The dancer's hands are shaking.
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It's hard to notice, and he's short of breath. If you didn't know why, you might be think it was a hint of nerves ahead of opening night. But it's not. He's too seasoned for that.
He steps off the centre stage in a bedazzled tail coat after a showcase of his experimental dance style that he calls "bone breaking". It's a mix of hip hop, popping and contortion that's shocking and beautiful, elegant and visceral, in equal parts.
The stage is small under the big top and, when the seating goes in, the audience is within arm's reach of his performance; close enough to see his muscles ripple as he ties his body in knots to the beat and turns his head a near-full 90 degrees.
He's beaming under the stage make-up. He sets his smile wide, and tries to ignore his hands.
Just about every child, at one time or another, dreams of running away with the circus, but Mykhailo Makarov - the trained chef who turned to an award-winning, world-spanning career in dance - has actually done it.
"I graduated university as a chef and I used to work in restaurants," he says, "But then my life changed and I started to pay attention to what I love; what my soul loves. What I love is dance."
Makarov, who goes by Misha, has been dancing for the past 15 years. He has won national championships in Asia and Europe, and was a favourite on the Got Talent series in his home country of Ukraine in 2021.
He is one of the cast of eight performers from around the world starring in the tour of Spiegeltent's Blanc de Blanc Encore in Newcastle, which opened on Friday night in Civic Park and runs through October 22, as part of the City of Newcastle's New Annual festival of arts and culture.
The show is a wild, glitter-and-bubbles romp of classic burlesque. It's sexy and weird and glamorous. Director Scott Maidment describes it like drinking champagne; things start out formal and then gradually fizz into a wild play of style, beauty, edgy talent, and classy artistic debauchery.
The show is a toast to the theatrical circus tradition - an ode to art and a bedazzled, playful middle finger to the kind of violence that might try to shut the party down. It's bright and fun and wild, and after war and pandemic and changing times, it charges its champagne flutes in happy defiance and sings to the back of the room, "we're still here".
"You can really feel the history in the performance," Maidment says, "Parts of this tent have probably been touring Europe for the past 100 years; you can really feel the energy and history in the space and that is why the performers love it as well.
You can really feel the history in the performance. Parts of this tent have probably been touring Europe for the past 100 years; you can really feel the energy and history in the space and that is why the performers love it as well.
- Blanc de Blanc Encore director Scott Maidment
"A lot of these performers have really been training their whole lives to do this one skill... [before COVID], they were really at the peak of their careers and then literally could not work for two years."
Misha was at home in Ukraine when Russia's tanks rolled into Kyiv. His family are still there; his mother and sister work from a bomb shelter, and he sends whatever money he can make home to support them. The show had to secure a special visa for the 31-year-old to come to Australia. Without it, he would have been conscripted into military service. When he is on stage, with his joints on swivels and his eyes turned to the light, his mind is always at home with the fear that the next shell could land anywhere.
It's almost imperceptible, but his hands shake when he talks about home.
"There is no safe place in Ukraine now," he says, "The shelling is all around Ukraine and not just on the front line. They're just bombing our buildings and that is the scary part; you don't know what is going to happen.
"I've lost everything. I've lost so many friends; performers killed.
"They were trying to get out of Kyiv in cars, but the Russian army had already arrived. They were in our streets. There were soldiers dressed as civilians, but they had weapons and they were killing us. They just shot all of the cars. It's hell.
"I lost everything and this is the only thing I have; the stage and the people. Everyone knows me, they know I'm just training and performing. I have nothing but dance now.
Even under that weight, Misha's performance is a symbol of his resilience. He says he is surrounded by his fellow cast of performers from around the world, all of whom he looks up to for their talent and ability; they propel him forward. For the time being, he's going to keep doing what he does.
"(Dance) is a big language," he says, "It's communicating by movement... When I'm communicating with another people, I'm learning their culture and sharing my knowledge. Every time, there is a big exchange and that inspires me to keep doing that because the world is so interesting.
"We have really world-class performers, which means everyone is just 100 per cent into their craft. To work with these people is a big pleasure for me. We're all professionals and we're doing beautiful things - and beautiful people come to see these beautiful things.
"Everyone who got out of Ukraine is under pressure. We have a lot of responsibility here, and there. My mind is always there.
"But it's life. We cannot do anything but do good things so that everyone around us can be good. That's it."
NEW ANNUAL
Other New Annual dance events include:
Rhapsody Sept 23, 8pm, Wilson Carpark, The Store, by Catapult Dance Choreographic Hub, choreographer Omer Backley-Astrachan.
What Will Have Been, by Circa, Sept 23, 7.30pm, Christ Church Cathedral.
NOISE, by Dancenorth, Sept 29 (6pm) and Sep 30 (6.30pm, 8.30pm), Museum Park.