On Glamour and Fame: or, Impromptu Street Shows in China (Patreon)

A couple days before our departure from Toronto, an e-mail arrives from a festival organizer: "We have added a show in Zhuhai City to your schedule, before the competition starts – it's promotion for the festival."

Okay. Cool.  

Leonor, our translator, forwarded us a schedule that includes details of what's going on starting from the 16th or 17th of November until the end of our time here, but the days preceding the Opening Ceremony of the festival are essentially a vast wasteland of We don't know what's happening, last minute notifications of rehearsals, follow-up messages that those rehearsals aren't happening, and then more hurried messages that, no, they actually are happening – you get the idea. The guys from the Scandinavian Boards team tell us that it was more of the same last year when they were here, so to a certain extent I've tried to adopt the "buckle up and hang on" mindset.

We've been told to show up backstage at the Old Circus in full show makeup by 10am. Along with a team of 20 dancers, myself, Troy, the hand-to-hand duo Charlotte and Nicolas, the tango-juggling duo Emily and Menno (and their very cute young son), and three Russian clowns – Oxana, Ramik, and Scowl-But-Doesn't-Speak-Muscley-Clown.

We are collectively herded onto giant coach buses that have been completely wrapped in the bright yellow decal of the China International Circus Festival logo and drive away from the Chimelong Ocean Resort, off towards Zhuhai City.

The coach bus is heavily air conditioned against the humidity of the day, which is already hanging heavy mid-morning.

"Did you guys get the e-mail last night that you're not doing three shows after all?" Troy asks the other circus artists.

"Yes," Menno replies. "We are doing two, now."

"Us too," Charlotte adds.

"Ah, okay, we're only doing the one," Troy says.

Honestly, I'm happy for this.

I'd rather skip feeling stiff as a wooden plank the next day in favour of less impromptu public performances.

Our show was also only ever designed to be done on a stage, with lighting, and a sound system where our dynamically-varied track can be heard well – we created it only for Cirque de Demain. I certainly never thought it would be something we would be performing in broad daylight with a portable sound system, out on an open floor.

Then again – I'm sure the others feel this way too.

We're all going to do our best.

Ezra pokes his head up over the backs of one of the seats up by the front of the bus.

"Okay everyone! First show – outside at opera house. Second show – outside. Third show – inside duty-free mall."

“Two shows outside?” Nicolas says. “Yesterday it was two shows inside and one show outside.”

“Two shows outside, one show inside,” Ezra repeats with a big smile.

We drive by endless iterations of high-rise condominiums, most looking to be in a state of semi-construction or oddly abandoned. Palm trees line the road, and we can see the ocean at points, peeking through between the buildings. It doesn't smell like the ocean, though. Every other place in the world I've been to that is seaside – the North of France, Mexico, even northern Norway – has that slightly salty, invigorating, calming, fresh smell. This place is just . . . neutral. It's odd.

We park at the first performance location, by a gigantic seashell structure that we are told is an opera house. A huge expanse of open flagstone square stretches in front of it, and a team of employees from the festival hustle out into the centre to lay out a circular red carpet (our stage) and red velvet stanchions all around it. Oddly, the mascot for this venue seem to be a tiny cartoon baby soldier – a chubby little cartoon with an oversized green military helmet and holding various firearms is a decal on every glass panel bordering every wall, ramp, and pathway that we can see.

Military-themed cartoons and opera are not generally things that are synonymous in my mind, but there's a first time for everything, right?

Nicolas and Charlotte have conferred and decided on creating a modified short act; the sun is blindingly bright and Nicolas is essentially looking straight up into every time he and Charlotte throw a big trick.

Not exactly ideal. 

Or super safe.

Emily and Menno get through their act flawlessly, though when they have walked several meters away from the red carpet circle I can see their professional masks come off as they discuss how sticky the humidity has made the juggling clubs they're working with. "I was so worried," Emily said in her beautiful French accent, brow creasing with anxiety. "I didn't know if it would leave my hand, you know?"

Back onto the bus we go.

"How long is the drive to the next location?" I ask a female interpreter I haven't met yet, seated a few rows in front of me.

"Ah, maybe 30 minutes? Not far," she replies. "There will be no place to warm up . . . do you think you can warm up on the bus?"

I laugh. Of course!

"Well I will certainly try. We're professionals," I respond in a fit of unexpected, good-natured bravado. "We'll get it done."

Troy looks at me nervously.

Not for himself – he who stretches his shoulders twice, cracks his neck, and is ready to go –

No, no.  Nervous for me. The person who is constantly re-asserting that I need a good chunk of time to warm up my body in order to make it Do A Contort (as my friend Jean-Luc Bedryk likes to call it).

The bus slows, and stops.

We look out the window.

It is a rather unremarkable public plaza, one of many identical looking shopping centres and office buildings.

I peer across the square, narrowing my eyes. There's a funny little red symbol on an awning across the square, over a series of Chinese characters.

"Is that . . . is that a Pizza Hut sign?" I remark to no one in particular.

Charlotte's head whips around. "Wow . . . Yeah . . . I – Damn. It is."

"And that's a Chinese KFC sign, I'm pretty sure," Troy adds.

We all look at the awning two storefronts over.

Yup. Looks like it.

The red circular carpet has been rolled out again. Twenty or so all-black military-looking men stand outside the stanchions cordoning off our 'stage' – are they military? Or are those police officers?

Either way, the aesthetic makes me feel slightly uneasy.

The bus is freezing old from the air-conditioning. Not great for warming up, I think to myself.

I signal to the interpreter that Troy and I will be behind the bus getting ready.

At least we'll be out of sight of the crowd, I think.

We squeeze between the the front of the bus and another vehicle and find ourselves looking at a small stretch of sidewalk, a stand of public ride-share bicycles (think Bixi bikes), a bus-stop, and a slow trickle of pedestrians making their way about their daily business.

Oh jeez.

We tuck ourselves into a small corner, behind what looks like a security guard hut that is positioned at the corner of the plaza. At least here we're not blocking foot traffic, and there's a small patch of shade.

This looks like a place that is going to smell like pee.

I stretch my splits vertically against the wall of the security hut; I warm up my neck and upper back against the wall too. I quickly run out of ways to warm up that avoid putting my head at ground level, and thus resignedly melt over into my first bridge.

Yup. It smells like pee.

I avoid any particularly suspicious looking damp patches on the stonework and move through the backbends that I can. At least its hot out; it's making it much easier to warm up quickly and stay that way. I can't bring myself to put my literal face on the ground, so I retreat to the overly chilled coach bus, squeeze my body into the aisle, and get into a few cramped cheststands.

The music of the Russian clowns filters in. Almost time to go . . .

Without our overly dramatic 'spotlight entrance', Troy and I are wracking our brains on the best way to do this mini-show. I sidle up to Ezra.

"Hey, Ezra – how do you say 'excuse me' in Mandarin?"

"Huh?"

"We're gonna start outside the crowd and walk in upside down. But we want to yell 'excuse me' to get their attention and scare them."

Ezra looks delighted. The phrase he says slowly for me contains two sounds like I recognize, and phonetically sounds like bu hao ee shuhhh. I make a mental note to ask Jen Crane what that might actually be written as in pinyin as I repeat the four syllables over and over. Ezra grins: "Yeah! Great!"

It could be the worst pronunciation in the world and I'm not sure he would say otherwise; and most of the time the small accent variations in Mandarin that are lost on Westerners will render a phrase unintelligible to a Chinese national should I attempt repeating it, so I hope for the best.

Oxana is taking her bow – I can see her bubblegum pink hair poking out above the crowd around the ring, which is now four or five people deep. Decent turnout, at least. Troy and I take up position outside the outermost ring of people, most of whom are still watching the flamboyant MC marching around the centre of the carpet with a golden microphone. Our stand-in music begins to play over the speakers and Troy and I start creaturing our way through the crowd, eliciting a satisfying choir of screams and gasps. While it seems like Chinese audiences are generally far quieter than the European or North American ones I'm used to, the fact that we heard any reactions (some gasps, some exclamations, a little clapping) seemed like a good enough sign to us that they found the tricks we were showcasing entertaining enough.

We peeled up slowly from our backbends into a standing position, took a short bow, and then the MC went crazy, which the crowd echoed.

We made it.

Within 10 more minutes, the whole show is over, packed up, and everyone is back on the bus.  

We drive to the final location where Charlotte and Nichalos, Emily and Menno, and the clowns will perform one last time. I lie in the aisle of the bus again as it pulls away from the plaza, trying to do my cool-down exercises without being tossed into the mid-bus stairwell as we turn corners. 

Well . . . THAT was a thing, I guess, I muse to myself as I move on to my next ab exercise. Street show in China. Definitely never crossed my mind before to toss on my bucket list, but I guess I can retroactively add that and cross it off.

The translators pass around a cardboard box filled with Spicy McChicken sandwiches from McDonalds. I pass, not wanting anything in my stomach yet so soon after bending. Everyone else partakes, and by the time we've all arrived at the open-air mall for the last show, everyone is seriously regretting the level of spice that Chinese Spicy McChicken sandwiches means as their pre-show sustenance. I pass around my ever-present travel bottle of Pepto Bismol to quench the raging infernos burning up everyone's stomach lining and esophaguses. Constant vigilance!

The air is warm.

The light is golden and beautiful.

TJ (Charlotte and Nicolas's choreographer) and I wander off on a mission to find bubble tea while the organizers set up the stage and sound system. I try and fail to order a fruit tea with tapioca pearls, despite my very best miming efforts, and the utter failing of the translation app I downloaded before I left Canada.

The show goes flawlessly.

And – no one loses their Spicy McChicken Sandwich.

Perfect.

By the time I'm back to the hotel and in bed, typing out my last few recollections of the day, I notice my hands are trembling.

What's that about?  I think to myself.

Did I have coffee today?

No, coffee isn't really a thing here. 

Am I anxious?

No (shockingly). 

Am I tired?

I don't feel tired . . . 

Ah. Maybe that's just it. 12 or 13 hours of jetlag. All that travelling. Jumping right into rehearsals and shows.

I guess I'm fried.

It takes me a long, long time to fall asleep, and when I do, I dream of yellow seagulls flying over the white and red circus big-top I see out my hotel room window each morning in beautiful formation.