Behind The Curtain

I spent two months with the Cuban national circus. This is where my work of circus anthropology started. Since then, I have travelled the world meeting circus artists. I worked with circus in Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Vietnam, Cambodia, Spain, Italy and France. I still have a lot of circus artists to meet. These day I started writing a book about my study of these artists'life and intimacy.

While their job is to bring joy to others, circus artists often live in precarious conditions, and especially on the fringes of the rest of the world.

The circus is a dream, of course, it is linked to childhood, to a dimension of ourselves that we do not want to let go. The circus is a microcosm, sweet and warm, rich, multicultural. Perhaps even admiration for what is extraordinary. The opposite, in short, of our society.

Far from the mistaken image that one can have of artists, circus artists work hard. When they don't sweat, they think, they create, they search. Among them, some would not have found their place within the framework of conventional society.

Whether Cuban, Mexican, Russian, French, American, they all speak the same language. The one of the body and the light. A language that thrives away from the violence of the world.

Whether juggler, clown, trapeze artist, contortionist, the circus player struggles, and observes himself in order to make the most of his best tool, his own person.

Besides, the circus unites, because it has no borders. A life of wandering, but also of an exceptional richness, made of meetings, travel and emotions, between pride and melancholy, since whatever happens, the show must continue.

Two months with the troop of the Cuban national circus, crossing the country, from city to city, at the rate of three performances per day. Two months of observing them, living their daily lives and trying to understand what drives them.

Their intimacy is made up of warm-up, moments of make-up and dressing, but also and above all of moments of waiting. And it is exactly when melancholy is revealed. Two months to capture their difference. To share it. Because showing the difference is making it beautiful.

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