CBC49%
Meet Aleksei, the contortionist whose flexibility is too intense for some to watch 33%
By Nina Dragicevic0%
3/19/2026, 6:00:00 AM
Keywords: Europe, Aleksei Goloborodko, Meet Aleksei, Contortionist, Cirque Du Soleil, Luzia, Cirque Life
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Anecdotal, and Optimism Bias, with Ambiguity (Equivocation) as the most egregious example at 14.5% saturation with 115 hits. Analysis detected 817 faulty-reasoning hits from 792 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 41.3% and a BS Rank of 33% (14,789 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 67.60% of the article peer group.
“Aleksei, plus one.”
“Aleksei, plus one again.”
“Plus one, Aleksei.”
Contortionist Aleksei Goloborodko, a performer in Cirque du Soleil’s hit show LUZIA, was growing confused.
His artistic director, and others in the show, kept saying the phrase to him.
“At that time, my English was not that good yet, and I didn’t know what exactly he meant,” Goloborodko said.
“I thought it was some kind of a phrase, like ‘break a leg,’ like ‘good luck,’ but why would he say such a thing after the performance?”
Finally Goloborodko braced himself and asked: what does “plus one” mean?
It turns out they were keeping count of how many times an audience member would faint during his contortionist act.
As Goloborodko shares in the new CBC series Cirque Life, his count is up to 74.
At the time of this interview in early March, he’s up to 78.
Goloborodko thought it was a joke at first.
But then the PR manager, ushers, and stage staff all confirmed — people were fainting during his performance and they had to be taken care of onsite.
Europe was particularly sensitive, Goloborodko added.
“In Spain, it’s happened a lot, almost every single week.
Sometimes twice a week,” he said.
“They had to stop the show because someone didn’t feel good.
And the guys working after me, which is swing to swing, they came up to me and they were like, ‘Aleksei, could you stop, please?
It distracts from our work.’
But I was like, ‘It’s not my fault.
It’s just happening.’”
A mainstay of circus acts, contortionism originated in China and Mongolia and has inspired, shocked and unsettled audiences for centuries.
Like many acts, exceptional beauty and achievement flirted with the impossible, even danger.
For Goloborodko, the art form of unfathomable flexibility was lifelong work — no mere hobby, but a full lifestyle that required total dedication.
At age 4, in Tula, Russia, Goloborodko saw a commercial for the circus and begged his parents to see the show.
After the show, he begged to join — in any discipline, he added.
“I asked my parents to take me to a circus studio because I wanted to be part of this world, but it didn’t matter at the time what discipline I would do,” Goloborodko said.
“I just wanted to be in this bright, colourful, noisy environment.”
A coach at the circus studio felt that the young Goloborodko was flexible enough to try contortion.
But the safe practice of contortionism required hours of training every day, and two training sessions per day in his teen years, he said.
It required his full dedication, even as he kept up with school, homework and exams.
But Goloborodko loved it.
As he reminisced recently, if he ever misbehaved as a child, his mother would threaten to keep him home from the circus studio.
He developed additional skills in sport, dance, martial arts and gymnastics to hone his performance.
Goloborodko didn’t want to just perform a series of tricks, one after the other: “The idea was to make it look like a dance, like one sequence of the whole act.”
Asked about his impressive work ethic and discipline from such a young age, he deflects.
Goloborodko prefers to credit all the people who trained and supported him: parents, coaches, teachers and trainers.
“I work hard, yes,” he said.
“I worked hard, but sometimes when a person wants to do something, and this person works really hard, but the environment is not supportive … sometimes things don’t happen.”
“I would say that my whole environment supported me.”
Today, Goloborodko is frequently called the world’s most flexible man.
As the first episode of Cirque Life shows, he is still ambitious — setting a Guiness World Record for “Most prone extreme back bends in one minute (male).”
Although he aimed for 12 back bends, he completed 14 in that time.
The total dedication to the craft remains.
LUZIA can have up to 10 or 11 shows per week, which can mean several shows in one day, for which Goloborodko takes 45 minutes to warm up each time.
He never skips a warmup.
If he has time or fewer performances one day, he will do additional strength training and other exercises — he also enjoys jogging — but nothing interferes with the show.
“Of course the main focus, the main goal, is the show, and this is the priority,” Goloborodko said.
“The show is always the priority.
If I feel like I have lack of energy, I don’t have strength, I need to rest more — I postpone all my trainings and just focus on performing.”
Watch Cirque Life, now streaming on CBC Gem.
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