Mexicans Win Golden Clown | Monaco Circus Festival

I have to go there!” A television broadcast of the Monte Carlo International Circus Festival had so excited student Helmut Grosscurth that he borrowed a black suit and traveled from Hanover to Monaco to the festival. At that time, Prince Rainier III still ruled. in the dwarf state on the French Mediterranean coast and in the circus tent of Monte Carlo. Festive clothing was mandatory for guests at the world’s most important circus festival. Of course, the dress code has changed – the guests, unless they are sitting with Prince Albert II and Princess Stéphanie in the royal box directly at the ring, now mostly wear casual clothing.

The circus fool Rainier III, who founded the festival 50 years ago, has long been watching the shows from the sky; his daughter Stéphanie, president of the festival and the driving force of circus activities in Monte Carlo, is now in charge in the tent. She never misses a performance and is on duty from morning to evening during the six fantastic days as jury president, organizer and highest authority of the circus meeting.

Stefan Nolte, the President of the Society of German Circus Friends, has seen countless times how the band in the chapiteau starts the Monte Carlo circus march, the visitors stand up and Stéphanie enters the tent and walks to the box. Two years ago, however, it was he who went to Stéphanie. That was in the noble Monegasque Hotel Hermitage, where Nolte presented the Princess with the Ernst Renz Prize, the highest honor given by German circus fans. His knees were shaking and he almost died of excitement when he gave the eulogy in front of the assembled company of circus directors and other notables, he remembers.

Nolte and Grosscurth traveled to Monaco again this year to experience the best of the best in the ring. For them, this pleasure has become a duty they are happy to fulfill, as Grosscurth is now managing director of ECA, the European Circus Association, which includes around 100 circus companies and organizers. When he experienced his first festival as a student, Monte Carlo was unique. Today there are many circus festivals: in Paris, Budapest, Wiesbaden, in Italian Latina. But Monte Carlo has remained the center of circus fans. Every circus fan must make a pilgrimage there once in their life. And once you’ve been there, you usually come back.

The festival in Monte Carlo determines the market value of the artists. The artists and troupes who performed there are often booked by circus companies, shows and organizers, especially in Europe. Anyone who has won a Golden or Silver Clown will have the ring open everywhere. But these rings have become rare, at least those in traveling circuses. In Germany, for example, only three or four large circuses go on tour. The business is now done in the four weeks around Christmas. Christmas circuses have sprung up like mushrooms; in Germany alone, circus operators are setting up tents in around 200 cities before the holidays and the New Year. This development is a big problem for the artists. At Christmas everyone is excited about them, but in the summer the employment opportunities become rare.

There is little sign of these concerns in Monte Carlo. There is still a “perfect world” here, as Grosscurth says. Everyone who has a name in the industry shows up here. A jury of circus entrepreneurs will decide on the winners, but Princess Stéphanie, as chairwoman, will have the final say. Who would Grosscurth and Nolte promote to the highest podium? The managing director of the European Circus Association liked the women and men of the Mexican troupe Flying Fuentes Gasca the most. The jumpers whirl through the air on two lines on the flying trapeze and are safely grabbed with their hands by catchers hanging in the trapeze on the other side.

Flying trapeze is a supreme artistic discipline. It has already happened that aviators stand on two platforms and on the other side two catchers hang down on the trapeze bar and grab their colleagues with their hands. However, the fact that the actors do not jump in parallel but in opposite directions is unique. The Mexicans act full of energy and at an incredible pace, and they master the most difficult tricks. One of them, Juan Cebolla, even masters the most difficult of all, the quadruple somersault – and does so with complete confidence. He has already jumped quadruple in one performance before Monte Carlo, now he should be at 1900. World record.

If Stefan Nolte were on the jury, he would choose the nine acrobats from the Kolfe troupe as the winners. The Ethiopians combine the classic disciplines of slingboard and Icarian games. Using the slingshot board, the jumper lets his colleagues catapult him into the air and, after one or two somersaults, lands on the soles of the catcher’s feet, who is lying on the “Trinka” in the middle of the seesaw. Such a combination of two disciplines is extremely rare, says Nolte. Kolfe’s artists not only appeared extremely confident, but together with the African rhythms of the music, they radiated an infectious joy of life.

What did the official jury say in the end? In fact, the six jurors and Princess Stéphanie as boss awarded the Mexicans with a Golden Clown on the flying trapeze – alongside 20-year-old Angelina Richter from the famous Hungarian horse family Richter, who performed the 200-year-old horse number “La Poste”, in which she balances on two horses with one leg each, while other horses gallop under her and she picks up their reins. The third Golden Clown went to the three young girls of the Chinese trio Suining, two of whom presented never-before-seen balancing artistry on the hands and feet of the lower woman.

And how did Stefan Nolte’s favorite, the Ethiopian troupe, fare with their mixture of slingboard and Icarian games? At least she received a Silver Clown. The boss of the circus friends can feel confirmed in his judgment.