On February 7, a specially selected squad of 10 student reporters was whisked to Macau for the chance of a lifetime. They met Wang Qiaoxiong and Denis Partsvaniya, who star in Cirque du Soleil's Zaia, and wrote about the experience.
Qiaoxiong, who is also known as Cutie Bear, is the youngest artist in Zaia at only 17.
'Acrobatics is meant for me,' says Qiaoxiong with a bright smile plastered on his face. It's hard to imagine the shy boy sitting in the artist's lounge spends his time climbing soaring poles balanced on giant metal globes.
The Chinese teen started doing martial arts when he was 10, but after graduating from high school, he joined an acrobatic troupe in Hebei . It wasn't long before the China Performing Art Agency noticed his talents and suggested he join Cirque du Soleil.
Every new artist in the troupe has to train for at least three months at Cirque headquarters in Montreal. During a performance, their daily schedule includes practice in training rooms as well as on stage. 'Acrobatics is tough,' Qiaoxiong says. 'There's lots of training.' But the plucky acrobat still has time to surf the Net and attend English lessons: 'I don't feel like my career leaves me with no personal life.'
Joining Russian gymnastics school Dynamo Moscow at the age of six, Russian-born Denis tried many times to abandon his acrobatic life, as the desire to have a normal teenaged social life grew.