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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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!
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