William Anthony
Radionova: “You see their excitement.”
Vita Radionova and Mickael Bajazet are two of the most attractive human beings I've ever shared coffee with. Bajazet is a muscular guy with a dusky complexion and a broad, handsome face, his voice carrying a generous dollop of Parisian accent. Radionova has an elfin face with huge, luminous eyes and an audaciously sharp nose and chin, and an even sexier Ukrainian accent. Both have a charming, unconscious enjoyment of their own bodies that's reminiscent of young lions.
Actors talk a lot about using the body as a tool, but for artists like these—Bajazet an acrobat and Radinova a contortionist in Teatro ZinZanni—their acts are their bodies; they are as much athletes as artists.
Bajazet is part of Les Petit Frères, whose routine has been described as "the Floating Act" by the European press. But to me there's nothing floaty about this trio of tumblers. They bound, collide, and slam into each other like SuperBalls. A tussle over a suitcase begins as a silly bit of slapstick but soon explodes into a choreographed epic of tumbles, acrobatics, and at one point a balancing act where the men stand on each other's shoulders, then fall like a felled pine. Why this doesn't kill or maim all three of them is beyond me.
Watching the audience during Radionova's sensuous dance, it's interesting to see two reactions: Practically every man in the tent is thinking, "That's the sexiest thing I've ever seen," and practically every woman in the tent, after looking at their dates with some annoyance, is thinking, "OK, I'll admit, that's just about the sexiest thing I've ever seen." Certainly it's the only act I've ever encountered where a performer removing her hair band causes an emotional shock wave. Prior to that, she's tucked one foot provocatively beneath her chin, twirled her body above her head with her arms, and somehow or other (this is the only way I can describe it) walked over herself several times.
Her act is astonishing not just for her beauty and her flexibility but for her physical strength; several times she holds her entire body above her head on one hand. Yet unlike most acrobats or contortionists, Radionova's frame isn't tight and taut. She's sensually curvy, and her curves are so effective in disguising her muscles, she seems somehow to be weightless, or perhaps has bones made of helium. If butter were sexy, it would look like this woman.
It's probably safer for us all that they're happily married, having met each other while performing in separate shows in Germany. "I liked the way she walks," says Bajazet with casual understatement. Having a mate who's a fellow performer means that they're with someone who understands the demands of performance, though occasionally they've had to work in separate cities or even separate countries for extended periods. ZinZanni, both the Seattle and San Francisco versions, is the first chance they've had to work together, which they've done since 2005.
Bajazet went to the Annie Fratellini Circus School in Paris when he was 14, inspired by his mother's conviction that "the circus was the school of life." Radionova entered the acclaimed Circus School of Kiev at age 17. Both have been performing ever since.
"You really connect with the audience when you're this close," says Radionova of the intimate ZinZanni stage. "You see their eyes and their expressions, their excitement." (She's polite enough to not mention any slack-jawed drooling.) The show allows them both to get in some acting as well, with Bazajet playing a hapless waiter and his wife a clock-watching martinet. It's this part of the evening that Bazajet says is the hardest for him. "Being natural, it's not so easy," he says.
After our chat, they get up and head back to the ZinZanni tent for rehearsal, and as I watch them go it's hard not to envy their talent, their looks, and their careers. But more than anything, I'm impressed with their supreme satisfaction and enjoyment in what they do. Watching their acts doesn't just inspire admiration, it causes delight—that the human body, momentarily anyway, is not so fettered by the rules of biology and gravity as we've always assumed.
