the ghost of a mysterious circus act lost to time.
So, if you actually read this, thank you for coming with me on this journey. I now humbly return to my circus tent with a feeling of true joy and accomplishment, not to mention a renewed determination to use Pokinoï for another routine in the future. Maybe for pole dancing, hehe.
