Circus Wars

Jakob grew up with a picture in his room of a boy in tuxedo sitting on a bench next to an elephant with his arm around the elephants back. The same photo has adorned the wall of our girls room for many years. So our children (and Jakob) have gone to bed dreaming of having elephants as friends and of being that lucky child who gets to grow up in the circus. But I am sure even all those unfortunate children who don't go to bed contemplating human elephant friendship still have dreams of being in a circus. The circus as a concept has manged to climb a high pedestal of regard. It is not only iconic but also generously romanticized. 

 

So when we saw those indistinguishable gaudily colored posters around town we all got excited. The circus is in town. The circus is in town. "Hooray!" we all yelled. So we secured ourselves tickets to get our moment in the big top. This was to be an African circus which made the whole expedition even more exotic. Who knew that Africa had a culture of circus? Really it doesn't. But culture has to start somewhere and we were going to be a part of it. And then a day before the circus I saw another poster up advertising another circus. Could there really be two circuses in town? Isn't that contrary to all unwritten circus law? And in Canberra of all places. Little quiet Canberra. The other circus was a Russian circus and for second I thought that it was a joke. But sure enough there were two circuses in our small capital. And people say there is nothing going on in Canberra! The Africans put up their tent north of the lake, were smiley in their poster and advertised an air-conditioned tent. The Russians chose to perform south of the lake, wore serious expressions and advertised a heated tent. I kid you not.

 

We stuck with our initial plan and went to Cirque Africa. It was a colorful lively performance that can best be described as enthusiastic, entertaining and grassroots. The children were mesmerized - except for Tova who it turns out sleeps much better in a loud environment. There were bendy people, and strong people, and musical people, and dancy people, even a loud clowny person. Unfortunately, there weren't too many watchy people. The thousand seater tent had a measly 50 viewers. This was great for us as everyone had a front row seat but it was sad for the performers and crew. And in fact, part way through the show we received a sad soliloquy of their troubles. Russians. Permits gone awry. Maybe just a really poor circus manager? They were trying to put a positive spin on the circus version of the cold war but you could tell that their morale was down as they generously doled out half price tickets for future shows. My heart really bled for the African circus. 

 

And it really sort of made us want to go see the competition except one circus was more than enough. But the absurdity of the situation did interest me so I made a point of checking out the web pages of both circuses. Both groups are on a three year tour of the Australian continent. The Russians have a busy schedule for the next four months while the Africans are lingering in Canberra for 6 weeks and then have nothing else on their website. Which makes me feel that this is possibly not the end of the circus wars. 

 

Better than a circus

These children are very loved

Unusually alert

Our own  performer