My first contact with the circus may not have been so magical.
how much was it for you and for most people.
It was kind of traumatic for me.
I remember, I think I was 5 or 6 years old.
and I was at a children’s party,
was sitting
and out of nowhere I turned around and had a clown behind me and gave me a fright
so great that it traumatized me.
Since then I did not want to know about clown,
I did not want to know about the circus.
Until the time passed, some aunts of mine showed me
who was just a make-up person and so on.
But I think it sort of reverberated in my life.
I was leaving the circus for later,
within all the other art activities I’ve done.
Since I understood myself, I got involved with art, I always made art.
I started with the theater, I got an actor, I worked, I directed the show, I acted.
But it did not seem to complete. It felt like I needed more.
That was not enough for me.
And then I went to dance, I worked with contemporary dance, I did popular dance.
I traveled dancing, I had a dance company,
choreographed show, a lot of thing.
But it did not complete either.
It seemed like something was missing.
In the meantime, I had contact with the acrobatic fabric,
which is a circus mode, part of the aerial.
That cloth that people come down with.
I had the opportunity to take a course with a group from Bahia.
A magical course.
They set up the old city circus,
and we were able to experience the whole universe of the circus,
from aerial to ground acrobatics, contortion, unicycle, everything.
And at that moment, the cloth caught me.
And from there to here are 13 years as a circus teacher,
living in circus, working with circus.
And in that moment, I had a great opportunity.
I did the workshop and soon after I was able to do an instructor training course.
From that workshop I became an instructor
and live the circus as I live to this day.
That gave me a very big snap.
I realized that everything in my life had been opportunities.
My technical training in theater was with scholarship,
My graduation was also with scholarship.
My graduate also went with scholarship.
My technical background in Cultural Production now also with opportunity,
and I said, “No, you can not.
Does a person have such opportunity and do nothing with it? “
At that moment, I realized: we have to do something to give back.
I need to repay every opportunity I’ve had.
That’s when I joined my friends,
we worked together in the same school at the time,
and we put together what was the embryo of what today is “The Circus Tá na Rua”.
It was the Artistic Training Center.
We opened selection for 20 youngsters,
and these youngsters would receive theater, dance and circus classes for free.
It worked very well. We got to do other auditions, get in other people.
We began to work in the city, to be part of the cultural calendar of the city,
participating in theater, dance and circus.
But the circus began to get very strong.
We were the circus representation of the city.
Until we were invited to an event, a very bad event.
The festival BR-135, and we stayed:
“Wow, we were invited to welcome the BR-135.
No, for everything we’re on tape. We’re doing it right. “
There, it was very funny,
because we all get ready to make a nice reception
and: “Come on, let’s show you what we can do.”
And we could not receive it.
The people did not let us greet them.
People wanted to learn circus.
People wanted to do it.
They took the juggles from our hands and wanted us to teach them.
Until a person who was there at that event,
which is Fernandinha Marques, who is with me today in the project
and is one of the people I trust the most at work,
came and asked me how did I do to learn,
that she wanted to be with us, that she wanted to be part of it.
And then, in a snap, I said,
“Tomorrow will have a training of circus, open and free, there in Nauro Machado Square.”
The reception was Sunday night, and I said, “Monday will have. Tomorrow will have.
You can go there at six o’clock we’ll be there. “
And had.
And she was.
And from then on, it’s almost four years of occupation and resistance in that space.
It showed me that such minimal contact,
a question from an unknown,
who joined two wishes: mine, hers,
and more wishes of the other people who also wanted to learn,
managed, this little contact,
make such a big story happen.
The circus has become something so big, so much bigger than I,
so much greater than the people who are part of it,
that we have no idea of what we achieve
with The Circus Tá in the Street.
Because it’s a collective force.
It is a force that does not depend on me, it does not just belong to me.
She’s from all the people who believe
who together can do something.
And it became so big, it moved so many people.
This has moved many people, many collectives,
moved many partnerships, many opportunities.
This has moved many boundaries.
That moved me. That stirred [me].
To the point that I receive a
of a person I did not expect.
There was a young man who frequented Circo Tá na Rua,
every Monday he was there.
He did not practice circus. He was just there.
I already knew him by sight, through the Reviver, as a resident of the historic center,
I had seen it before.
And he came up to me and said, “Donny,”
he even knew my name,
“Donny, thank you so much for what you do here every Monday.”
I thought he was going to ask for something, I do not know.
And he came and said,
“Thank you so much for what you do here every Monday.”
And I was unarmed, I said:
“What the hell is that to you?”
And he told me that on Monday
it was the only day he did not want to get high on Reviver,
it was the only day he did not want to drink and sleep drunk in the gutter,
It was the only day he did not want to fight anyone.
It was the only day he felt good and felt part of that place.
Even he’s been attending for years and every day.
Monday was the only day he felt part of that space.
For me it was all hearing this.
It has no greater recognition for us,
who does this, who believes it.
It’s too big. It’s huge.
It’s surreal.
To the point, for example,
of people to participate in a workshop with a group from Rio de Janeiro,
and, at the end of the workshop, a wooden leg workshop,
and at the end of the workshop, the teachers come to us and say,
“Take three wooden legs here for you, young men.
Because I have known your work for a long time, I am following on social networks,
I believe in what you do and recognize me in your work.
So my way to help is this. Here. “
And we did not expect it. We did not know he did not even know us.
To the point that the lady who sells it there at the Reviver,
every day she is there, with her little toilet, selling water and drink,
do not let me pay when I want to buy something.
She does not accept it.
Because she told me
that on Monday she did not sell anything.
And now she sells a lot.
And the only way she can repay me is this,
giving me some water for free.
It fills me.
It fills me up a lot.
And it fills me up because
with me the circus completed a void.
The circus filled a void in me.
I already acted, already worked, as I said initially,
I worked with dance, with theater, with circus, I introduced myself.
I was from the stage, my life was the stage.
I loved being on the stage. I loved this feeling here.
This climate, to me, is wonderful.
Only I had to leave because I hurt myself,
I had a spinal cord injury, I have a herniated disc.
And from there to here, there were six attempts to get back to business,
to re-train.
But it never does. It never hurts because the pain is too great,
because staying too long on foot hurts, sitting too long hurts,
and stretching a lot hurts, if you do a lot of exercise it hurts.
And I had to get out of the place I loved.
And that left a void. A huge void. Immense.
That I only saw if complete, I just saw fill,
when I understood
What Circus On The Street did in my life.
To the point that I realized that I could leave this place of light, spotlight,
and let other people pass and be in that place.
It filled me up.
It fills me.
And this makes me
believe we are on the right track.
That Circus is in the street is this place that you can occupy there.
From light. Two spotlights.
And the palms are not for me.
The palms could never be just for me,
because I am a mere articulator within this whole process.
I think I was just someone who was lucky enough to get the idea.
But I think, in the flow of the universe, I would have it there.
I was just the lucky guy to have the trigger.
But the collective
is the key word, is the word strong,
is what represents us, us of The Circus Tá in the Street.
And I wanted to introduce you to this team.
These people are: Igor Gauthier,
Artemis Lisboa, Igor Viegas,
Ana Raquel Farias, Wand Albuquerque,
Nuilane Lake, Priscila Mayse,
Alicia Moraes, Letícia Sousa, Raulzito,
Necilia Monteiro, Fernandinha Marques,
Samuel Chaves, Ana Beatriz Chaves
and Antônio Carlos.
(Applause)
It’s to remember … Thank you, people.
It’s to remember that I do not take this place alone anymore.
And it’s great when we do not occupy this place of light alone.
When you give space: you can come,
Come, be in the light with me.
Be part of this with me.
That’s it, people. Thank you!
(Applause)
”
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