Think of the red curtain, the golden pollets on the shoulders, the smell of horses and sawdust, the sound of a barrel organ (and a little monkey clapping those cymbals! You know I love monkeys but oh well, let's not get in to those now).Think of tattooed ladies portraid in old photos, siamese twin beauties, strong men, lions, ballerinas , sideshow freaks and snake women, romanticised versions of gypsies (ehrm, or to be more exact; Johnny Depp in The Man Who Cried. Think of some artwork of for example Johanna Öst, the Tv series Carnivale, Burton's Big Fish...
So when I went to see the circus I dressed up a little bit with a circus princess on my mind (even though I doubt anyone actually payed any attention to it) - as many bows as possible, a puffy skirt, a patterned hairband and switching my basic black makeup (happens very rarely) for some electric blue, gold and purple.
But to be honest, if I would have lived a hundred years ago and joined a circus (I would have done so even if there wouldn't have been a horseman-Depp hangin around :) I might not actually have been so much of a circus prima ballerina princess then. I think I would have been more of a tattooed acrobatic snake lady , the knife-thorwers partner or a musterious oh-so-good-at-faking it clairvoyant. Who knows.
