Everything you need to know you can learn from the Circus

Not much, some outsiders may think. It looks like a fantasy world, where people get paid to travel about and have fun. Hardly the stuff life's hard lessons are made of.

But those in the circus know better. The circus is a world in itself, a multicultural world where people of different cultures, religions and backgrounds learn to get along because they have a common goal.

You will rarely find overt expressions of prejudice on a circus, and if it does surface, it is quickly dealt with.

Circus people, after all, know they are different from the rest of the community. Many have suffered prejudice because they are travellers and will not stand for prejudice and bigotry within the circus world.

So the first thing Circus teaches you is an easy tolerance for the community's diversity. This is a tight, closed community, with little opportunity to put down roots, so for the season at least, these people are your neighbors and work mates. You better get along.

There is no more fascinating picture of cultural diversity than a circus camp. A tumbling troupe will be preparing to feast on curry, while the Italian jugglers in the next wagon are dishing up the pasta.

The kids flit between them both, sampling everything, and stopping to grab a chunk of the home made black bread the aerialists have just received from Germany.

A polyglot of languages fills the air. How do all these people communicate? By picking up words and phrases in each other's language (usually the cuss words first!) and using the time honored method of sign language.

It can look funny, but it is wonderful too.

Humor is universal, so there is a lot of laughter on the circus. This is not to say no one ever loses their temper, or has a beef about something, but we can't always understand what people are angry about. On the other hand, we always laugh at the same things.

The clowns come from all over the globe, but once in the ring, their blend of pantomime and slapstick humor makes audiences of any language see the fun.

And the breathtaking skill of the artists needs no translation.

I've never known a circus performer who seriously studied languages. I'm sure there are some, but most of us learned to get along in foreign countries by listening, picking up the language as we went along.

When you have to live in a country and do your daily shopping, you soon learn the words for milk, meat, potatoes and so on.

Go To Page: 1 2