CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, September 28, 2022

The Kolev Sisters Explain How to Train Like CDS Acrobats

www.cirquefascination.com: It’s easy to see why the Kolev sisters have an intense passion for performing for Cirque du Soleil. Born in Italy, Michelle (24) and Nicole (22) are fourth-generation circus performers on their mothers side while their dad was a competitive gymnast who later joined the family business. It’s now wonder their strength and flexibility are something to be marveled.

2 comments:

Owen Sahnow said...

Super interesting insight into the routines of professional circus performers. My experience has always been that circus performers are incredibly flexible and strong, which seems to be difficult. Much like professional athletes, their whole existence is around performing so it is a difficult thing for randos like us to keep up such a great daily set of exercises and stretching. It is interesting as well that a lot of their weight training is body weights and dumbbells because the heavily specialized gym equipment is great and all, but it doesn’t make you stronger, it makes specific muscle groups stronger and being a circus performer means that the muscles normal people don’t know they have need to be worked out. The comment they made about having to do the routine and make it look effortless is interesting to me because I always think about getting a trick down - and then getting the trick down with my mouth closed because if it’s difficult, you focus so much on doing it that you forget what you look like.

Brynn Sklar said...

Cirque Du Soleil is something I actually grew up on. I have been to quite a few of their touring productions when they would come through my hometown. I have seen Allegria, Varekai, and Totem at least - loving every one of them. I have briefly seen TikToks of people on different CDS shows showing their acrobatic skills and am always impressed. Getting to hear from the performer’s perspective is really interesting to me and the Kolev sisters are no exception. Some of the tips they expressed were unexpected, while others were not. Relying on one another for balance seems obvious in hindsight since they are a duo but I never thought about it like that. On the flip side, saying that you need to stretch to maintain flexibility seemed almost too apparent. All in all they seem really talented and I hope to see another CDS performance in the near future.