With the wild-sounding woodwinds and pounding drums of a Dagestani folk song blaring, a slender young man dressed in an embroidered vest, white shirt, and close-fitting trousers grips a 20-foot titanium pole for balance and steps off a tiny platform 12 feet above the bare wooden stage.

With consummate grace he saunters out onto the wire. Looking straight ahead, he launches into a folk dance on the wobbling cable. His kicks and knee bends culminate in similar moves carried out, amazingly, supine. On one leg he rises to augment his high-wire capers with Cossack-style jumps. Then he steps backward to regain the platform.

He hands his pole to a young woman in florid traditional attire and a white head scarf. She steps