Don't Look Down

Headlining the Spiegeltent from Tuesday 12 February, circus show The Trip is a medley of acts united by their connection to German arts hub Base Berlin. The collective is helmed by the Caesar Twins and includes The Trip's originator, contortionist David Pereira, along with others including New York drag act Baby Jane and Ethiopian juggler Girma Tsehai.

With matching bicep tattoos and heads of flowing white-blonde hair, you could be forgiven for thinking that identical acrobat act the Caesar Twins were more of a gimmick than a pair of finely-tuned gymnasts. But as Pablo Caesar explains, he and his brother Pierre have earned their acrobatic chops several times over, in a double-career that has included highs and shattering lows.

“We started when we were five years old. Then we did acrobatics and gymnastics, and step by step we won some big competitions. Slowly we began to think about [performing in] shows. Then we went to the circus … we became quite famous [and] began to think that this was our career,” he recalls. “And then I had an accident.”
Rumours about the exact nature of Pablo's accident abound – the fact that he was apparently performing an act called 'The Wheel of Death' at the time makes for a particularly dramatic story. He lays out the facts. “In 2001 I fell eight metres. After that I was in a coma for something like two weeks. I couldn't walk.”

Pablo's Polish-German accent intensifies as he becomes more emphatic. “If you have an accident, it is always terrible. But for acrobats, people who do sport or performers doing physical things, it is twice as difficult, because they can't do what they love. It was quite hard.” He corrects himself. “It was really hard.”

After the accident he had to decide whether to try and return to his former life. It was a surprisingly easy decision, because of his love (or as he puts it, “luff”) for performing. “Love for the stage, that is the most important thing. I love what I do.” After extensive rehabilitation for his back injury, he says that he is now almost back to his pre-accident level of fitness, something he attributes to various factors. “I have friends on my side, I have a family on my side, and of course I have luck. And God. I think God was the most important thing... Most of the time I was fighting with myself to not give up... But of course, we also have a reputation [to maintain].”

The Trip is just the latest show in a succession since Pablo's return to form, and he's delighted by the line-up that Pereira has put together. He calls the close-knit community of performers, some of whom toured with in Cirque du Soleil, “a group of friends who perform together”. He describes the show as light, cheeky and funny, and if the press release is anything to go by, the audience can also expect a hint of the erotic as well. The Caesar Twins's act is described as 'a half-nude circus and gymnastics routine inside a fishbowl filled with water'. “I don't apologise,” Pablo says. “People come to us and they forget the outside world. They come to us for some magic time.”