Send in the clown

The show is a genre of its own and remains spontaneous and magical, catapulting adults back in childhood. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Slava's Snowshow is different every performance because it allows for improvisation.

"I do my best to prevent the artists in the company from knowing who is playing who until the last moment. I also try to set up some unexpected things. That way, improvisation becomes very natural, and the show remains full of life," Polunin says.

Polunin also founded the Academy of Fools - aka Slava's Fools Unlimited - in the early 1990s to organize the Crazy Women festival dedicated to the rare phenomenon of female clownery.

Nowadays, his students do most of the work in Slava's Snowshow.

"People are so focused on their careers, on their problems, on their incomes, that they no longer feel the taste of life. They have forgotten what it feels like to smell a flower, to listen to a bird's song, to lie on the grass on a summer day staring at the sky for hours," Polunin says.

"The main purpose of the Academy of Fools is to make sure that these pointless things do not disappear from life. We have a countless number of things of similar importance. And if we ever stop doing those things, people would drown in seriousness and loose the ability to smile.

"The happier you are yourself, the happier your audience is. I gather only happy people in my team. That is my secret."

If you go

7:30 pm, Sept 2-3. Tianqiao Performing Arts, 9 Tianqiao Nandajie, Xicheng district, Beijing. 400-635-3355.