[Photo courtesy of Batjargal Batmunkh]
“Whenever I play that game two truths and one lie, I always
say I grew up in a circus, and everybody says that’s the lie,” said Batjargal “Bachka”
Batmunkh ’13, smiling, “but it’s not.”
Bachka actually did spend most of his childhood—from age
four to 12 on-stage with Cirque du Soleil’s “Algeria,” touring around the world and
going almost everywhere—with the exception, he said, of any African countries. His
favorites include New Zealand and Singapore.
[Photo courtesy of Batjargal Batmunkh]
He speaks French, Mongolian, and English, and he even
understands a little bit of Russian.
Since the age of three, Bachka had been traveling with his
mother, who was a coach for acts in the show, and he spent much of his time
backstage watching the acrobats perform. One day, he started imitating some of
the actions of stage (no acrobatics yet though!), and the creators of the show
decided to put him in. When they asked him if he’d like to have a part, “it was
the easiest yes ever,” he said.
“The first thing I did was do a quick move and then go off stage,”
he said, “I definitely made the crowd go ‘awe’.
There isn’t much you can do that is more fun then being a
kid in the midst of an artistic circus act. “Before they opened the house, I
would have my costume on and they would give me a big bag of popcorn,” said
Bachka.
In his younger years, Bachka’s father stayed home in
Mongolia, but eventually joined the Cirque crew as a coach for acrobats and
house troupes.
Though Bachka was the only kid in the show, he made friends
with the children of coaches and technicians. “Most of the time I was fooling
around backstage,” said Bachka, “my best friends and I would always hang out.”
“I also had a super Nintendo and some of the younger cast
members would get in trouble for playing with it, but I was allowed because I
was a kid,” he said.
He got into a fair share of trouble as well, growing up
backstage. Once him and a friend threw into their air a whole container of
confetti that was supposed to be used at ‘snow’ during the show; however the
audience soon found out that there was no ‘snow’ left to be used, and the two
boys were scolded when they had been discovered.
He has also met several celebrities though his stage career,
but he only remembers them due to the collection of photos his parents
keep—Janet Jackson, Harrison Ford, Whoopi Goldberg. Once he even high fived President
Bill Clinton; Bachka only found out the man’s identity after the show from the
adults. “I was pen pals with that boy from Spy Kids for a little bit,” he said.
“One of the most beautiful theaters to perform in,” said
Bachka, “was the Royal Albert Hall in London with its old design and terraces
for the audience.”
The one this that he missed out on, he said, were the
parties. “I wished I was old enough to enjoy them, but I was 10.”
Another thing that wasn’t as great for Bachka during those
years was his academic career. In the US, he said, they have a law that if you’re
a minor that works, you can only go to school for a certain amount of time and
are not allowed to be assigned homework. To supplement this, his parents
assigned him their own homework, and his mother continuously taught him reading
and writing in Mongolian, since he spent so much time abroad.
“The hardest thing to learn was actually putting on the
makeup,” Bachka said, “it took me a really long time to do.”
[Photo courtesy of Batjargal Batmunkh]
By the time Bachka was 10, he began to work on acrobatics.
“I was not a natural for it,” he said with a laugh.
The first trick he did was to hold on to the back of a man
who was performing a back flip. “At first it was pretty scary, but then it got
fun,” he said. The tricks did get harder, and he watched talented cast members
perform amazing tricks everyday.
“I thought the coolest act were the aerial high bars with a
net below; it always blew my mind,” he said.
The hardest trick he had to work on was a double back flip
pike. In fact, in one show, he over rotated and landed on his head and passed
out.
“My parents told me that the crowd was scared because I was
obviously the only kid in the show and I wasn’t moving,” said Bachka seriously,
“and it must have scared my parents because I stopped doing Cirque about a year
later. “
After Cirque, Bachka went back to Mongolia in 7th
grade and attended an international school that continued his exposures to a
variety of cultures. Because he
was athletic from his involvement in acrobatics, he continued to get involved
with sports in high school.
“I also learned to play drums from the show’s drummer. I sat
next to him during sound checks, and he taught me for three years,” said
Bachka. He was in a band in high school called “Mohanik” and January of his
senior year, they were signed and recorded an album together. He left the band
to attend Lehigh, and the band has since recorded more albums, played numerous
shows in Mongolia and recorded songs for movie soundtracks.
Bachka’s mother now works as a trainer for young aspiring
contortionists, and is able to send them on to large shows. If you wanted to
make it as a contortionist in Mongolia, you would have to go to her.
Bachka intends to stay in education, and hopefully work
internationally. “I wouldn’t mind being a principal for an international
school, travel, and work with kids.”
Ideally, he hopes to makes changes for the youth in Mongolia because the
government and education, since the change from communism in 1991, has become
corrupted.
Woah, that's really awesome. He must be really talented.
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