An artist told what happens behind the scenes of a circus

It doesn’t matter what you think about the circus, whether you perceive it with the enthusiasm and respect of children or with skepticism and disapproval. In any case, Ekaterina Zapashnaia’s blog is worth knowing, no matter where you are. The artist, with years of experience in acrobatics and training, writes honest posts about circus life, talks about the peculiarities of her work and never gets tired of fighting stereotypes.

O awesome.club invites you to look behind the scenes at the circus together with our brilliant guide.

Ekaterina got to know circus life very early and went through each of its levels, although she almost never dreamed of becoming a famous artist one day.

Now she wins the hearts of the public by performing numbers with her husband, Konstantin Rastegayev. The couple goes on excursions, without separating a single day from their daughter.

While working, artists are not distracted even by the charms of the most beautiful tourist cities. It is only possible to relax and get to know the place after the conclusion of the program and when there are a few days left for another city. The main thing is to pack your bags on time.

Putting things together is a special “pleasure”. Colorful costumes and mountains of accessories just delight the eye on the hangers. When you start packing them, you want to take everything and at the same time send it all to hell. In addition, our protagonists consider that it would be irresponsible to deprive their son of things because of their itinerant profession, which means that they also carry boxes of toys, bicycles, skates, books, etc. with them.

To create a home no matter where, the couple only needs a little more than 10 things. Among them are, for example, a table lamp, slippers and a microwave. “Like everyone else, we also collect garbage periodically, so once a year we do a general cleaning: everything that is not used every month is discarded or sent to my mother’s house”.

The most dramatic contrast is between the performers during the show and during rehearsals. All disheveled, with dark circles under their eyes, in sports clothes, dirty and smelling like animals. Ekaterina laughs that instead of perfumes and other pretty things, they have stretching pills, painkillers, various ointments and elastic bandages on the dressing table. “Ask an artist for a moisturizer and he won’t have one, but ask him for a muscle ache cream and he’ll definitely have one.”

The level of injuries in a circus is really high. Everyone knows that the artist can be incapacitated or die while performing a trick, but no one believes that this will happen to you. “I never watch videos about falling in a circus. I don’t need this fear that will give me insecurity.”

But even if we forget about mortal danger, risks and pain are the artist’s eternal companions, always invisible to the viewer. Watching the fascinating spectacle, a spectator hardly thinks: “Is everything okay with the artist’s neck that hangs on the platform?”. Gymnasts and acrobats suffer from muscle, knee and back pain. “But nobody leaves, because they play your music, and it’s not you anymore, it’s the artist, and you’re an image”.

In the circus, as in the theater, there are no second chances. If the artist made a mistake, no matter how well known he was, approximately 2,000 people witnessed his fiasco. The artist is hostage to his role. He must be bold and maintain the image until the end. Even if at night he cries into his pillow, if there is discord in the troupe, if he feels an old injury or if another number fails, he must go out and be exactly as the spectator and director want to see him.

Ekaterina says that, working in good and clean circuses, she feels proud as an artist, not
is ashamed to record and send videos about how animals live, how they work and rest easily.

But when you come to a dilapidated circus and an attached hotel in the same conditions… the artists themselves are willing to describe themselves with the most cliché terms that are often used, such as “circus” or “white gypsy”. At times like this, not only can you prove nothing to the circus’ naysayers, but the same performers are ashamed and angry at having to work and live in such conditions.

Unfortunately, artists rarely have the opportunity to choose the comfort of their tour. And while people at least have the opportunity to rent an apartment (though not always successfully), a decent space for the animals is a matter of sheer luck.

Don’t think this doesn’t affect artists. They understand that it is impossible to attract circus art with squalor, not even those who really love the circus. But your employees have the same degree of choice as those who work in an office or restaurant.

Children are fascinated by the bright costumes and trained animals, but they cannot realize the complexity and risk of the tricks, the quality of the performance, acting skills and staging. Script numbers are designed for adults.

Because of the “childish” stereotype, you can hear attacks like “the gymnasts are naked, the costumes are vulgar, it’s pure depravity in front of children”. Unfortunately, this is an indicator of “illiteracy” and ignorance of the viewer. The protagonist of the post states that, in Europe, the circus audience is mostly made up of adults who understand that a minimal or tight-fitting outfit is not erotic, but, first, a uniform that is as comfortable as possible for an acrobat.

Excess fabric not only distracts attention from demonstrating the artist’s sporting skills, it can also hamper his movements and interfere with the performance of movements.

It often happens that circus artists are their own make-up and costume designers. Ekaterina admits that she does not sew her costumes, but decorates them. Of course, both in makeup and in creating looks scenic, you have to have good taste, otherwise it’s very easy to fall into vulgarity.

Stage makeup should be attractive and expressive, so that the artist’s face is visible even to the viewer in the last row. Our protagonist, not without irony, admits that she did not immediately master the art of good theatrical makeup.

It is easy to see that modern cosmetics and constant practice make it possible for artists to achieve any transformation.

Ekaterina loves animals, but her main specialty is dog training.

“I spend half of the rehearsal petting them, and the second half I try to work, but it doesn’t always work: I want to pet one again”.

The artist knows “the face” and character of each of her 20 dogs and on her blog she not only describes the exciting stories related to each of them, but also shares her personal educational experience and advice on illness and care.

Ekaterina never ceases to be amazed at the ignorance of the mass public and fights against unreasonable claims. In addition to publishing data and even small talks about the animals, she also refutes information on pseudoscientific sites.

The lack of information is ridiculous, in her opinion: some animal advocates are outraged by the confinement and exploitation of “wild camels”. But camels have been domesticated animals for many centuries, like cows or horses. People drink the milk and eat the meat, use the wool and teach them to walk with a saddle. Camel farms are very common and absolutely legal.

“It is at this age that ‘children’ (animals) begin to educate themselves in the circus, they understand that the person is their mother, their leader, their friend and their source of food. At first, the ‘trainer father’ is only with the ‘child’, he remains in his space, feeds him with his hands, plays with him, animals born in captivity cannot live without humans, they do not know how to hunt, they have immunity different, they are sure that at a certain time they will bring their food.

The people who raise them from such a young age humanize them. Sometimes it’s hard to immediately tell in a conversation that you’re talking about an animal.”

Circus performers are neither gypsies nor criminals. They don’t steal newborn animals, they don’t buy them from poachers and they don’t have any kind of relationship with the black market. Future four-legged “colleagues” are acquired on farms, breeding grounds or zoos, that is, these are babies that were not born in wild conditions.

No mentally healthy trainer will hit an animal, all training is based on voice commands, rewards and petting.

There is a veterinarian among the circus’ permanent staff, and each animal is officially registered and cannot just disappear or appear out of nowhere. They also eat according to the rules and there are even foods they don’t eat because they don’t want to. Like other workers, older animals “retire”: often their human “colleagues” take them home or else they continue to live in the circus, as handlers don’t want to be separated from their wards.

“I am grateful to the defenders of animal rights, because their mission is noble, except that they must not fight against the circus, but against cruel training!”.

There are bad people in all professions, and you don’t have to stigmatize them all just because you hear about the cruelty of one. No one is against schools or the police or medicine, although there are even more dire stories about teachers, police and doctors than there are about trainers.

Ekaterina also advises to have a more critical attitude towards the information received: a compromising story (often taken out of context) is enough to provoke a public outcry. And the less people know, the stronger the contestation.

Owners of private circuses are a serious blow to circus art: unlike official circuses (existing in Russia), the rules for buying, keeping and raising animals are established by the owner. Whatever your decision about a four-legged “employee”, it can hardly be brought to justice.

The root of evil is not just in cruel trainers. There are many unscrupulous breeders, veterinarians and pet owners who adopt them without any sense of responsibility or desire.
to take care…