KEY POINTS:
The thin metal pole judders as Irina Naumenko places her weight on a pedestal no bigger than a brick.
While the implement shakes, the 23-year-old Russian contortionist is the embodiment of tranquillity. She even manages a smile as she moves into a full handstand on the pedestal, her
legs splayed 180 degrees.
The left leg then comes down while the right goes up until the line formed almost parallels her torso. The left foot is then tucked under the pedestal, about 50cm from the ground.
Her spine, at this stage, is almost bent in half.
"Sometimes we do interviews when I'm on the canes," she says later.
Naumenko embodies the spirit of Cirque du Soleil, the live entertainment empire founded in Quebec, Canada, nearly 23 years ago as a heady combination of artistry and athleticism.
For a woman who brings new meaning to the term "spineless", there's nothing pretentious about Naumenko. She doesn't even have a name for the act she's just done. "It's just some bendy thing."
She only started performing and training when she was 12, shattering the assumption that to be able to bend your spine in half, you'd better start practising not long after learning to walk.
"There's not really a border on the age to start to do something - it just depends how much you want it."
Her mother had seen a casting call for performers for a children's circus.
Naumenko, then only accustomed to doing handstands around the house, auditioned.
Her time there led to another circus company before the Cirque asked her to join nearly four years ago.
But while the big top has occupied nearly half her life, Naumenko has other plans too, wanting to return to university to study law.
The yearning for a more conventional career may not be helped by the frequent travel of a touring artist.
"Sometimes at the airport, I have to tell people what I do.
"When I say contortions, they do not really understand me. So I say I basically put my bum on my head.
"It happens very often."
The show
* Venue: ASB Showgrounds, Auckland.
* Tickets range from $70 to $240 for adults, and $50 to $170 for children.
* The show premiered last night and runs until February 4. Exclusive tickets will be available for Cirque Club members for performances from February 6 to 18.
* The setting is a world called Varekai, which means "wherever" in Romany, the language of the gypsies. It begins when a young man falls from the sky and lands in the shadows of a magical forest.
From streets to stadiums
Varekai is the fifth touring production for Cirque du Soleil (French for "Circus of the Sun"), the live entertainment empire founded in Quebec in 1984 by two former street performers. The first Big Top fitted an audience of 800.
After playing to Canadian audiences for three years, Cirque du Soleil went international in 1987 with its first American tour, including shows in Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Monica. Founder Guy Laliberte and his small group of loyal performers had set off on such a small budget they barely had enough petrol money to get home if it was a flop.
Cirque celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2004 with a new show and performances all around the world, from North America, to Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
It has more than 3000 employees working for shows seen by 40 million spectators in 134 cities on four continents.
This year alone, 14 different shows are operating around the world:
Touring
* Varekai (Asia-Pacific).
* Dralion (European and Japanese).
* Quidam (Asia-Pacific).
* Alegria (European).
* Corteo (North America).
* Cirque 2007 (North America).
Resident
* O ( Las Vegas , Nevada).
* Mystere ( Las Vegas , Nevada).
* Zumanity, Another Side of Cirque du Soleil (Las Vegas, Nevada).
* LaNouba (Orlando, Florida).
* Ka (Las Vegas, Nevada).
* Love (Las Vegas, Nevada).
* New show at Theatre at Madison Square Garden in New York (starting this November)
Arena
* Delirium (North America)
Cirque's Big Top in Auckland will seat 2600 beneath a 20m-high, blue and yellow Grand Chapiteau, erected by 60 people at the ASB Showgrounds.
More than 1000 tonnes of equipment filling 73 containers was brought in for the extravaganza.
The New Zealand show was the first time the Varekai set had been shipped, with each piece having to be cleaned under Ministry of Agricultural and Forestry supervision in Brisbane to meet quarantine regulations.
