a blog per requests! - CLOWNS & HORSES

I asked what people would like to hear about more on the blog and I got "Clowns" and "Horses" as answers, so here is a blog on stories about both from our Europe circus filming adventures.

The main clown of our filming, of course, was Rob Torres, who competed in Monte Carlo, and next year will be with the Big Apple Circus. We met Rob in Essen at the Roncalli dinner theater, where he always called it a successful night when he could cause someone to run to the bathroom as they tried not to pee their pants.
When we asked Rob to define his clown character he responded, "Define the character?…. The character is humanity."
We spent a day in Germany with Rob and followed him as he met up with old friends he knew from performing in Canada. The two friends worked in a workshop space (an old barn on a farm) on a new act. The day was full of non-stop gags full of puns and jokes.... laying eggs, fart machines, fake dog poop...basically, lesson learned, clowns are clowns outside the ring as well.

Another clown we interviewed was Caroline Simonds, aka Dr. Girafe. I wanted to interview her because it's a different side of clowning and interaction with the "general world". She basically started Clown Care in hospitals in France after working with the Big Apple Clown Care unit in New York. She is now the Artistic Director of Le Rire Médecin centered in Paris, France. But before all this, she fought the idea of becoming a clown, she wanted to be "serious", but for some reason it just kept coming back.
A quote from an article on Caroline:
"The clown for me is my medium. It is a ‘Here and now’ state of being - it is not a ‘yesterday or tomorrow’ one. I will never give up the clowning. It is my true form of expression, my art.”


THE HORSE PART!
In Monte Carlo, we tried to interview as many performers as possible. We were fascinated by the story of the horse act from Kyrgystan -Eshimbekov Troupe, who ended up winning a Silver Clown. Pulling Abdynaly, one of the leaders, aside for a moment we heard of the troupe's years and years of dreams to come compete in Monte Carlo. Abdynaly spent most of the festival limping around on a hurt foot, and had also suffered a major shoulder injury during one of the rehearsals. He said a shot from the hospital would keep him in the ring during performances and after hours a bottle of vodka. We had not seen their act yet, as we were always back stage, but one day near the end of our time in Monaco, we had a chance to sit in the audience and our jaws dropped during their act. With high speed galloping horses performers were dragged behind, flipped on and off, crawled under the bellies, and pyramids were created on the horses. Abdynaly was the bottom man on a tower of people jumping on and off galloping horses as they raced around the ring. We had never imagined his shoulder would have to take so much pounding in a horse act and were awed by the appearance of perfect health after what we had seen backstage. After each show we watched the horses and riders cool off, both human and animal's sides heaving to catch their breath and sweat dripping.