PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOJOURNALISM VIDEO by PAUL SMITH

Little Big Top - Colombia's 50 pence circuses

"Thank you for generating employment with your visit. Atn: Mario Salazar," reads a handwritten notice in blue marker pen at the exit to the Jhon Danyer circus. Not many have read that notice lately. After several weeks of rain, public apathy and just plain bad luck Mario and his circus are down to their last pesos. "What should we do then?" he asks somewhat angrily, thinking in the nine mouths he has to feed. "Should we go out onto the and start robbing people?"

Mario is the owner of Jhon Danyer Circus. Originally from the Cali, he came to Medellín and stayed. It seemed safer and less complicated than working the barrios (neighbourhoods) of his native city, and remaining in one

place meant his children could study in school. Medellín at that time was experiencing what some in the media called a rebirth and, as in Europe during the Renaissance when the circus thrived, here business became a little easier during the period of calm that reigned after the demobilisation of the city´s gangs. However, the changes were it seems little more than a bit of window dressing. Now the gangs and killings have resurged and the insecurity in the barrios in conflict again has people shutting themselves away indoors.

There are around a dozen small circuses that wander thepoor neighbourhoods – barrios – of the city of Medellín in Colombia. Pitching their tents on small plots

Clockwise from top left: Liseth and Raul (Jhon Danyer Circus); Adriana (Sombrillita Circus); Cooki (Malin Circus); Henry (Jhon Danyer Circus); Zumbambico (Sombrillita Circus); Yasuri (Jhon Danyer Circus).

of waste ground, they charge 1500 pesos per adult (around 50 pence – a little less than a litre of milk hereabouts) and 1000 pesos per child to see a performance. One would expect that the public would come flocking, but times but times are difficult and, sat nightly before their TV screens, the people have become more "educated" and "sophisticated". For some the little circuses are merely circos malucos (rubbish circuses). So, like trawlers wandering the oceans in search of shoals of fish, the circuses must ply the city´s valley sides in search of custom. It is a life where the bonanzas are often wiped out by the droughts, but they earn a living doing what their families have done for generations.

The circuses are families. In Jhon Danyer Mario sometimes is a clown or and sometimes does hypnosis. His two eldest sons, Jhon Esteven and Daniel, are the core of the business. They perform balancing acts, the high-wire, trapeze and clowning, where their little brother Yerferson also helps out. Luisa Fernanda is Yasuri, the contortionist, part of the family since her "adoption" by the Salazar's when she and her sister were infants.

The children of the cirqueros will start learning tricks – balancing hoops, bending and contorting or appearing with the clowns - and graduate onto balancing upon stacked chairs and the like and then the aerial acts: the trapeze, the ladder, and the high wire. But as the art of the circus depends upon the body, the options of staying in the ring close down as the body ages and breaks. Finally, if your not the owner, there is little left but rely on your wit and your tongue and be a clown. Remaining in the circus then entails pulling your weight, or more simpley put by Mario: "If you eat in the circus then you work in the circus".

It is a close knit world, full of long-time friendships, and mutual friends, as well as some bitter rivalries. It is not Cirque du Soleil (which performs in Colombia this month, October 2010), but in the poor barrios of Medellín the circus has the added attraction that you can always buy popcorn, crisps, toffee apples or soda from the knife thrower, clown or trapeze artist during the interval. Here they may not shine so brightly, but in the 50 pence circuses of Medellín you can always mix with the stars.

Medellin, Colombia - 2010