Family tradition circus declared Brazil’s cultural heritage
The family tradition circus was recognized this month as Brazilian cultural heritage by the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN).
Spread throughout Brazil, this cultural manifestation is described by the institute as itinerant and based on family units and the oral transmission of knowledge, techniques, methods, and coexistence between generations.
In the institute’s view, this cultural manifestation holds national significance for its role in promoting performances, its recreational practices, and the creation of social memory.
Pioneering spirit
The decision is linked to the efforts of the families who keep this tradition alive. Founded in Paraná in 1991, the Zanchettini Family Tradition Circus spearheaded the campaign to attain this new status.
The company began with the work of Wanda Cabral Zanchettini and Primo Júlio Zanchettini, which was carried on over time by the couple’s ten children and their descendants. Since 1993, Wanda Cabral Zanchettini had led the efforts for the category to receive the recognition that would not come for another 30 years.
She filed the official registration request with IPHAN in 2005, mobilizing circus families, associations, researchers, and public institutions. The current decision, however, came after her death in 2017.
In an interview with Agência Brasil, Edlamar Maria Cabral Zanchettini, 68 – Wanda Cabral Zanchettini’s daughter and one of the heirs to the tradition – claims the family’s leading role in this struggle.
“It was our family who filed the application, who did the work, who went to Brasília, who held the meetings. It was all us, but we did it on behalf of all Brazilian circuses. Above all, our greatest struggle is for the recognition of our ancestors,” she said.
“It’s like an Oscar for the Brazilian circus – because it’s for everyone,” she added.
Origins
In 1949, Wanda Cabral was 18 years old and performed in the Irmãos Marques Gypsy Circus alongside her mother and siblings. That year, Italian Primo Júlio Zanchettini met Cabral and fell in love with her. They married and, together with Cabral’s relatives, founded the Circo Teatro Gávea.
“The circus was small, but that’s where we learned everything. Mom passed on the techniques to us. She knew everything about the circus and the arts,” said Erimeide Maria, 65, who noted that her mother grew up immersed in that culture.
In 1991, when her husband died, Wanda Cabral named the company Zanchettini in his honor.
“My father accompanied her on this journey, as an artist and a clown. We are ten children in all – five women and five men – and we were born and raised in tents around the circus,” said Erimeide, who was a trapeze artist, singer, acrobat, and actress.
Despite the hardships, she said that family life had always been good among her siblings Edlamar, Erimeide, Márcia Aparecida, Solange Maria, Áurea, Silvio Marcos, Sérgio, Jaime, Márcio, and Amauri.
“It’s a difficult struggle and continues to be so for all circus performers – really hard work – but with the support of our siblings, our mother, our father, and our extended family, we’ve always had a happy life in the circus. The circus is our great passion, our love,” Erimeide noted.
Generations
The younger members of the family are carrying on the tradition and pursuing careers in the circus. Among the nephews, the only one who left the company went to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, to work as a circus performer as well.
“It’s been passed down from generation to generation. It comes from my grandmother, my mother, my father – our whole family. It’s a total of ten siblings traveling the world, setting up the circus and taking it down, facing the open road, putting on shows, rehearsing – on muddy grounds as well as some beautiful ones. It’s a long story spanning an entire lifetime,” Erimeide added.
Challenges
During his travels to various states in Brazil and abroad – in such countries as Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia – Edlamar said that one of the challenges facing the traditional circus is competition from celebrity performances and free events.
“Those events don’t have the traditional Brazilian circus – with the painted-face clown, the trapeze, the globe of death, juggling, and contortion. We offer tradition. We don’t have characters, we don’t have TV celebrities, we don’t have dinosaurs. We show the roots,” she said.
Costs such as taxes and fees charged by the government are another issue. “They charge us as if we were a building, a pharmacy, or a supermarket, or they treat us as a major event, not as a cultural activity,” she complained. “The city charges for land use, and we have to pay everything up front. If it rains, the city has already made its money, but we haven’t.”
The obstacles are the same ones faced by many family-run circuses in Brazil, and Edlamar lamented that many small, traditional circuses face even greater difficulties because their families are not as large.
“We’ve been through various types of bankruptcy, we’ve recovered everything and started over again. It’s such a strong love and a powerful feeling for the circus… We don’t know where it comes from. We couldn’t live far from the circus,” she pointed out.
Edlamar hopes that this scenario of financial hardship will change after the recognition.
“It will be easier to talk to the mayor to see what he can do within the institute’s regulations, whether it’s a lower price or a free plot of land from the city. This recognition isn’t something just anyone has, and it will be of great value to us,” she argued.
