Acrobats

Andrey Mantchev: Hi, my name is Andrey Mantchev. I’m a company member for the Big Apple Circus; I stay every year in the circus and create different acts every single year. My specialty is being an acrobat. I started off as doing a teeterboard act.

Narrator: Andrey Mantchev learned to do tricks on a teeterboard in Bulgaria, where he grew up. A teeterboard looks something like a seesaw. Calder’s Circus features a teeterboard act, too. Can you find it? I’ll give you a sec.

Here’s how it worked: One acrobat stood on one end of the teeterboard. Calder made another acrobat climb up onto the platform⎯drumroll please!⎯and then made the acrobat launch himself from a catapult. He landed on the other end of the teeterboard, launching the first acrobat up into the air.

Andrey Mantchev trained for a year to do a trick like this one.

Andrey Mantchev: It all happens so quick. You don’t really have that much time to think about things. But as I’m stepping on top of the teeterboard, my initial thoughts are how to do my trick; I just remember, step by step, what I’m supposed to do so I can be able to do the trick.. . . First is as I put my arms down, which is a signal for the people on the platform to jump, so they can catapult me. My first thoughts are doing the tempo to be able to jump off the teeterboard; then bringing my legs to my chest in order to make a somersault; and opening and seeing the person underneath me, and trying to land softly.