SUNDAY morning at Slava Polunin’s house in Marne, south-east of Paris, is an eye-popping affair. Circus acrobats entangle themselves in elegant inversions in his rehearsal room, while jugglers practise their routines. The Polunin residence looks like something sprung from the combined imagination of Lewis Carroll and Salvador Dalí. One room is wholly lined in fur, with steps leaving up to a womb-like bedroom cocoon. Outside, a chicken house is egg-shaped and the outside dining area is designed in the shape of a ship, with an upturned anchor on top. Mr Polunin, an avant-garde performance artist since the days of glasnost, dreams up idea for his shows while lying on an old hospital bed that has been adapted into a boat. It floats unsteadily on the Marne river, which flows through his grounds.

Lyricists have rhapsodized over June in January, but these late-summer days, enthusiasm can be expressed for blizzards in bumblebee season.

Looking for the mischief makers behind such a topsy-turvy turn of events leads to the Union Square Theater, where a giggle of clowns led by the Russian master Slava Polunin is stirring up laughter and enjoyment in “Slava’s Snowshow.”

Slava Polunin’s utterly breathtaking Snowshow, the magic is the kind we used to know as children.