CULTURE-BRAZIL: Circuses Defend Their Reputation

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 12 2001 (IPS) - Brazil’s circuses, which provide 32,000 direct jobs, have begun to mobilise to defend their rights, demand conditions that would enable them to become fully modern companies, and fight derogatory references that they complain have given them a bad image.

It is disrespectful to describe Congress as a “circus”, when referring to corruption among parliamentarians or to stormy, turbulent legislative sessions and debates, José Wilson Moura Leite, the president of the Brazilian Circus Association (Abrac), told IPS.

“Everything bad is compared to a circus, or described as ‘clowning around’,” complained Leite. And in many demonstrations, protesters sport red clown noses, to indicate that they don’t want to be treated as dunces.

Disparaging allusions to the circus are harmful because they hurt children, the target audience of circuses and clowns, said Abrac official Marlene Querubim, who has directed the Circo Espacial – “the first headed by a woman in Brazil,” she said – for 16 years.

Abrac plans to launch a publicity campaign later this month aimed at improving the image of circuses and promoting the development of circus arts. Under the slogan “receive the circus with open arms”, the spots will be aired by the mass media, with support from the Culture Ministry.

Circuses, which draw an average of 25 million spectators a year, constitute Brazil’s most popular and widely viewed live shows, according to researcher and theatre director Alice Viveiros.

Nearly 2,000 circuses operate in Brazil, although only around 150 large and middle-sized ones have the infrastructure and resources needed to stage nationwide tours, said Leite, 50, a former trapeze artist who now owns and directs the Picadeiro Circus-School in Sao Paulo.

The great majority of circuses in this South American country of 170 million are small, down-at-heel outfits that pay low wages and operate locally.

Abrac, which is drafting proposals aimed at improving the quality of circus shows, recommends a process of concentration, through associations or mergers, that would enable circus companies to survive and grow.

Circuses today are facing “worse conditions than 20 years ago,” and many small operations are disappearing, said Querubim, a business administrator who fell in love with the life of the circus along with her two sons, aged 22 and 15, who now work as clowns.

The first World Circus Festival, to take place Sep 15-22 in Belo Horizonte, the capital of the eastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, is expected to give the sector a welcome boost. Six foreign and four Brazilian circuses will take part in the event, after which they will put on shows in the cities of Sao Paulo and Río de Janeiro.

Abrac, which was created early this year to replace the dismantled Association of Entertainment Businesses, which was founded in 1977, also wants to “salvage the dignity” of circus workers.

A seminar was held last month in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, to discuss “the rights and responsibilities” of circus workers and protest the negative image created by derogatory allusions to the circus.

The debates and discussions among the owners and managers of the country’s circuses are to culminate in the drafting of a bill aimed at ensuring circus employees the same rights already won by other workers.

Since circus jobs are high-risk and careers tend to be short, representatives of the sector want workers to be allowed to retire at the age of 55. “A trapeze artist like myself, or a contortionist, can no longer work in their careers after the age of 40,” argued Leite.

Another problem is that health insurance companies “do not accept circus artists as clients,” due to the high level of risk they face in their jobs – a violation of the rights of any citizen, Leite charged.

Brazil’s circus companies are pressing for a law that would enable them to overcome the numerous difficulties they face.

To simply set up its tents, for example, a circus must first obtain various permits from the municipal government, which entails a significant amount of paperwork, as well as fees and taxes to be paid – procedures that must be repeated in each municipality or city, no matter how short the stay, explained Leite.

The paperwork is so extensive that it often keeps a circus from visiting large cities, he added. For that reason, Abrac is demanding national, rather than local, regulations and taxes, in order to eliminate the differences and gaps in the requisites set by each municipality.

Since circuses use many trained animals, from monkeys to elephants, special rules are also needed to keep the companies from being sanctioned by environmental authorities seeking to enforce laws that protect fauna, Querubim added.