DPRK: Korean State Circus

As with many experiences in the DPRK there was a kind of hybrid Lewis Carroll-Franz Kafka feel to our visit to the circus. It began when the bus pulled up on a rain-swept, deserted car park in front of the large and impressive building where the circus is held. We were escorted in, into an foyer that was as large as any theatre I have previously seen. Once again the predominant building material was marble. Marble staircases swept up and down from this grand entrance. Those of us wishing to, ahem, use the facilities, after our long drive were escorted down one of these into the basement where the equally impressively built and decorated toilets had no running water. Once we had been escorted back up we were placed in a waiting room. This was a large rectangular room with armchairs lined up around the sides for us to sit on and portraits of the two leaders hung upon the walls. Why we had to wait there never did become clear, though a random assortment of Koreans and non-Koreans entered or left over the next fifteen minutes until finally we were led out, upstairs and into the auditorium. It looked like any other circus. There was a circular performing area in front of a stage. High above it in the roof were what were clearly trapezes. Rows of seats were banked steeply around one the side opposite the stage. We were led to our, rather good, seats. Strangely the place was very busy, if not actually full. I had seen no signs of life on the car park and could only imagine that there was another, less grand, entrance for the locals to use.

Soon the acts began. In many respects they were completely normal circus acts. There were wire-walkers, trapeze artists, tumblers and acrobats, trampolinists and trick cyclists and even a couple of entertaining and inventive clowns to fill in the gaps while the equipment was being set up or taken down behind them. There was one moderately unpleasant animal act involving performing bears but otherwise it was a well-performed and entertaining circus.
Except for one thing.
It was clearly the right place to use that phrase from the book.
“Sasang-yesulsong-i nopsum-nida.” – It is of high ideological and artistic quality.

Let me illustrate with just one example, the wire-walkers. They were a group of extremely skilled artists: racing along the wires – slack or tight – on foot or on unicycles, alone or in acrobatic groups. The wowed the audience with their practiced and flawless routines. So what was ideological about it? Well two things. First it was performed in front of a backdrop projection of glorious revolutionary workers building power pylons and the routine was clearly designed to mimic this heroic activity. The “workers” ran up the wires, erected imaginary pylons and generally created a spectacle of good comrades at work.


Other acts were performed in a similar way and in front of similar projections. One of the routines from the clowns involved two working men with a (styrofoam) telegraph pole. Another had the hapless, but honest, worker making a fool of the wily, but unscrupulous landlord.



When it was all over we were led back out through a busier foyer but into a still deserted car park.