Dubai: Martin Espana ran around a spinning wheel about 30 feet up in the air —blindfolded and without a harness. A scary sight, you would think.
But not for this man who has had one too many brushes with death earlier in his life.
“I risk my life in every performance. But this is my life. I was born in the circus and I will die in the circus,” Martin, 53, told Gulf News after the first of two performances by the Mexican Circus on Al Rigga Street on Friday night.
The Mexican daredevil shocked audiences by jumping on a 35-foot high loop from a swing, riding a motorcycle on a high wire with a metal attachment below for two ladies to manoeuvre from, and taking another motorcycle ride 40 feet high while carrying two lady acrobats to steal the show.
“I have never ever known the word ‘scared’. I feel more alive in the air, like Superman.”
Born in the backstage of a circus in Mexico to parents who were also circus performers, Martin said performing is in his DNA. He is the third generation circus performer in his bloodline. Now, three of his six children are continuing the family legacy, with daughter Argentina here in Dubai, and two others in Hawaii, and Australia.
Baby clown
Martin started his first circus act at aged two as a clown sneaking to steal his parents’ cake during a stunt. At 4, he started doing stunts on the trampoline and then later on learned more dangerous stunts.
But in 1987 in Pennsylvania, while doing a triple somersault performance on a flying trapeze blindfolded, something went terribly wrong.
“One of the cables snapped when I was about to do the triple somersault. I fell on the net, bounced and hit the ground. I broke three bones in my spine,” Martin recalled.
“I was in a coma for three days. And then I was on a wheelchair for 13 months.”
Miraculously, Martin started walking again. And not long after, he was back in the circus life.
“That’s the past. I’m still alive, thank God! Actually, this is my third life. Something also very very bad happened in my life before [while performing],” Martin said, refusing to elaborate.
Martin said nothing will hold him back from performing.
“You know the best reward I can have is not the money. It’s the smiling faces of the little kids when they see me perform. Their applause is the best pay I can ever have in my life.”
Contortionist
Just like the Espanas, Antonio ‘the Contortionist’ learned to bend and flex his body out of its original shape at the tender age of five. Antonio mastered the art of contortionism by watching his family, who are also contortionists.
Antonio, 28, started with splits. When he discovered he could put his left foot on his shoulders, he became unstoppable. Now, this five-foot-seven-inch man that weighs 70kg can fit himself in a glass box the size of two standard emergency exit lights stacked together.
But does bending his body beyond its normal curvature hurt? “Yes, it does, especially the articulation of the shoulder. In some occasions, you’ll hear it produce a crackling sound while you’re twisting it. It feels like someone punched you there.”
Martin and Antonio are just two of the 35-member Mexican Circus that is in the emirate for this year’s Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF).
Souheil Obaid, the man responsible for bringing them here, said he visited 14 circuses in Mexico to find the best of the best circus performers to entertain crowds here.
“I have been in this business for 30 years. I have seen many acts in my life that some of them seem normal to me already. So I will only [recruit] the performers if I am impressed on the first viewing,” Obaid told Gulf News.
Obaid said the Mexican Circus will move to Abu Dhabi for a 40-day stint at the Khalifa Park after DSF.
