Peru Circuses: Peru's shoestring circuses struggle to survive

World
Europe

02:25

Traditional family-run circuses made up of migrants from the highland Andes provide a cheap form of entertainment to working-class families. But they are struggling to SURVIVE in Peru's bustling, crime-filled capital.

Inside a yellow and blue tent overlooking the desert hills of Peru's capital Lima, the Tony Perejil circus comes to life.

The mom-and-pop style spectacle is one of about a hundred remaining circuses in Peru that manage to eke out a living, despite waning public enthusiasm for clown and animal acts in an age of viral internet videos and mobile phones.

These days, Lima's circus acts find themselves increasingly pinched for space and money. Urban expansion in the city of 10 million inhabitants has made it tough to find enough space to set up a tent in a centrally located neighborhood.

JOSE ALVAREZ CHAYITO THE CLOWN "As the circus wasn't designed with cities in mind, the cities don't have the circus in mind at all, nor the state. Any free space is converted into an area for football, a park, or sold for a mall. There aren't any big free spaces anymore."

Alvarez remembers happier times in the 1980s. His father filled their circus tent with people even though Peru was in the midst of an economic crisis and an armed conflict.

JOSE ALVAREZ CHAYITO THE CLOWN "This year the circus crisis has been very bad. Last year I wasn't in Lima, but I think this year is even worse."

Other circuses are suffering from economic challenges as well. Jesus Castilla, knife thrower with the International Coco Circus, says that not enough people are becoming circus performers.

Today's circuses still maintain many of the old-time traditions of the past: Clowns use makeup to inflate the appearance of their lips, make jokes and don goofy, oversized overalls to entertain children in tents with a traditional cone-shaped roofs and a simple dirt stage.