“It’s exciting to me. There’s a lot of adrenaline.”
Anastasia Bykovskaya
When I met Anastasia Bykovskaya yesterday, I liked her immediately. There was something about her I related to.
We’re both 29, and admittedly, not morning people. We’ve both moved all over to pursue a dream. We both dreamt of running away to join the circus as children. The difference is, she did it.
Walking the line runs in Bykovskaya’s family – both of her parents were famous highwire artists in their native Russia. With 43 years in circus life, her father, Veleriy Bykovskiy, now tours with Cirque du Soleil as a show character and his daughter’s coach.
Bykovskaya insists that despite her roots, performing was her choice.
“It’s exciting to me. There’s a lot of adrenaline,” said Bykovskaya.
Bykovskaya is one of 63 artists from 16 countries performing in Corteo, Cirque du Soleil’s big top show, opening at the St. Laurent Centre tonight.
“It’s a little United Nations of performers,” joked Corteo spokesman Maxime Charbonneau.
More than 80,000 people are expected to attend the show, which runs through Oct. 26.
“Corteo’s really unique because it’s a really human show,” said Charbonneau. “There’s no heavy makeup and the costumes are very natural, so you see the faces and you see the bodies.”
After wrapping her ankles and stretching her legs in the splits, Bykovskaya stands up, gathers three hula-hoops and starts twirling them around her waist. Soon she’s separated them into three separate rotations – one each around her chest, waist and her hips.
In the main tent, Bykovskaya scales a 30-foot ladder. On bare feet and in pointe shoes, she glides across the wire.
At first, I can’t look. She’s 30 feet off the ground and will rise to 60 before the show’s over. It only gets scarier when she pedals a unicycle across the wire, twirling hula-hoops as she goes.
One of the most appealing things about Bykovskaya is how surprisingly normal she is. She’s an awe-inspiring performer and a seasoned traveller to boot – she’s been to 25 different countries – and considers home wherever the show is. But at the same time, one senses there’s a bit of a homebody in her.
In her spare time she studies Italian, and she is considering a career in interior design after giving up the highwire.
“One day, of course, I have to figure out what I’m going to be in my personal life,” she said. “I don’t know where I’m going to stay yet.”
