Photo by Leo Francis / Red Bull Content Pool
Latvian freerunner dreams up retro project to showcase unique abilities.
Latvian freerunner and multiple Red Bull Art of Motion champion Pavel ‘Pasha’ Petkuns has conjured up a thrilling retro project, Human Pinball, as a scaled-up pinball machine becomes his own personal playground to showcase his unique athletic abilities. Here is all you need to know:
– Petkuns, known to his friends and fans as Pasha, believes that the sky really is the limit with his creative bar work and the easy fluidity of his movement seeing him progressing the freerunning scene since his first showreel in 2009 with multiple Red Bull Art of Motion titles and podiums to his name.
– In this new video project shot over three gruelling weeks in May – following a seven-week set build – the 28-year-old from Daugavpils uses a giant retro pinball machine to highlight his thrilling talent.
– This unique freerunning feat involved creating a 16m-high wall with a 23m-high length (hypotenuse), tilted at an angle of 45 degrees to create near-impossible angles, jumps and catches around a series of global landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.
– The angle of the wall is based on a bridge in Latvia where he honed his craft. After moving to the USA to work as a Hollywood stunt double and taking a road trip through North America, Petkuns discovered the nostalgic wonders of pinball machines and combined these two inspirations into a dream challenge of becoming a human pinball.
– Petkuns said: “It’s been a huge personal dream of mine to create this film and it’s so exciting to finally see this released for the world to see. It’s so cool to bring a creative idea to life from inside my imagination, and Human Pinball is the epitome of that for me. I hope everyone enjoys the film and I’d like to say a huge thanks to the whole team for their support throughout the whole process!”
– Red Bull have also released a 30-minute documentary showing how the project came to life with acclaimed director Mike Christie (who produced Danny MacAskill’s Imaginate, which generated nearly 100m views on YouTube) and executive producer Nico Martell involved throughout.
– Martell said: “There has been a generational shift in freerunning over the last decade, and Pasha’s profile and creativity shows that. Human Pinball is a pioneering moment for our sport and from here the sky is the limit.”
