Sirkus Finlandia has toured the country for decades already and are residing in Helsinki for another couple of weeks.
I went to see their show this year and was disappointed by the increase of animal acts. Though well kept, the animals showed clearly visible stress and anxiety surely caused by the touring.
Sea lions should definitely be living in the beautiful big blue instead of a portable tub on a sand field.
This defect also unnecessarily undermines the other brilliant and entertaining performances.
Antti Suniala being the only Finnish solo artist touring with the circus this year lives up to his reputation as being one of the most talented fire-jugglers in the world.
Also the acrobats and other performes are clear professionals and the house clowns best I've seen in a while. They worked hard in keeping the audience interacting and entertained in between acts.
So go and have a good laugh and get infatuated with the 'bending man' and if you agree with me about the unnecessity of animal acts please voice your opinion at least by not applauding during them. It's ok to have the fun family moment as an educational one too and the statement 'without animals there would be no circus' I extracted from the uneasy Master Of Ceremony has been triumphantly unvalidated by Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque de Soleil.
I believe that Sirkus Finlandia has the potential and know-how to develop into a house of great performes without the need to showcase stressed wildlife as a crowd-pleaser.
