Jan Paul's Monitor:

I want to step out from my shadow

2. 3. 2010 / Jan Paul

Mad guy or exhibitionist?

Hardly anybody realizes that he is actually the descendant from a famous ancestor.

Petr Popper is silent, inconspicuous and humble, small built, with a slim physique and penetrating brown eyes. Armenian blood flows through his veins.

At fourteen his mom showed him a rare relic -- an old trunk full of period articles and in it some dotted piece of clothing. "Your grandpa was Leonid Jengibarov"...

Those a little older know who is behind that name: a Soviet Armenian artist, clown, mime, actor and scenarist, who inspired classic clownery art and silent film grotesque. He created the character of a lyrical clown, brought poetry to his craft and lifted it up to the level of art.

Leonid Jengibarov (15.3.1935 -- 25.7.1972) joined together a virtuoso technique with imagination in an authentic portrait of the human frailty and vulnerability. For Armenians he is a God, for the world one of the top influences, which fundamentally influenced even Czech pantomime.

His Czech grandson, Petr Popper, wanted to be an actor when he was a child and from his mom he found out in 1998 essential information for what would become his life. His mother, a daughter of academic painter Jarmila Halámková, with whom Jengibarov once met and even showed her some of his very rare black-and-white films, which are not part of any other film archive.

One day a Petr -- with a head full of questions -- waits in front of [Czech singer] Karel Gott's mansion over Prague's Smichov district's hill, who was supposed to have met with Jengibarov in Moscow. Who else would help him, than this top Czech star?

"You wanna be an actor and singer?", Gott asked. The master Czech singer told the confused boy standing at his doorstep "when I look at you, I can see that you don't have talent".

Petr dusted off his failure, grew out of it, and met in Prague a Russian turist girl, who asked him to translate a newspaper cutting about... Jengibarov. "What, you are his grandson?" What followed came fast.

In 2008 Petr accepted an invitation to Moscow by Russian writer Marie Romanushko, a close friend of Leonid Jengibarov.

Petr gets to know the city, its surroundings, its people, those who knew who his grandfather was, including some of his relatives and, in a circus, he met a clown, who invited him to the circus' ring.

Petr walks through the places his grandpa's beginnings and finds the unicycle with which his famous ancestor taught others.

"Can I try it?" The clown smirks and using pantomime allerts about the danger of getting hurt...

After his return to Prague Petr attentively studies those cycling film techniques and in half a year arrives through the mail his very much awaited dream. First feelings? A strong will to face this insurmountable uphill effort!

In the first months he twists around fences, exercises balance, muscle coordination, strenghtens his physical condition.

The most difficult are the first trials at seating on the unicycle and finding equilibrium.

At the same year he visits journalist Ondřej Suchý, who tells him a lot about his friend and Petr's grandmother, the academic painter Jarmila Halámková, whom Suchý got acquainted in Moscow with his pal Jengibarov.

Petr Popper wants to try pantomime and so his next steps lead him to Boris Hybner and Ctibor Turba. Hybner prides himself to have known his grandfather, he took a lot from him, but at the moment he won't help the young man.

Ctibor Turba is more helpful, even wants to shoot a film about Jengibarov and his grandson, but the public Czech Television is not interested, although it is the 40th anniversary of the Soviet occupation.

Nonetheless Turba offers Petr a disadvantageous contract, just before flying together to the Swiss Ascons. He would have to sign it, if he wanted to be introduced to a clown and mimic called Dimitri. Petr signs the contract, not from his own wish, but at least the shooting thing ends up dying out.

Two years go by, Petr in the meantime advances in his skills on the unicycle, adding juggling to his abilities and on his table already sits another invitation to Moscow. On the 15th of March this year there will be a gala evening event at the Majakovsky Museum in honor of his grandfather and the Czech grandson should then be able to show there what he has learned.

"I will help you", Turba promises, "but you have to shoot the documentary". He teaches Petr the art of clowning while playing the flute and once again presents him with an unsuitable contract to be signed on the spot. Jengibarov's grandson is his own man and decides not to sign it. Ctibor Turba should teach him the clowning with a flute for free, after all he had taken it from his grandfather for free as well!

Three hours of a recorded interview stayed in Ctibor Turba's drawer, but about a month and a half ago Petr once again got helped by another lucky circumstance. A female friend knows a third top name of Czech pantomime, Jiří Kaftan, that one excitedly and without profit agrees with teaching the Jengibarov grandson. He starts training him and Petr Popper is getting ready to go to Moscow.

When I met him I was interested above all to know the sense, reason and objective of his efforts. Britské listy will bring the exclusive interview soon. A lot of positive things emerge from it.

Petr doesn't want to walk under the shadow of his famous grandfather and also knows he cannot be a second Jenjibarov. Through this revisit to his grandfather's world is before anything else Petr's effort to find himself, it is for him a question of finding the lost personal and family identities, a yearning for identification with the grandfather.

He left his grandson a brilliant family jewel through the peripeties of life and whatever he learns and will learn from him, doing it motivated by wanting to get closer to himself and to become his mother's image -- she who had an uneasy childhood --, to arouse smiles. Perhaps through this effort this grandson can meet with his famous grandfather...

Petr has ambitious objectives: he would like to study at the same circus as his grandfather. He would like to come out from his own shadow and this way to honor the memory of the Great Clown.

Petr's mother lost her father at the age of 8 and her mother six years later. Petr's dad died also early and his mother is getting more and more sad. They had a difficult life, says Popper, and Jengibarov "is for me one of my pillars".

Whoever would like to see his abilities, can come to greet Petr before his departure to Moscow Wednesday, March 3rd at 18:00 At the upper level space at arcade U Hájků, on Prague Center's Na Poříčí street, number 42, when he will be showing what he knows.

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