A Blog designed for discussion of topics related to, but not limited to, Circus, Zoos, Animal Training, and Animal Welfare/Husbandry. Sometimes opening up the dialog is the best starting point of all. And if for nothing else when people who agree and don't agree, get together and start discussing it, it will open up a lot of peoples minds. Debate and discussion even amongst themselves opens a window where there wasn't one before.
What do you think? Does what you see in this video, validate and make right the many, many Chinese Acrobat act's that are so popular in the circus in recent times?
Posts
13 comments:
thers so many org.. for the protection of animals .
what about protecting the children ?
emile
Tough to watch, but the Chinese culture is a cruel one and little surprises me. I supose you could make the argument that this type of training is a ticket out of poverty for many of these kids, but what a painful ticket it is.
Anonymous,
As for it being a ticket out of poverty, you are making the assumption that they are headed for riches. In that case, there is a good argument for child prostitution also. Are you the anonymous on ShowBiz Dave's blog? Most anonymous are ignorant, and don't have much of value to say.
Wade
LOL, yes, that's me. I don't have much to say, but say it anyway.
Interesting comments posted below that video - Cirque du Soleil doesn't have animals because they might be cruely trained, yet features Chinese child acrobats who are almost certainly cruely trained - funny isn't it?
Anonymous,
Cirque Solei did/do not use animals because they might be cruelly trained. They wanted animals, but when the show first went out, to keep down costs, and to test the water, and even see if a new show would succeed on the road they went without them, with the intention of using them if they went out a second year. By luck of the timing, it occurred smack in the middle of the ar movement. The show was touted so wonderfully because they didn't have them, that it would have been financial suicide to change the format. The rest is history.
So that is not a very valid observation. These act's are used because they are different, give a "sense" of a faraway land, and are available. There will always be "well they are cheap speculation" but that is the greatest mystery of the circus, salaries.
Wade
No Wadem that's not what I meant. What I meant to say is that some people who go to Soleil go because they are comfortable knowing that there are no animals, yet if they know about the Chinese training methods, they seem to think the end result is justified.
Also, I am under the impression that, just like the old Eastern block countries, the cost of the Chinese troupes is in line with top European acts, but the payment goes to the government, who in turn pays the performers very little.
Anonymous,
I thought that is what you meant, but until the folks who go to Solei(and not not them, but many others here and in Europe) realize what is done to achieve the "beautiful" act's they see. They have been conditioned to think animal training is bad. Let's see if more of this type of "PR" has the same effect on the large troupe acts. You are correct in the pay "split up" though. Still think it is an argument for a ticket out of poverty?
Wade
Yes, I believe many of the parents believe that preparing their children as performers would give them a better life than China's grinding poverty, where factory workers earn $7 a day, and girl children are still aborted in favor of boy babies with slightly higher earning power.
This type of child abuse is not exclusive to China. My niece was, for most of her life involved in ballet in a wealthy suburb. The children are pushed to train daily through injury. In fact, today, at 20, my nieces knees and back are shot and she has gone through several major surgeries. And, these aren't people who need the money, in fact a ballet career would be a financial step down. So, competition and prestige also plays a factor, as I'm sure it does in China.
Interestingly, children have historically had a rough time in acrobatics. Did you know that Risley acts originated with a guy named Risley, an English street performer who used children sold to him by their slum dwelling parents? When the kids got injured, he just dumped them and got a new ones.
Morroocan street tumbers were also children who were given up or sold by their parents, and sufferred severe training.
About 40 years ago, I watched bareback practice of a young girl training to go into her families act. The whip was frequently used across the back of her legs when she didn't let go of the mechanic rope. Not pretty to watch.
Then their are the Carlos Twins. Not to say I know about their training, but they were certainly exploited as children.
Seems the Chinese are just continueing the long line of greed that seems to occur when people discover what young limbs can be contorted into.
Anonymous,
Very good. But just like the drug industry, who is the most responsible for the end result. The consumer who buys it, or the dealer who sells it?
Wade
What a superb display of the supreme effort of those poor children's, they could well be acquiring the same effect of thier accomplishments with more time practicing and less hardship and putdown's. Hope they get their money worth but I doubt it.
my heart goes to them.
What a superb display of the supreme effort of those poor children's, they could well be acquiring the same effect of thier accomplishments with more time practicing and less hardship and putdown's. Hope they get their money worth but I doubt it.
my heart goes to them.
What a superb display of the supreme effort of those poor children's, they could be acquiring the same effect of their accomplishments with more time practicing and less hardship and putdown's.
Ninette Parker.
Post a Comment