This city may seem like a circus in its own right, but to performers who specialize in impossible contortions and riding silk ropes while defying gravity, Las Vegas is the epicenter of reckless courage and derring-do.
And on any given day, a number of Cirque du Soleil performers and circus-act divas can be found testing the trampoline, inching along padded bars, jumping through hoops while juggling a riot of plates swinging from the ceiling and balancing on colorful cascading cloths at Sandou Theatrical Circus School, an unassuming warehouse structure rising amid chaparral outside the city.
Six days a week, trainers bark encouragements as performers dip and strain. The facility, open to the public, is the only place in Las Vegas to train for these feats besides the stage and commercial athletic gyms. Because this is the first and only school for the circus arts in town and one of the few in the U.S., the ropes, the rings, the wires and swings are in use most of the time. But the mornings at Sandou belong to the kids.
Behind a slew of warehouses west of Interstate 15, the Sandou school swings into action at 9 a.m. Out come the juggling balls, the sticks and plates, the balancing balls, the mats and vaulting boards, the balancing bars and the silken drapes and swaying bars that hang from heights of 30 feet in this 7,000-square-foot, three-ring playground. And in come the kids of all shapes and sizes to learn the ropes. Almost no child is too young or too small for the circus.
Making it all happen are two Moldovan masters, the brothers Sandou -- Sergei and Konstantin, who spent their youth in circus camps in Moldova and with the Moscow State Circus before joining Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey in the United States. Sergei's wife, Augustina Badea-Sandou, a former member of the Romanian Olympic gymnastic team, helps out with the kids, teaching them to spin the ball beneath their feet and wiping away their tears of fear.
"Who's going to run the circus?" Sergei asks. "These kids are going to be the next generation of performers."
He takes out some orange balls to show the children how to juggle. They grab some, hold them, throw them, pick them up and throw them again. Meanwhile, Sergei juggles effortlessly, sending the balls circling even as he focuses on the kids and explains the exercise.
