Ludzie Areny [antikvár]

IULY 1 In a few days I shall cross the bordér of a small dosed community, about which little is known or written. I am about to prepTre a photographlc album about the circus. My knowledge on fhe subject is scant. I seem to recall a thing or two from my ch.ldhood days though... When the circus wouid come to our town it created quite a st.r among us boys. It was a great experience m itself to see the first circus wagon roll into the market-place where only yesterday farm carts had stood amid the squeaiing of pigs up for sale. As more and more wagons appeared our excitement rose. By the smells and sounds emanating from the cages we could guess what kmd of beast was locked up inside. Within a few hours' time we had become acquainted with the entire troupe, and we helped out by carrying benches, poles and lines. Somé of the bolder ones among us ventured into the vicinity of the housewagons, but that was even more dangerous than being next to the tiger cages. Peeping into the wagons was a sure way to get one's ears boxed. But what a field of observation was to be found there! If a lady performer had red hair we imagined her to be a bareback rider. And we expected a man with an athletic build, expecially if he was hairy all over, to bend metál bars or pound nails into a board with his bare hands. But the greatest number of us curiosity-seekers congregated around the midgets. They were mostly shorter than we were, but it was their old, beardless faces that caused the greatest sensation. After the circus' premiere we were generally disappointed and the whole business suddenly ceased to be amusing. The red-haired acrobat would turn out to be a cashier. And the one we had taken to be a strongman would parade through the streets of town in sandwich boards advertizing the circus, and in the evening would be in charge of keeping intruders out of the circus grounds. We no longer were called on to help out; at best somebody would send us to fetch a packet of cigarettes, but we would have to leave a cap or school book as security. We had become unwanted and nobody seemed to trust us excessively. The performance itself seems to have left the fewest number of recollections. My next contact with the circus came a good few years later. I visited it a number of times at the urging of my young daughter. She was thrilled, and I must admit that I paid more attention to her reaction than to what was happening in the aréna. Her concern and fear at the sight of a tightrope-walker near the top of the tent mast were most sincere, and her laughter at the antics of the clowns was spontaneous and healthy. Such was alsó the reaction of the remaining youthful members of the audience. These visitsofours were responsible for the fact that time and again my thoughts would turn to the circus. And so it was that I began tofind init afascinating photographic subject: people living and working in what is actually a hermetically closed world - a world from which only an extremely limited amount of information seems to leak out. We see only the colourful, dazzling costumes, the grease-painted smiles and the so very typicaí curtseys of gratitude for applause. The rest, however, remains one great unknown. Who are these people and why do they work as circus performers? What are their experiences and problems? Through the use of a camera I shall try to record somé of these phenomena, although I do not know whether I shall be successful. My subjects, however, will not be the elegant circus theatre buildings of the Soviet Union nor the impres-