the Way of the Showman
Philosophical and esoteric perspectives from a modern day Showman.
Each season is different in its approach. S1 is essays. S2 is one book length attempt at Understanding Showmanship, S3 is conversations with remarkable Showfolk. The brand new Season 4 explores the relationship between Showmanship and Play.
The host, Captain Frodo, internationally renowned circus performer, director, writer, husband and dad lays out, in great detail, his practical performance philosophy for performers who seek to deepen the conversation with their audiences and themselves. You can find him, and more of his writing at: www.thewayoftheshowman.com
the Way of the Showman
149 - Suitcases, Bears, and Train Journeys: A Foot Juggler's Tale with Antje Pode
Step back in time to a vanished world of state-run circus schools, train journeys across the Soviet Union, and the dramatic moment when the Berlin Wall fell. In this captivating conversation, foot juggler Antje Pode shares her remarkable journey from a young gymnast in East Germany to an internationally acclaimed circus artist.
Antje reveals the fascinating, rarely-discussed reality of the communist-era circus system, where performers were government employees with guaranteed lifetime positions. Selected from hundreds of applicants at age 17, she trained in the prestigious East German circus school before touring with the state circus. Her vivid descriptions transport us to a time when circus was considered high art, performers lived in caravans on flatbed train cars rolling through Russia, and elephants walked from train stations to circus lots as mobile advertisements.
The political and personal merge dramatically as Antje recounts being thousands of miles from home in Moldova when the Berlin Wall unexpectedly fell in November 1989. Through her eyes, we experience both the hope and uncertainty of that pivotal moment in history, learning how the peaceful Monday demonstrations eventually led to revolution without violence.
Beyond historical insights, Antje shares the technical mastery behind her extraordinary foot juggling act, where she manipulates suitcases with remarkable precision while balancing, spinning, and juggling simultaneously. Her description of needing three weeks to adapt to a new suitcase reveals the invisible precision required in circus arts.
Whether you're fascinated by political history, circus traditions, or the dedication required for artistic mastery, this conversation offers a unique window into a world that has largely disappeared. Subscribe now to hear more conversations that explore the intersection of showmanship, art, and human experience.
-You can find Antje Pode on social media and on her website Antjepode.de
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Greetings, fellow travelers, and welcome to the way of the showman where, as always, we view the world through the lens of showmanship. I am Captain Frodo and I will be your host and your guide along the way, and this is the first episode that's going live after I have finished my massive project on exploring the relationship between showmanship and play. I mean, for the longest time I was writing the document that became those 30 episodes, and I mean it started in February last year, so February 2024. And over that time we've released a whole bunch of 30 of the episodes about that, but also a whole bunch of episodes where Jay Gilligan questions me about these things. So, if anything, this is a although the topics are always sort of related to showmanship and really exploring what it is trying to get to the deepest depths of what is this activity that we all love and care about so much and what is the potential of it. To know that, to know where it goes in the future, I think it is important to know what it is today and what it really is, and to place it into a context that's greater than just rocking up somewhere doing a show, getting some money and going home, as you clearly know by now, but also what I've sort of been wondering. What is this? What is the 30 episodes that I've just done on play? And in a way it's kind of a deep dive into my mind, into my intellectual history and my curiosity and the topics and subjects. That interests me Because, of course, for as much as I am trying to show you what play is, it's also me coming to terms with beliefs that I have and trying to put them into a greater context. And you know, as you know, I'm working intimately back and forth creatively with Jay Gilligan and when he listens or reads the stuff that I am working on, he frequently likes it most when I am talking just out of myself.
Speaker 1:But I, I am, of course, um, intimately familiar with these things that come immediately from myself. Then I go, I think this, I think that and because of this happened in my life and it's anecdotal. But what I want to show in, what I have been wanting to show here in these 30 episodes, is that it is not just, um, it's not just something that I think up or come up with on a whim. I believe it's part of a tradition of thinking, whether it is Rutger Bregman that talks about the innate hopefulness or decency of humankind, of humankind, or whether it is how the deep biological and physiological ways that a human being actually looks, the way that our bodies are built now, how that contributes to us being playful beings in the world. All of these things, it feels to me, gives a weight to being a performer, to being a showman that I wished that I could have found in the past.
Speaker 1:I remember watching HBO's Carnivali when that came out and that show really just hit me with its sort of two-pronged storyline of religion when religion goes bad, but also like the nature of what religion is and, of course, everything being the protagonists being in a carnival, and I loved that so much. I had this major falling out with my girlfriend at the time because at the time we didn't have streaming. When that came out first I didn't know where to get the episodes and we were out at meeting someone and I had to step away and watch the tv. Like I'm some sort of it's a rain man that can't can't get along without watching their favorite tv show. So anyway, I loved that show and in that there is a radio program, I think it's called Tales from the Road, and I just sort of loved this idea that we could gather along in our caravans and everything and listen to this show, where a person would hear from people on the road and you'd hear, but also that there always was this nod to a greater and deeper truth or there's something spiritual about it, and that I take interest in the matters of the soul and I always sort of dreamed that this thing would exist. And I guess this podcast, in a way, is me trying to make something that I wished would have existed for me when I was out there traveling. Well, I still am, and now this exists.
Speaker 1:So we are going back now into not having me just ramble at you. We're having conversations with people coming up. Next we have Ancha Poder, which is an incredible artist. I mean, I've listened to the episode recently, all the interviews, so we basically explain who she is and what she does very clearly in the episode. But she grew up in East Germany and joined the East German governmental circus school and we get to hear all about that and the coming down of the wall and all these incredible things all through the view of showmanship, through the view of people who are out touring on trains and whatever when these major political events happened. So, yeah, I really hope that you like it.
Speaker 1:And coming up soon we will have more episodes exploring folk circus with Jay Gilligan. And coming up soon we will have more episodes exploring folk circus with Jay Gilligan. And we have episodes where I talk to Nick DeFat another couple of episodes about where we talk me trying to come to terms in my mind with what it means in magic to read magic tricks in books and use them in your shows and use the ideas and what that means. So a lot of exciting stuff coming up. But now, without further any ado, as they say, let's just jump in to meet the wonderful Ancha Boda, wonderful Antje Poder. Now, when I am sitting here, I don't actually know your name. How do you like to present yourself?
Speaker 2:Is it like Antje Poder always, or do you use your full name?
Speaker 1:Normally Antje Poder when I'm an artist and Antje Mertens when I'm the private person. Yeah, yeah, that's like I'm.
Speaker 2:Captain Frodo, and you're the artist when.
Speaker 1:I'm the artist and I'm just Frodo, but yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it is interesting that we both have two personalities One is an artist and one is a private person.
Speaker 1:I think this is kind of common to have a kind of artist name, at least in like now I don't fully know about circus, that I don't know, but in sideshow and freak shows and this to have a kind of artist name or a stage name. I think that is in circus as well.
Speaker 2:In circus, in the east german circus it was more. When you are in a group, yeah, then the group have a artist name. Of course you didn't want to call everybody's name from from the people yeah, yeah, that's true, but um, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we have worked together in london calling. This is the second time and we're staying together here and we always have such great conversations all the time, all the time when we go up and back to work. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk and have a little bit more formal conversation. So, for those of you who don't know, antje does an incredible foot juggling act. You're an antipodist.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm an antipodist. Oh, foot juggling, it's much easier for the people to know what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, and you are now doing in London Calling you're kind of doing the act which sets it up and it has character, and it sets up this idea that we're on a journey through London and you're juggling suitcases with your legs yes, and it's on an extremely high skill level and yeah, so, maybe we'll.
Speaker 2:We'll just start a little bit from the beginning, because because you grew up in, I grew up in East Germany and I I did a circus school in in East Berlin I mean, it was really before the wall fall down and I studied four years in this circus school and afterwards I went to the East German Government Circus. It was all the students get a contract for three years for the East German Government Circus and it was also why we create the act for the German Circus.
Speaker 1:The.
Speaker 2:German Circus really say we want to have an act, for example an anti-poet act, in three years, and then the school creates this act for the Circus.
Speaker 1:Wow, so that's awesome. But how did you in East Germany? How did you? What made you fall in love with circus so that you decided you wanted to go and do it with the gymnastic.
Speaker 2:When I was six years old it was in East Germany. It was very often that the people from the sport club they're going to the schools and they pick up all the in this time all the small girls to ask them would you like to do gymnastic? And this time I loved it and I did four years gymnastic. And this time I loved it and I did four years gymnastic and it was really East Germany looked up for all the children to start very early, that after four years at home they go to the special sports school and then they create the Olympic candidate very, very early. Wow. And then in my town after the gymnastic we had a club, we call it. It was the in German Arbeiter-Varieté yeah, varieté for workers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And when I was 11, I went to this club and in this club I already did I did like a little bit like a flying, not flying trapeze. We had the trampoline and this kind of where somebody catch you and bring you back in the trampoline and I did my first shows with this in this working variety, and sometimes they invite teachers from the circus school for workshop and then this was a small step to say, oh, I want to go to this, to the circus school but you had seen circus as well did.
Speaker 1:Did you go to see circuses?
Speaker 2:Oh, in East Germany. Every year one of the big German circus came in my town and in East Germany I think everybody went to the circus. The circus was full and it was a circus tent for 2500 people and every show was sold, sold out. Well, it was not very expensive, I think you. You pay three mark German mark in in this time for not so good seat and maybe eight for the for the way great seats.
Speaker 1:It was cheap for people but this was also the point, I think, wasn't it? I don't know so much about it, but it was supposed to be like for the, for everybody, yes, for the working class, so that you, even when you do a small job somewhere, you should be able to have the right to go and see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was. I think it was in east germany already. Culture was not expensive, also to go in a museum, and the government. They really support the east german circus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with a lot of money yeah, because the whole circus was run by the state as well. So I guess that means was there. I mean, I guess when it's run by the state, it also means that the material, everything that was done in the act, was somehow needed to be okay with the party as well. Did you ever?
Speaker 2:No, it was not. Nobody was really watching what we are doing no, no we was free, what we are do, maybe of course I I don't use words. Um, when you use words, I think it, then it changed more yeah but just for the acrobats. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:You couldn't be so much with your acrobatic against the system no, no, it is very complicated, I think it's difficult and not in this time, when the circus don't do um, create a story or something like this. Yeah, this time, I mean, we'll be talking about the 80s and 1980s yeah, so so.
Speaker 1:So when the people came to the arbeiter variety or the workers variety or whatever, and they did, they ask you, or did you ask them then if you could be in the circus school or after. So you've done the first sort of workshop with those first workshops.
Speaker 2:No, I went to the. I have to make two tests. For the circus school it was yes, they invite the children every month. You can do a test and then the best of this group have to come to the next. It's like an audition. Yeah, yeah, and often they was looking for 20 children for each year and they're testing maybe 500. 500? Yeah, really, they had it in a newspaper. Would you like to be an artist? Then came to the artist school and we have, do you say? Tests.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually, they call it audition, don't they, maybe? But audition, I think, is just a fancy word for a kind of test or whatever.
Speaker 2:I think for a school. You don't call it audition. Audition it's more for a project. I don't know.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's also the actor. All the actors go in. Are you going to be in this play? Then you go to an audition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But anyway, they do the test. And what kind of testing did they do there?
Speaker 2:Oh, it was not so complicated. They really looked up how good you have to juggling a little bit and you have to do some pull-ups, anda little bit ballet, and they looked a little bit how is your flexibility? But but then it was not so difficult. The test, but in, in for the, for the girls, I have to say the most girls was came from the gymnastic, yeah, and then it just yeah, it was not so specific no, no, but that's.
Speaker 1:That's also kind of interesting. So how people did when you started the circus school, how many people was in the class?
Speaker 2:I think it was 22 in the class and the first year you did everything.
Speaker 1:And there's only 22 people. There was not several classes, no, we had four classes. Okay, so it was you study four years.
Speaker 2:The school was four years and you had four classes. Yeah, it was a very, very small school.
Speaker 1:But four classes, so there was less than 100 students in each year yeah. But that's still a lot. I don't know how many people are in the school in Rotterdam or the school in Stockholm.
Speaker 2:It's not 100 students but if you're thinking about um in the east german circus, we worked in big groups. I mean it was we. We never had a solo act. It was more. When you have a teeter board act, it was minimum five, often eight people. Minimum five, often eight people. Or yeah, the troop, yeah, it was when I did the foot juggling.
Speaker 2:We was three people and we was a very, very small group um, it was not very often that you could see a solo act and not from, not directly from the circle school and circle school it was just. Groups came to the circus.
Speaker 1:But this is also almost like thinking three people doing it like a troupe. It's almost like because when you're doing a very big show for two and a half thousand people too, to just be one person on the center of the stage almost it can be a little small when you're working on one person on the center of the stage almost it can be a little small when you're working on.
Speaker 2:It's practically an arena size. Look, you also do shows with 5 000 people. Yeah, yeah but.
Speaker 1:But when it gets too big also, then you almost need video to see the details so it makes sense, and this is also maybe where the idea for the american style circus with three rings because then you can.
Speaker 1:When they ringling brothers were doing the big shows back in the 20s and 30s, and when you have like 10 000 people, the people in the back on the one side can't see what happens on the other one. So they have the idea of the three rings. But so how? How quickly after you joined, did you specialize or start doing? Because you said they came and told you that in three years we won't?
Speaker 2:Yes, it was after the first year. When you do everything a little bit, then the school choose the people. What they choose me to do for juggling, it was not really my special special.
Speaker 1:You didn't like that.
Speaker 2:That was not your favorite no, it was not my favorite. I was really. I was thinking, oh, what is this antipode? I have no idea what I have to do. Yeah, it was really. Um, I, I, really, I prefer to do something spectacular.
Speaker 2:And then they say no, lying on your back and juggling some stuff with your feet and I'm like, okay, Were you disappointed, I was disappointed in the beginning and then I was very happy because my other two colleagues they were really nice and they were good friends and it was. It is already if the school put the act together, it doesn't care about your friends with him. Or they just looked up who can do this with him, or they just looked up who can do this and and very often a big group. Maybe they worked two years in the in the circus and then they split because they didn't like each other or they have other interests but this is.
Speaker 1:It's an interesting thing too that it's like you get put together but you get this first contract. So then, after the first couple of years, or what did you say? Two or three years with the state circus?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but of course in East Germany you never lose your job normally, yeah, you stay in the circus, in the circus, in the government circus. How then? They never kick you out? Also, if you are not can working in a, in a manege anymore, they will found us a job for you. Or it was also if you really, for example, had an accident and you can't work anymore, then the government pay for um for three or four years that you can learn as a professional yeah, it was really um, it was really safe, and we also.
Speaker 2:We was not um freelancer, it was really. We had a contract with a circus and they pay us every month Just to. Also, when we're not working, they pay us.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting. Was there privately owned circuses?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, we had private circus too, family circus.
Speaker 1:Yeah for circuses which had maybe existed before the wall was put up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and this circus, it was not fair, I have to say, because when the three government circus from Germany, it was Busch, eros and Berolina. One was all the time in Germany, one was most time in Czechoslovakia and one was most time in Russia, but this one in Germany because it was the biggest one. When they say we want to go to Dresden or we want to go to another city, they could be there first.
Speaker 2:In the private circles have to become second yeah it was not fair, not really fair, but often there's a circus he was just in the north or just in the south. The government circles and then the private circles tries to go to the opposite end or whatever exactly yes, but it's.
Speaker 1:It's always like this, isn't it? Everyone is equal, but this one is more equal, this one is more we. Everyone is the same, but we go first. Yeah, which I guess that's the the case, but it's still it's. It's hard to kind of picture like when did the when did the wall get put up? Did this happen when you were?
Speaker 2:no, I wasn't born when the when did the wall go up? It was 1960. 1960. Yeah 1960.
Speaker 1:But uh, so you grew up with just. I grew up with a wall yeah, this was just a reality.
Speaker 2:When I came to Berlin, to the circus school, it was normal that you had a street and you couldn't walk further because there was a wall. Just on the street, from one house to the next house there was a wall, and on the other side there was.
Speaker 1:of course there was this kind of area where the border like no, no man's land, yes, and on the other side the street, was still there, because nobody just tear down one building or something where the wall was, and yeah, and then there was just a yeah. How big of a gap, like 100 meters or or maybe, maybe no, I think maybe longer, and I think in, in berlin.
Speaker 2:I really, I don't know it exactly that's okay.
Speaker 1:We can just speak from the emotions.
Speaker 2:You don't have to be but it was very funny after the walls fall down and they break the wall, yeah down, and then I realized, oh look, the street is on the other side still there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because it was a city first for a long time and then they decided to put the wall up. Yeah, exactly. So Come in. Here comes the housekeeping. Yeah, housekeeping, they just have to come in. Yeah, okay, let's maybe pause this, hello. So before we were rudely interrupted by the servants in our mansion here where we live, we were talking about just the wall and how, when the wall came down, you realize oh, there's a street there.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes exactly.
Speaker 1:But in this moment though, like because you said the wall went up in 1960s or you weren't there, but like so was it your parents' generation then that it went up when they were young? Yes, of course.
Speaker 2:My parents, my mother. She came from Poland. I mean, it was a time when a part of Poland was German and after the war she moved to Germany. But she grew up in the area which is Poland now and, of course, my mother. She was born in 1929. She was a part of the first 17 years when she grew up she was in Poland and then the next time she grew up in, she was in Poland and then the next time she grew up in or she lived in East Germany and the last part of her life was in the whole.
Speaker 1:Germany, United Germany yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Huh, but how was that then when they because before the wall came up it was still East Germany, but they didn't have the wall. And could people go between the people?
Speaker 2:could go between, but it was so many people moved from East Germany to West Germany. Then I think they start first to pull up the wall on a country, on a country side and you could still move from. In Berlin you still could move from one side to the other side, but in the 1960 then they stopped. It's engine really built up in the night.
Speaker 1:It made up the wall like wire fence first and then build the wall along the way, or something.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it was really from one day to the other day. Wow, people couldn't go anymore. To the family also.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because actually in Berlin, of course, you had family in the other part of the city.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you couldn't see them anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or even that you have other people in other towns in germany. Then if you were lucky or whatever, those people lived just happened to live on the south side of the wall. Yeah or what? No, on one one side of the wall. Yeah, west side or east side, whatever. But but if you lived on one side and they just happen to live in the town somewhere in in the east, then you could either go or not go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah. It is why, um, I think the people already realized it will the time will coming when the wall, when the border will be closed and then in the 1956 to 1960 a lot of people moved to the West German side.
Speaker 1:And because what's interesting in this special time or this special place of like Soviet Union or whatever, is the role of the circus, and this was already like the role of the circus as a state thing or something that come from Russia, which started.
Speaker 2:Yes, it come from Russia. Yeah, it is really interesting. In Russian it was the circus was really one of the biggest art or the most popular art, because the ballet is a. It was a really the most popular, and then, after the ballet, came the circus, and in Russian they really have theater just for circus.
Speaker 1:It is yeah, like buildings the buildings, um.
Speaker 2:It is a theater with a, with a manege, with a circle and um rigging and everything, and also the rehearsal area is also a circle. It's just next to the. The same size, the same size. And of course in in 1980s we had a lot of animals also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so they have the stables and the places for the animals to be in. Yeah, so when you guys worked did you have all the animals like?
Speaker 2:lions. We had all. Yes, we had.
Speaker 1:And also both the wild animals like lions and tigers, and also bears.
Speaker 2:Yes, we are talking about the 80s yeah, yeah, I think in this time it is the same like uh ringling brothers had the elephants and um, yes, we also, we had in. We had three, the three east german. Every circus had a tiger, lion or some cats.
Speaker 1:Cat act. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:They all had an elephant act. They all have horses, of course.
Speaker 1:But bears. There's a tradition for bears in the Russian circuses too, because the bear is also connected kind of to the image of Russia and everything.
Speaker 2:Yes, but for example the brown bears? They are not in a cage, no, they are just on a….
Speaker 1:On a string or wire like a leash.
Speaker 2:On a leash. Yes, it is very interesting. In East Germany we had a polar bear act. Polar bear act, but the polar bear act was in a cage, but the, the brown bear, they are really just on a that's amazing.
Speaker 1:I've got questions about both of those, so like. So, yeah, I mean, what is it with the brown bear, then, that they are more under control? Are they more tame in quotation marks, or like that they have more control over them?
Speaker 2:I'm not the right person to ask, but I I don't know exactly, but I'm sure they are.
Speaker 1:You can hold a bear, maybe easier, I don't know yeah but I just know it I know from my friend, meno, that we spoke about meno van Dijk, who has an extraordinary huge collection of circus on video and he has all sorts of circus but he has lots of traditional circus, because this is of course most of it that has been on TV. And when I was working with Circus Nemo, we had sort of uh, circus nights where we would, after the show, me and him would sit down and watch circus videos all night, oh and um, and he would sort of like then we would just put together he, I would ask, oh, do you have something like this? And then he he thinks I was thinking about this act for you and so this most crazy things. But at at least on one of those nights we started to look at the animal acts and some of these acts are incredible.
Speaker 1:Like there was a teeter board kind of troop which also had a bear in it where the guys were doing it, and this bear was not on a leash, he was running around, always on two legs, like a person, yeah, and standing with the others, and he would both help to jump on the thing and shoot the other person off, like being the base, but also the bear would stand there and and jump on the teeter board and it's like and one where they're driving a motorbike also not on a leash, of course where just it comes in and it gets on like a thing yes, when, when they do something, they was not on leash.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they, they just I. I worked in russian with a with a bear act and this guy, he let the bear in the um in the manish first and they're just running in the manish and he was still backstage.
Speaker 1:And I was really surprised about this, that he trusts the bear so much that they will not attack the people yeah, I mean, I've never seen it like that, but I saw a circle in paris one year maybe this was in 2009 or something and they had lions and it's like you don't see this so much anymore. But then it's like it's. It is a an incredible feeling for uh to sit in the audience when they just have this feeling for uh to sit in the audience when they just have this net.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like a cage the cage.
Speaker 1:But now, like it was, it was a kind of net or whatever, and you just it's, it's scary, yeah, like this, uh, you're thinking it is not so big, the natural yeah, and this is a.
Speaker 1:This is an interesting thing which is like, as much as it's really good to take care of the animals I mean, I've been a vegetarian for 33 years because of animal rights, so it's not that but to look at it just as a cultural phenomenon, which happened as well and which is still going on now, but not so often. But then when I sat there and watched it this is a from the audience point of view- we were so close, you're so close and it feel like you can.
Speaker 1:And the smell yes, they open up and they come out and you sense this strong, uh, predator smell, yeah it is scary. So when you guys were doing the circus in in the buildings and stuff the animals, were they coming in like how was that?
Speaker 2:in in the buildings when I think there's. I can't remember that we had tigers or elephants. We had bear in in Russian, do you mean?
Speaker 1:For instance yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it was just in Russian. In the buildings we had horses, but it was more this kind of we call it chiquitin the people jumping up and down from the horses and climbing around.
Speaker 1:Oh, like this, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We had this kind of act and we have some bears, but it was no tigers or other things. It was more in East Germany in a government circles. We were very close to the animals. Actually, when you're waiting for you to go on stage or in the manish, he was very close to the animals. Sometimes you have to push the elephant that he let you pass Give me room to go. I need to run.
Speaker 1:Yes, I need to run and do my act. It's time for the antipode. Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's amazing. I never worked with elephants or bears, or so.
Speaker 2:I worked with a zebra and with geese and sea lion yeah, the sea lions is also very, very interesting and they I think they really enjoy to do it sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I work like dogs I think I have no problems when dogs in a um on stage because they are really they like to do it, and I think it is very, very healthy for for animals like this, yeah, to do something.
Speaker 1:I think so too, and to say, oh, we can't do dogs, and to a certain extent also horses, with. People are using horses for all kinds of other things or whatever. But of course, sport, sport, yeah, but this also is of it's um, people, look, this is also not unproblematic. I'm aware that, of course, you know you're putting the horse in the trailer all the time and drive around, but anyway, with the dogs, it feels to me like they are so closely related to us. And yeah, to say that we can't do it because some people don't treat their dog good, but this is the same everywhere. Some dogs have a terrible life not performing, so I don't think that being because you can teach your dog to do amazing things. My wife just was doing an act now with our dog.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What kind of dog do you have?
Speaker 1:We have a Pomchi. It's a mix of the Pomeranian and the Chihuahua.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:He's a really beautiful small dog and he can do all sorts of tricks and walk on his legs. And he walked with a pram, with another dog puppet or like a soft toy inside and with another dog puppet or like a soft toy inside, and he pushed the thing. And it starts with her. He jumps into the basket and then we close the lid and then Miranda comes in and the music is playing and she puts the basket down and then she goes and stands on the side and then she goes, clap, clap.
Speaker 1:And the dog comes out of the basket over and everything, and the dog comes out of the basket over and everything. But when we did it you need to practice a lot for him to know it. And then when we did the show and all of a sudden there was like 200 kids and adults and there was so much talking inside it's different and it was so loud and the dog was very confused and sort of nervous and didn't know. And he the weird thing was he did not want to eat the treats at all, but almost. But he did all of the all of the tricks, not that the time that it was supposed to happen, like he was very slow and sometimes he forget and stands and smells the thing or looks at the children or whatever. So I think he needs to do many shows before he learns that.
Speaker 1:forget about this yeah yeah, and but it's the most difficult thing if you do the, because when we were working actually this was like because my friend Ingo, who was working with the Sea Lions, and then his brother, patrick, I think, worked with him in Circus Finlandia one time and he had a dog act and even him, who has been doing this dog act for so long, he goes in and trains every day in the actual ring.
Speaker 2:Yes, in the same atmosphere where he would perform.
Speaker 1:Same atmosphere, same so then the only thing that's new is the audience. But for us, who always do one show, one show, one show we're not doing with the family show me and my wife and my daughter together this is just one-offs. And then I was thinking this dog is never going to learn to be with the audience because you need to do 100 shows before the dog can relax with this. And it helps if you go in one circus and amnesia is the same and this sort of stuff. But you.
Speaker 2:You took your your venue with you. That this helped, yeah it helps but anyway.
Speaker 1:So that's all very exciting, you've got your. So then you joined the school, and that's kind of interesting that already then. How old were you then?
Speaker 2:17 17.
Speaker 1:So then, within the next three or four years, you would be educated as a circus performer and you go straight into a lifelong job if you want yes, yes, exactly yes.
Speaker 2:I I did it six years till the wall fell down. I worked in a circus In the state circus yes, in the state circus.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. But just touching on that, you said that there were only buildings in Russia. So this was a Russian… and so you played in tents then when you were in Germany. And so you played in tents then when you were in Germany.
Speaker 2:Yes, in Germany we played in tents. And also my first year in Russia, we took the whole state's German circus to Russia With tent and animals and everything With tent and animals they go by train. We fly to Russia, but the circus and the animals they go by train to to russian. And uh, one time it was really we.
Speaker 2:We worked um on a river volga, yeah, it's it's really east, uh, it's a little bit just um, not so far from the, the, the ural, the mountain, and then for the last three months we moved from this area to the Ukraine and they also, they put the whole circus on three trains and we was on the train, we, for three days. We, really we, we traveling in in Russian really on a train.
Speaker 2:And we slept in this circus caravan. But we were outside, we had like little terraces where we could sit, and then the whole country passed, so the caravan was standing on top of a flat bed.
Speaker 1:Yes, ah.
Speaker 2:And then when you see the old or the traditional circus caravans, often you have a. It's like a piece of wood what you put down, flip down and have a little fence around. Yes, yes, and we had this. And then, yes, we were sitting there, had a tea, and then the whole country passed.
Speaker 1:That is so romantic.
Speaker 2:I love that, and sometimes we, really we walked way on the edge of this kind of Of the cart or on the edge of the train. To the next one, and then we jumped from one. How do you call this?
Speaker 1:Carriage or something. Yeah, carriage.
Speaker 2:And we jumped from one carriage to the next one because we want to visit somebody else. Yeah, it was really really exciting and yeah very special. It is so long time ago and I I still have the several this pictures in my head because I've never thought of that.
Speaker 1:I'm sure this must have happened in in america too. On that that you. But most of the time I sort of think that people were just sleeping inside the train, in the train carriages. But it's really cool that they put the whole I think we were talking about this.
Speaker 2:I was talking with Paul, paul Debeck, and he told me no, they really have trains where they sleep in the train. It is not that you have the caravan on the open carriage. Yes, in the train. It is not that you have the caravan on the open carriage, but it was just when we moved. It was 3,000 kilometers what we moved in three days and it is why we were traveling like this, just for three days, but it was very special.
Speaker 1:What a picture as well, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was very special. Yeah, wow, that's a sight as well, yeah it was very special.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that's a sight to see, but did you stay with your two colleagues then you had a caravan with just three of you, or was it one of the? Is it like a small door and just the beds, or was it? Did you have?
Speaker 2:No, it was one caravan and there was a wall in the middle and you had two entrances and I stayed with my colleague my woman colleague in one part of this and the guy he stayed with the other artist on the other side.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so you're sort of having one room that you shared with one person.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it was not a big room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, those things aren't often.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but in summer it was fine because the whole life was outside. Yes, you eat outside and you do everything outside, but in the beginning of the season, I mean in April, when it was raining, it was really, really yeah, it was not a lot of space. And then you know, okay, the summer is coming, and then it changed, and just in the end of the season October, november then it was already a little bit too cold, then you have to be more inside. Yes, but then you know, okay, the season will be finished soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But what was it like then when you got to the? So you're on this train and you got off the train. And how did they get everything off? Did they use the elephants like we see in the movies, or so, to use the elephants to take your wagons off the train?
Speaker 2:The elephants also in Germany. They all the time go by train. They all the time go by train and it was um when they they are, when the circus arrived, the, the the elephant. Sometimes they arrived on the same day or a day day later and they walked all the time from the train station to the circus area and it was really like um the picture what a lot of people have in this mind the, the elephant, the biggest in the front, and the other one catch the, the tail from the in the front and then they walked um to the, to the circus place it was like it was a big um, what, what, how do you say the promotion?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah the people is, they could see the elephant. And then they said they know the circus is in town arrived. So great.
Speaker 1:This is so. Is it so romantic this kind of?
Speaker 2:yes, it seems like, but of course it is also.
Speaker 1:It is a, it's not just a big glimmer oh no yeah yeah but I'm very, very happy that I um, could um, that it is a part of my life yeah, yeah, no, I remember from the little that I've done, it's like we've done three kind of five month seasons with a touring show, like that. And there was, I remember, sitting inside my caravan and looking out when we have just done the move from one place. So you drive for a few hours and then you take, you park your caravan, you put it up or whatever, and then I'm sitting looking out the window at the workers who are building the tent. Yeah, and it was like also in early April, in no, not early, maybe late April, because I think we start in the middle of April and we've gone to a town and it's actually like sleet, not full snow, that stays, but it's this cold, yeah, and the guys are out lifting the metal and everything. And I was thinking I'm glad I am that I played my cards to be an artist and can sit in there, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Because it's already just putting the water connecting to the thing and everything is cold and wet and you just get so cold and then you see these guys all night kink, kink, putting in the tent and building up.
Speaker 2:Yes, this kind of sound when they put the anchor. Yeah, yeah, I still have the sound in my ear, the bing, bing, bing.
Speaker 1:Well, this only happened really for us, it only really happened with, I think, when they put the main king poles, they put this, because when they do that all the way around, when they put two rows of the things, they use a kind of machine.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:So you lose this.
Speaker 2:Do you know? We also have this machine, but often the worker they prefer to do it with three people with three people doing one anchor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And they say oh no, we are quicker with this. Yeah, and sometimes it was also to show look, we can do it.
Speaker 1:yeah yeah, but it is really cool, I guess, because I they, the guys that we worked with, I think they were a lot of them were from poland, I think.
Speaker 1:But anyway, this it's, it's very cool, it's very impressive and each one is hitting just after the next, and this is also to me like something that's like part of the circus mythology or something of this is how it's how it's done. Yeah, exactly. But of course, I also understand when you have we finished a show and they immediately start to work. They, they already work and to take you go in when you arrive to the circus and there's a beautiful wooden kind of fence around the whole thing, painted in the black and silver and red the colors of this show that I was with but by the time the audience comes out, this is already gone, because they go in for the second half and then they take the tenth down.
Speaker 2:Yes for the last down. Yes for the last show, for the last show and then they people are going out and they already, as people are going this way, they start at the back, going like the army ants in the movies we had, uh, we had a guy with a whistle, oh yeah, and and just when, when the most people leave, maybe there was 5% from the audience still in the tent, and then you heard the whistle and then it was like yes, like arms came and boom yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of noises but everybody has to wait for the whistle. Yeah, it was really interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, because the workers they know they have to do this, they just want to start yeah they want to start, the director or somebody or the boss of the workers or whatever have to decide okay, we have to wait there. Don't steal Ten minutes don't matter. Don't do it when the children get scared, when you start to pull down the walls.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So when you because now you're doing this incredible a foot juggling act with suitcases and you're doing a mix of foot juggling but and you do sort of uh, I don't even know what that is, but when you do many things at the same time, it's like the kind of that. I think of rostelli or someone jugglers like this who got like one hoop on their foot and one bouncing, and then because you do one of the things you do, I have uh one suitcase on my feet spinning.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, no one on my foot one on each foot no, my, my back is on the other one, yeah, and one suitcase spinning on my finger on the on the right hand and two apples and I'm juggling in the left hand. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's like right foot spinning your handbag sort of. You come out in the beginning, beautiful lady, and you have a little pink sort of handbag, and then spinning this around the leg as you're balancing one case on the left foot and then spinning the second suitcase around on just one finger and then juggling with the other one, and then you in the end and you flip, the flip, the one which you have on on your foot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's um, it's so impressive and every night when we stand there, it's like by this point people are going crazy, like it's your act is very well structured in the way that it's coming more and more and more more and more impressive and also from that, it's like the reactions from the audience increases very, very well as well.
Speaker 1:So this is how the act kind of is now, and it's divided into kind of three sections or so, and it's a very strong structure. And but when you first started out, what you didn't start with suitcases, or was this something which you started with?
Speaker 2:no, uh, on a circus school. I start with um. Do you know this kind of um?
Speaker 2:like a big cigarette oh yeah, yeah, like a cylinder, yeah we start with this and we have a big bowl and we have a carpet. It was um, yeah, but this kind of um, when I do everything the different things with with hand and foot, um, we already did it. I, I already did it when I on a circus school in this time, I had this, this cylinder on my one feet and a ring on the other one and a ball um spinning in this in the right hand and juggling, and I really I do this for many, many years and it is still my highlight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's this kind of combination tricks.
Speaker 2:I think they're called yeah, but it's uh it is a little bit different now because to spinning the suitcase is different much I don't know if it's much more difficult, but it looks much more precarious.
Speaker 1:You still?
Speaker 2:have to do it when you're spinning a ball, when it is on a finger, then you don't have to do something.
Speaker 1:You can hold that hand still.
Speaker 2:Yes, and also the handbag. It's different to a ring. A ring is going much, much easier than a handbag, but have a different weight and you really have to, you have to work more on it. Yeah, and also it's different when you have a suitcase or you have this kind of cylinder, because the suitcase have a third dimension. The cylinder have just two what you're thinking about. You don't have to.
Speaker 1:There's no front and back, it's just up and down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and left and it's not. It can Turning, it doesn't matter. But the suitcase, when it turns, it's a completely different balance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, different balance and also like a different image. And it also means here now that when you are spinning, or also when you at times have two suitcases up, then if they're a little bit on the side, they're sort of leaning against each other. So you have to be more precise, unique, and so people like it so much because, even though they don't know these things or can put word to it, you, you can tell that it's you know, you get the suitcase up and then you maybe you do two small kicks of correction to get it in the perfect space they kind of they understand that the orientation also is an element of skill or something maybe it's also everybody knows suitcase, everybody um use suitcases and um, of course they're not juggling the suitcase on the feet, but they, they know it and it is some object.
Speaker 1:What is not um, um, just um, yeah, just a cylinder yeah, and this is, of course, at the heart of what I do with mine, things as well, yeah, exactly everyone has been with a suitcase, uh on, even when you have it on wheels and you're going to the airport and you try to go somewhere and it gets caught on the airport. And it gets caught in the legs with the strings across when you're in the queue or something, and how awkward it gets or like. So you have some idea of how heavy they are and you try to get it up over the thing and when you sit down in the seats.
Speaker 1:So people have a relationship to this thing and already then they have a relationship towards the suitcase that nobody goes around and going oh I'm so excited I'm gonna go on a trip so I get to move this suitcase around.
Speaker 1:It's always a negative thing connected to having your, because it's like oh, it's too heavy, oh, it's too difficult, oh, it's like it's in the way, or yeah which anyway makes it just makes me remember that they only started to put wheels on suitcases, like in the 80s or something yes, it is not so long time.
Speaker 2:And then?
Speaker 1:when they started in the beginning, they were in just in one corner, like so it's flat with a stick to hold it yeah, and I was thinking who thought that this would be a good idea just to have a thin stick, because I remember when I had that it was good because you could take some of the weight off, but it was very difficult because you have to squeeze the stick so hard so it didn't tip over. And then finally someone went let's put them in this end and roll. But anyway this.
Speaker 1:It's funny when we look back at me the first wheels that they find in history was on toys really yeah, on these little horses and things that you could pull for children, and this apparently existed for a long time but for the suitcase it is not.
Speaker 1:Or for the car or to roll things. It's like it took still a long time before the wheel became a normal thing. Anyway, people can fact check this later if they want to, but sometimes it's like it's not so easy to get these ideas. But, the point being, your people have a relationship to the suitcase, and this is also with me squeezing through two tennis rackets or like a coat hanger, like when I first started in 1998 or whatever, when I started going through things like this, instead of using a metal ring, which you sometimes see, that contortionists have rings or whatever, or a small hula hoop looking thing that you go through or whatever. But for me, the fact that the manipulation happened with an object which you somehow know, and also in my second act that I do in the show where I have the chance, I also I love it. It's the bin for the garbage, it's another small thing and it's a painting and this sort of. So you sort of go, they are real things, not, it's not abstract, yeah, no, no, it's concrete. I think that's kind of.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting and what makes your act kind of also, it's so, so yeah I really, I, I also, I, I, I really love it when, when somebody use normal objects yeah to to do some things even for the juggling with um, with like, uh, with hats and stuff.
Speaker 1:I was fascinated with that also, even from when I was a child, like there's something very cool about using an object that you forget to look at yeah like I can do, even with. I have a pork pie kind of hat flat thing. It's not particularly good for juggling, it's too light and it is not round and said but uh yeah, you have to make a compromise when you use something like this because it is not in the balance like a jack.
Speaker 2:There's a club, there's a club. It's really. It is a, not a high take, but somebody really thinking about where the the spinning moment and gravity yes, but when you use something else, you have to find your your only way how you can manipulate it.
Speaker 1:That's right, and you find the spin of it Like I need to find where there's a little tag which is the back, and I need to have my middle finger on this one, because then I know, I know it's not correct, but I know that it spins kind of this way. So I put a little bit more pressure towards the left because it has a tendency to go towards the right. So if I wanted to go on my head, I need to feel this mark inside, and then that tells me, push a little bit more on my ring finger and my, my little finger to, so it's oh, no, yeah, on the other on the finger, so it goes the opposite way. Anyway, it's kind of and it's. You get the same problems that you get that you're talking about with the three-dimensionality of the suitcase. Yeah, instead of a cylinder, when you have the juggling club, you just have to worry about the rotation, but never about the placement of the object.
Speaker 2:Yes, and also the suitcase. There is a little gap, but with with the lid coming down, yes, it is not flat everything, or you? Have the hang the handle yes, and you have the locks and Actually for the handle, you you really have to know when it's a handle really on this side where you maybe you want to put your foot, yeah, and also when I after some years I have to change the suitcase and many years ago I bought really ten suitcases the same- brand and everything yeah and it looks really similar, but it is not the same and and it is the suitcase from leather and leather is a little bit, a little bit more bending on this side and I really I need three weeks to bring a new suitcase in.
Speaker 2:And there is a time when I can't juggling the old one and I can't juggling the new one. Oh, because, you've lost, but they are really. It's the same brand, it's the same size, it's the same weight, but the material is a little bit different and my feet really have to learn this. Three millimeter more this and three millimeter more this. The first time when I changed the suitcase, I was shocked. I didn't realize that it is so fine, finely tuned.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is kind of surprising to me as well, but it's amazing but it but also I think it's because your number is at already at a very high level. So the tricks and combination tricks and that that you do, and the expectation that you have to how tightly it's going to be fit with the music and everything too. Yeah, you don't accept tightly, it's going to be fit with the music and everything too, yeah, you don't accept that it's going to fall down two times or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is, with the music so close that I really have to do the eight. I saw it eight times in this direction and eight times in this direction, and when I just do it six times because then I'm struggling then, it is not on the music anymore, and then I'm not really um happy with it yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think this is it's like. One thing is that it's it's more difficult, but maybe a what can we call it a lesser artist or somebody who is going, it'll be okay, the audience don't notice, which is, in one way, may be true, but it also is a testament to your professionality that, okay, I have to retire this suitcase because it's broken or whatever, and then you go okay, but I need to do this in three weeks where I don't have work.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly it is for me. It's really. I changed it in the pandemic. It was a good time to change the suitcase, oh yeah and this is also where you uh played the mannequin yes yeah, so tell me about that, because you already had an act.
Speaker 1:Which how long had you performed? Uh? The suitcase yeah, the two, because it's sort of like two sections, yeah, and were they, the two of them were always part of your act. Always it's like three minutes or something, two or three minutes. The first section something.
Speaker 2:Um, no, the. The first was one suitcase. It is two and a half minutes. And then there was two suitcases and the, uh, the, the handbag. It is maybe also two or three minutes and, um, yeah, it was for a long time. It was, it was my act, and I how long I think it was nearly. I started um 1995 or 6, I mean after the wall fell down. Then I rehearsed this and in 1995, I did the first version from this act. Of course the handbag came later.
Speaker 2:And when I saw the bolt in the handbag it changed a little bit, but the ground construction was in this time that I'm juggling.
Speaker 1:So 30 years now.
Speaker 2:Yes, and the mannequin came just in the pandemic. I had the idea a little bit before and I already. I think in the 60s there was a guy. He had smaller puppets, also a foot juggler, and he used smaller puppets. They was like football players and he had this puppet with. He did it with a ball and one puppet and I never saw it live, because I just saw a video about this many, many years ago and then I start, maybe 2000. I had a little puppet but smaller one and I start but hard.
Speaker 1:Let's just paint a picture, picture it was just the the normal um mannequin from the shop like that this was really.
Speaker 1:It was a big puppet for children, oh yeah and I, but just, let's just, uh, in your act you have a mannequin. It's a man, his name is Oscar. At the moment he's wearing a sort of three-piece suit, but he doesn't have the jacket on. He's got hands that are made out of fabric, so the hands are movable, but his whole body and his feet and he's got shoes on. He's at the moment wearing hat and glasses, yes, yes, with a necktie and waistcoat, and look, he looks very stylish. And we roll him out and then you grab him and you and it's an. It always it's the last of the three things that happen, or three sections. And when he comes out and you start to do it, it has so many beautiful kind of connotations to it that you getting that it's you. Kicking a man around is already kind of funny. And also what happens to his arms, the way that arms, which are soft, the way as you are spinning him the one way or the other, or kicking him. It means his arms move, which really….
Speaker 2:He became alive a little bit. Yes, yes, and I think it is really that the people first, what is this? And then when he is lying on my feet, it is also different, and when I put him when he stays on my feet, I think it is much more the illusion that he became in life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really that's true. When he's lying on you, it's almost like when you watch a carrion. It's like they're lying sideways and then it's an object of manipulation. But when you kick him up and he's standing with his feet on your feet and he is facing the audience and you move him slightly to the left and the right and his arms are just moving a little bit, you really get this sense of puppetry. Yes, and you already have accepted giving him a little bit of a soul, because he looks like he's doing things with his hands, yes, yes, and then when he turns up like he's looking you really sort of with a small manipulation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:It's really funny it is, it's great, but so, yes, you had you.
Speaker 2:I would just like to paint a picture, because when I, I know I I had this idea with a smaller puppet before and then in the pandemic. I remember this and I was thinking, okay, and I have to say I saw one video with a puppet with a bigger puppet already and this puppet already uses this little movement in the arms. I don't know exactly, it was maybe in the 50 or that somebody already did something like this, but it surprised that nobody bring it back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bring it, bring it back. Yeah, it's um. You know, I sit on the cans on top of each other and this was the only sort of thing that I've created that I didn't really have any reference to. For the stack where I put things on top of each other, yes, but I had seen.
Speaker 1:Part of the idea that I'd gotten came from a picture that I saw with Ripley's believe it or not, in the picture just of a man who could sit on sort of whiskey glass upside down in this position yeah, so he's like having his hands on the ground or whatever. And I also a picture from a book called light on yoga, when there was a guy who sits like this with the legs behind his head and is balancing on his bum in the sort of prayer with his hands position, and it's got some indian name for what this. So it wasn't out of nowhere, but I had never seen anybody who did the stacking on top of each other. But then I did.
Speaker 1:This guy called nils dun, who is a juggler from Holland, and I had him on the podcast and he sent me not so long ago, a picture from 1935 or something of somebody doing what I am doing on a stack of maybe five or six is the number that I have cans standing on top of each other, but his cans are all the same size, like the small can that I use. He has like five of those and it and I didn't talk to him about this but when I then spoke to him about it, yeah, you sent me this thing and they're going and I'm going I think is a promotion shot that it's been taken.
Speaker 2:This is my imagination.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because there is no way that he can get up there without there being equipment which is now not in the picture. Yes, because it's too high. He can't jump up onto this thing.
Speaker 2:Or you need a lighter and then somebody have to take the lighter away, or that he comes in and that he holds on to something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because how he gets his legs up or whatever this I just don't you need to have your feet, you need something.
Speaker 1:Maybe it is possible to put them up, but to hold on to this thing when you sit on the on the top, and to get into this position just from an act that I've performed thousands of times, I I I hope that it happened and that I am wrong and that it's possible to get to this state, but for me, the way that you how precise you need to be where you sit for this balance to work is a very small area on your bum for you to be able to do the balance, and that he could jump up, however high that would be like 30, 40 centimeters that he could jump up, get on this position and then lift the legs up, which which actually isn't and that it doesn't fall down when it's just thin, just makes me think he didn't do this act like this and maybe he would have a little, because you could have a little platform that you rolled up that maybe had a gap and these could go in, and then you could sit up and then you would have a handle that you hold on to, similar to my cans.
Speaker 2:But if this was the way he did it, then this is a different, worse act than mine, yeah so I have to say in the past it is much more often that people use some um, help, uh, to to come in the position. If you just thinking about the roller bowler, yeah, when they go on top of the roller bowler, often they have a little platform behind and then they have an assistant take it away and it is um, it is so often that people use something and then they take uh yeah, so, so.
Speaker 1:So that's true, and I say that I don't think he performed this, then maybe that's just what it is. Is that he has a kind of platform, or so.
Speaker 2:Or maybe it was a promotion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but it's true that it could just be that he had it was actually a two-person act, like it sometimes is. It's like the wife, or whatever.
Speaker 2:The assistant.
Speaker 1:The assistant yeah, because it's not that it would be impossible, but, as it's shown in the picture, as a professional doing this kind of thing.
Speaker 2:I go. I don't think this happened and you never know. Maybe there was a stick in the middle.
Speaker 1:This is also true. Yeah, yeah. But even then I go I don't know how you would get up there. I mean, because it is possible to get up and I have done it on just on a stick, like on a pole that was standing. It was a. There's a video of me online getting on top of it's on the beach, like a beach volleyball thing, with a wooden thing that it hangs on, and I climbed up to the top and I sit there and I go, oh really. But then I had to hold around the top of the pole to like beneath me or whatever. So it um, it was cumbersome or difficult, so it is possible. So, but his thing is so thin that I'm going like I don't know how you would jump up that high backwards, getting your bum onto it.
Speaker 2:But if it's a comedy. You have no, really no space to hold.
Speaker 1:No, only underneath you. And this is a bad position to stabilize yourself with, because mine is. Mine is a smaller can and I can just reach. So this is kind of interesting when I'm doing the balances, that I sit on the can of beans or whatever, and then I have a small paint tin which is maybe five liters or something, yeah, yeah, and it has a metal handle. And when this metal handle, when this can is upside down, so the bottom is up, then my finger can just grab so I can hold it. In the first thing, the metal handle, which means if I fall backwards, I can hold on this one. But if I fall forward, which means if I fall backwards, I can hold on this one, but if I fall forward or not fall, but when I'm correcting the balance, I use only my thumb. So I have the thumb on the top of the can and uh, and the other one is two fingers.
Speaker 2:Is the handle?
Speaker 1:interesting and I and now I am 100% connected to this distance because this is now a weird skill where I can, it's only maybe five centimeters in front of me, but this is enough that it is. When it's directly beneath me it's very difficult to to have the balance and secure myself, but just that it's five centimeters in the front and then I can pull with my ring finger and middle finger and sort of push with my thumb if I'm tipping forward. But this is basically what I have, to save it with this distance.
Speaker 1:To correct the balance which comes, like you, from the suitcase. The suitcase dictates you certain ways that you have to behave. Yeah, and to me it was this can that just when I was trying to find out what I could use and you found this one and you go, oh, this works very good because I can do this. But then, of course, you become completely addicted, or you need this Abhängig abhängig, like what is it called. I need this particular can now. So now when I bought a bunch of them and now, of course, they slowly, over time, get a little bit bumpy and a little bit gunked, and then you have to get the new one or so. But so, uh, I think I have enough. But anyway, enough about those things. So that's all very exciting about, uh. So just to finish up this talk about the circus in the communist era. When was it that the wall came down? In 1989.
Speaker 2:November 1989.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 89. So how was that? Where were you when it happened?
Speaker 2:I was in Russia when it happened. I was not in Germany, I had a contract in Russia and it started March 1989, when nothing happened in Germany. It was really. Nobody could see this future coming, and I came back three weeks after the walls fell down. It was really. I saw some pictures and I, of course, I was in Moldavian at this time and we could listen to the German radio. We could listen to the German radio, but it was really.
Speaker 2:I think also the people in Germany couldn't see what's happened. But when you are so far away from your country, for me it was really I couldn't believe what's happened in Germany and also in this time you didn't have a phone with you. All the time when I want to ring up my parents, I have to go to the office, to the post office in Russian, and sometimes you was waiting there for two hours just that you can have a 20-minute call with your parents at home. And yeah, it was really from I in. Now it is really a time um, or when I'm looking back, it is really for me this year. I'm very, very sad that I missed this time in Germany, actually the last half year before the wolf come down, because I think it was a very special time in East Germany. All the people on the Monday, they they came on the street walking with a candle and just gives this very, very quiet protest that they want to change something, and it must be amazing, but I missed it.
Speaker 2:You have to ask somebody else how was it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it still happened for you. So you were there and what was the first rumors? Do you remember that? Because I imagine that people would go go. Did you hear?
Speaker 2:this is happening or like for me it was really um, we had a little party, um, in the end after the show and and in this in this time I worked in the, in the circus buildings in in moldavian, in Kishinev, and I think there was some three girls from Hungary and it was the last show for these three girls and we did a little party to say goodbye. And then we came back in our room and I switched on the radio and then they say the wall is open. And I said what does it mean? The wall is open, the border is open. My colleague, Sabine. I said Sabine, are they talking about the border from Germany is open? What do you think? What do you mean? I had no idea.
Speaker 2:And then there came the first interviews, live from the Berlin border, and the people, oh, we can't believe it. We just want to go and take a look how it looks like in West Berlin. No, we're coming back, but we want to take a look. And you say what they are talking about? I don't understand it. And then, I think it was just 20 minutes later, the Russian colleagues, other performers, they're knocking on the door, on our door, and say you have to come. They bring some pictures from Berlin to open the border. And then we walked to the Russian people because they had a tv and we couldn't believe. We really couldn't believe, wow. And then we know we will be there for the next three weeks oh yeah, so I don't know anything about moldavia.
Speaker 1:It's one of those countries that you don't hear so much about, like in this time on.
Speaker 2:In this time it was, it was apart from the Russian Union, it was its own oh no, it was apart, it was, it was, it was like Lithuanian, it was a Soviet Union in this time, yeah, and Moldavian it's. It's a little country behind Ukraine. I mean, it is when you see now. Ukraine and it is between Ukraine and Romania.
Speaker 2:It is really just a small country, but in this time when I have been there, moldovans already want to go out from the Soviet Union and it was already a little protest there and they closed the city. I mean it was I don't know, maybe it was often in Russian, but I just had it this time they closed the city that you couldn't go in or out.
Speaker 1:With the circus inside.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean it was a circus building, it was just, it was an international program, it was not the German circus, but it was a special situation for the city and they closed all the museum, they closed all the theater, but the circus still performed. And yeah, it was very, very special because we know, in Germany the border is open and we was the border is open and we was in a city that was closed, nobody could go in, nobody could go out, but I don't know exactly why they did it Some protest or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like a putsch.
Speaker 1:Like a coup. Yeah, somebody tried to take over the power or something. Yeah, yeah, how interesting. But maybe also it was something which was in the time as well.
Speaker 2:If this was happening in germany, I am sure if moldavia already had had some it was a time when gorbachev was in power and he already had a much more open politic and he was much closer to the West world and he wanted to open the country. Without Gorbachev in East Germany it would never happen that Germany came together, because they tried it already in 1957. But then Russians sent all the tanks and they really the East German people already get up and say we want to change something. And then the tanks from Russia came and bring it down, like in Prague was the same in Czechoslovakia. Russian came and bring it down, like in Prague was the same in Czechoslovakia. It was in the 50.
Speaker 2:A lot of countries try to get out of this system, but then was the military and the Russian was so strong and Gorbachev he already. He was very, very clear when he say actually on the 7th of October 1989 Gorbachev came to East Germany and he really say something about when you came. I don't know in English, but he was very, very clear that he will not against it when the people he was not going to send army if you rebel.
Speaker 1:It was clear. And it was also the reason why the people so almost like he was giving you the sign saying if you really don't want to go, we will not. If you really don't want to go, we will not.
Speaker 2:Previously you could get killed, or you go to the I don't know KGB, or I don't know what I was not in Germany when it happened, but I know actually in October there was in Leipzig was a big demonstration and they had a lot of police, a lot of army in this city and it was very, very close that they want to shoot the people. And but I just heard it. But they say the army say we will not shoot their own people, and then this is an act of rebellion, or I guess it's also for the soldiers.
Speaker 1:It's kind of I don't know, it's a treason or something that the soldiers, when the soldiers actually go no, this is it. We do not shoot our own people. We're supposed to protect our people from the enemy, and our people is not the enemy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's difficult because you go to prison or you can be executed, I think, for treason and all those things yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was nearly one and a half months before the war fell down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it was then the movement had started, kind of yeah, yeah, like there was a crack in the dam, yes, and it was already six months, the people in all the cities stand up or walked every Monday on the street and way quiet and way without aggressive.
Speaker 2:And I think it was very, very special this kind of change in Germany, because it was without. What is it? I, chris, I, chris aggression.
Speaker 1:yeah, that was a nonviolent protest, or so? Yeah, that's really interesting. Maybe we'll make a pause there and we'll and we'll what, and we will what? Well, we will find out about what that is in the next exciting episode where we continue this conversation with Antje Poda. And if you want to support the podcast, I urge you to click subscribe Subscribe and have these episodes come down in your feed. That would be really, really awesome. Until next time, take care of yourself and those you love, and I hope to see you along the way.