Baku Circus, Part II

The Baku Circus featured a lot of animal acts.  Some were entertaining, some ho-hum, and some disturbing.  The most unique for me were the seals, as I don't think I've ever seen them perform live before.  The entire stage was turned into a large slip-and-slide with plastic sheeting and buckets of water.  The seals bounced balls, played music, and mock-tended bar while sliding around the Hawaiian-vacation themed set-up.

Seals balance martini cups on their noses

Less entertaining for me were the dogs.  There were multiple dog acts, ranging from miniature poodles to a Great Dane. Perhaps it's the ubiquity of dogs in American life that made them less exciting to me.  Or that I'm not a natural dog-lover. Either way, I clapped politely for them without having much of a reaction to their antics.

Standard poodles jump over their trainers' legs

I did have trouble watching the duck act.  The trainer did a lot of movements with the duck's neck, including what looked like grabbing the duck's neck roughly and thrusting the duck back-and-forth so that I kept thinking the poor animal would get whiplash.  I have no way of knowing if these actions truly caused pain, but I certainly knew I didn't want the same things being done to my own neck!  I was grateful when the ducks left the stage.

I felt sorry for this ducky and his neck!

Interspersed between animal performances were other familiar circus acts.  I enjoyed the unicyclist riding around in a brightly-colored jacket with huge shoulder pads, unbuttoned to reveal yellow suspenders underneath.  Honestly, I was more intrigued by his outfit than by his unicycling tricks!

Unicyclist with his flashy outfit

There were also a few acrobatic and trapeze acts.  I was pleased to capture the below picture where it appears this artist is balancing solely by her butt on the rung of the the rope ladder!

Impressive gravity-defying acrobatic move

My favorite performer by far was one of the clowns.  He was very tall and thin, not the stature of your typical clown.  And he perfectly played the part of being frustrated by the antics of his clown partner, glaring and scowling across the stage with fabulously mean eyes.

This is not a happy clown!

Overall, the entire circus experience was memorable and entertaining.  Now I just have to learn Russian so I can follow the storyline the next time they're in town!

Baku Circus, Part 1

One of the things on my "must-see" list in Baku was the circus.  When Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union, Moscow created a designated circus school and developed its own style of circus entertainment.  The circus grew into an important Soviet cultural tradition, with circus troupes from Moscow traveling throughout the USSR, and the world, to perform their acts.  Baku has its own permanent circus building, specifically designed and decorated for circus shows, which continues to host Russian circus performances.

Erica inside the Baku Circus building

The Circus building was not much to look at from the outside.  It's a plain circular building, with the unadorned concrete architecture familiar to U.S. college campuses and DC government buildings built in the 1970s.  But the interior had several wonderful mosaics depicting clowns, acrobats, and other mainstays of the circus.

Mosaic inside the circus building

Once inside the arena, the first thing I noticed was a live band, very visually perched above the main curtain, rather than being hidden in an orchestra pit.  As a huge lover of live music, I bopped my head along to the beat while they entertained the crowd until the start of the show.

Circus band

The opening act was something unexpected for me - show girls!  I thought the dancing was tame, but many Americans consider the circus to be a family activity, thus find the dancing out of place and avoid the circus for that reason.

Show girls with bright feathers kicked off the show

And perhaps those Americans have a point, because the show actually had quite a bit of dancing.  Another group came out later dancing to pop music.  I got a huge kick out of their outfits that were straight out of the '80s.  I'm not sure if the act was meant to be nostalgic or if they just hadn't taken the time to update the wardrobe!

Pop dancers sporting '80s one-shoulder tops and headbands

The circus also featured classic big-top acts such as clowns, acrobats, and performing animals, which I'll get to in the next post!