Circus is a combination of performing arts and extraordinary health, where you can find all kinds of beautiful but extremely risky performances. And because what circus artists perform is body language, you can fully enjoy the circus acts of any troupe, no matter where they come from in the world.
But in return, the circus artists have to train their bodies every day. And this is inevitable mistakes. At any time, during performance, during travels and especially during practice, accidents and injuries can happen.
Charlotte Ganderton and Michael Henry are two Australian therapists. Together, they have applied to work in over 100 circus troupes, traveling with them to more than 30 countries around the world, from across North and South America, Europe, Australia, Asia and the Middle East.
Dr. Charlotte Ganderton, a member of the advisory group of the National Institute of Circus Arts of Australia.
Ganderton and Henry’s mission is to care for and treat the injuries of the cast members. “While primarily touring with professional circuses, we have also consulted many times with both young performers and circus training institutions.“, the duo said.
“In our medical profession, taking care of the health of circus performers is a very special, even unique, mission. We are very fortunate to have the privilege of doing so, as the physiotherapists.
What we have here can be likened to the behind-the-scenes story of one of the greatest shows on Earth.”
A circus troupe is always diverse
Circus and circus performers are diverse. Each of them practiced a different subject, from acrobatics on the ground (eg acrobatics, hand balancing, turning); aerobatics (with awl, silk, belt); quick actions (juggling); character acting (clown); and even a music performer.
Their rehearsals and performances can feature fire, ice, water, aerial equipment, and a variety of props. You can compare the cast of a major circus show to an Olympic team, which comes in a variety of ages, shapes, body sizes and of course comes with different risks of injury.
At the elite level, circus performers can come from many countries, with many different languages and cultural backgrounds. This poses enormous challenges for us as a physician, such as understanding their belief systems and attitudes, the causes and management of injuries, training and exercise habits. their.
What injuries do circus actors suffer the most?
Unlike you might imagine, freefalls and catastrophic injuries in the circus are rare for us to witness, and although they are entirely possible, most are very rare.
A circus accident occurred in the US in 2014 due to a broken performance center hook.
Eight seriously injured actors sued the convention center and reached a total compensation of $52.5 million after the full 2020 session.
Most circus performers’ injuries are of the chronic (long-term) type, and acute injuries are less severe. The most common injuries circus performers are in the spine and ankles. We also had to treat many actors with sprains, strains, back and lower shoulder pain.
You may also have experienced these types of trauma in your life. However, your life is very different from that of the circus performers. They need to demonstrate unique skills, and sometimes require a lot of mobility, coordination, and strength.
The circus performer needs a body that works in completely different ways than yours. This makes the treatment of a circus performer sometimes very different from the average person. For example, you may only need one pair of legs to stand, but a circus performer will need both hands – when they’re stacking banana trees or doing somersaults.
The injury rate in the circus industry is 7,37-9.27 per 1,000 hours of practice (whether they’re performing or rehearsing). Injuries during acrobatics are the most common. However, with our limited research, we can say circus is safer than many other sports, such as American football and gymnastics.
In the professional circus, injuries tend to be mild. Actors typically only need less than 7 sessions of treatment, they only have to miss 1 performance or can even perform at the next session without taking any breaks.
However, it is a common situation that circus performers often hide and downplay their trauma. They don’t report them. Only when a circus performer is so injured that he cannot go to practice or perform, do they call a doctor for medical attention.
We did a study that focused on injuries that occurred in the lower legs of circus performers. Every time they come in, we will ask them about the injury, symptoms such as pain, soreness, stiffness, swelling, looseness or instability in the joint.
As a result, we see more than 50% of circus performers every week experience this type of incident. Over an 18-week period, 86% of the actors said they had at least one week of one of the above problems, in their lower extremities.
Inequality in access to health
When we researched how the injuries of circus performers would recover, we found that there are many shortcomings, such as circus performers often do not receive professional health care, some have problems. financial topic.
For full-time circus performers, they can have access to professional medical staff who have extensive experience working with circus performers. These artists can also be paid unpaid leave and have comprehensive health insurance.
However, artists who perform under short-term contracts or perform as amateur gigs often have to deal with their own injuries. They don’t get professional medical care, and they don’t get paid if their injuries keep them from performing.
Other researchers have also pointed to the many cultural aspects of the circus that influence trauma management in the circus. In one study, the authors said that circus performers don’t always trust doctors’ knowledge, believing that doctors don’t really understand the health claims their work entails. This includes performance requirements, show schedules, and training schedules.
Some circus performers would rather take advice from colleagues and coaches than medical recommendations. This is partly because the circus is an art form with a traditional history, in which with many disciplines, training methods have been passed down through generations of artists.
Therefore, for doctors, they should also seek out this knowledge and experience, because it can be valuable. Physicians should work more with circus performers to learn from them and gain a common understanding of how to manage trauma.
We have to acknowledge the unique nature of the circus industry, in this land many of the medical guidelines we are using will fall short. With that in mind, we have built a good relationship with the circus performers and secured the partnership to manage their trauma.
Of course, prevention is better than cure
Circus performers already have many masterful strategies for managing their bodies, like strength exercises, flexibility training, and increasing difficulty in an attempt to prevent injury while improving the performance as a whole. their.
We doctors just have to work more with them to strengthen this self-management strategy, with the experience we have from older fields like sport and dance medicine.
For example, we’ve encouraged actors to add more strength training when they have shows, touring. This has been effective and welcomed by many veteran artists.
Charlotte Ganderton poses with the Cirque du Soleil circus, where she joins as a doctor on the touring medical team.
Through doing this research, we really see that behind the scenes of circus performances there is a lot of work to be done. For the doctors involved in the care of the circus performer, this is truly a land of challenges, but also very fascinating and unique.
If you become a circus doctor, you will get a great look behind the greatest shows on earth.
Refer to Theconversation