Winners of the 41st Monte-Carlo Circus Festival
Acrobats, clowns and animals together with people on the stage… What is it? It’s the International Monte-Carlo Circus Festival, of course!
While the audience enjoyed the show, the circus and artists showed the very best of their talents, and the judges worked hard and made sometimes difficult decisions: who should receive the prestigious prizes? Sometimes it isn’t obvious at all because all the artists are extremely talented and merit awards. And now, the moment has come to learn the names of the winners.
So, in the first place, the acrobatic troupe of Sergey Trushin from Russia and the acrobatic duet from Uzbekistan, Sky Angels, were awarded with a statuette known as “The gold clown”.
The acrobatic group which is run by the honored artist Sergey Trushin is already a prize-winner and recipient of numerous circus awards. This year they performed a surprising show in the style of Mad Max, executing breathtaking acrobatic feats, holding the audience on the edge of their seats during the whole performance.
Kristina Vorobyeva & Rustem Osmanov, or their duo called “Sky Angels”, also deserved the first step on the podium as they hypnotized the public not only with the riskiness of their performance, but also bewitched them with the beauty of their flight under a dome practically without any tethers. Their touching romantic performance was accompanied by the well-known song of Queen “Show must go on”. The uniqueness of this aerial strap act was that acrobats weren’t attached by tether to the dome of the circus. To ascend under the dome they held on safety strap in their mouths only with the force of their teeth, rising above and performing difficult acrobatics at the same time.
The statuette “The silver clown” was presented to the acrobatic group from China Xianjiang, to Erwin Frankello from the German circus who prepared a funny and charming performance with sea lions, to the Zapashny brothers, and also to the acrobatic duet from Quebec, Chilly & Fly, and to the German tamer Marek Jama.
“The bronze clown” was disputed by many artists and troops, and the choice who to award with the third place, equally prestigious as the first and the second, was difficult.
The acrobatic group the Gerlings became one of the winners of “The bronze clown”. A tragic incident which occurred at the Monte-Carlo Circus festival this year concerns these acrobats. The brave tightrope walkers wanted to break their own world record, having constructed on a thin rope high in the air a pyramid of 9 people, instead of 8, which they’ve already succeeded in doing in the past. So, eager to break the record, they started to add one more acrobat to the 8-man pyramid when the unforeseen happened. Having lost their balance four acrobats out of 9 fell. Fortunately, three of them escaped without any injuries and were left with slight disappointment about the unfortunate performance. But one of their colleagues suffered a wrist fracture. However, later the acrobats announced that they are not going to give up and they will surely break the record in the future.
“The bronze clown” was presented to the following artists: the acrobatic duo from Sweden “Sons Company”, the Holmikers troupe (a performance can be seen here), Mario Berousek, Alexandre Batuev and the Skokov troupe).
Special awards from the jury were received by Otto Vesseli, the master of comic illusion from France, for his long and successful career, and also by the trapeze artist Alex Michael from Germany.
Also, an Award for development of circus in Russia was presented to the Zapashny brothers.
The Cup in the memory of the Princess Antoinette which is usually handed to the youngest artist of the Festival was presented to the Izhevsk Trio.
Ervin Frankello, for the cheerful performance with sea lions, was honored with the “Audience Choice Award”.
So many illustrious awards were given to a wide range of spectacular and memorable acts. These artists truly deserve these honors and their moment of recognition at the Monte-Carlo Circus Festival.
