Tirana Circus
Encyclopedia
The Tirana Circus is a circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

 in Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

 founded in 1952 and still fully active. The circus had its most successful years during the Communist Albania era and had difficulties in the 1990-2010 period when its personnel was reduced. The circus has been known to list famous Albanian athletes among its workers.

History

The circus was founded in 1952 in Tirana
Tirana
Tirana is the capital and the largest city of Albania. Modern Tirana was founded as an Ottoman town in 1614 by Sulejman Bargjini, a local ruler from Mullet, although the area has been continuously inhabited since antiquity. Tirana became Albania's capital city in 1920 and has a population of over...

, Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

, by Telat Agolli, Bajram Kurti, Xhuzepina Prendi (Shkurti), Bardhyl Jareci, and Abdyl Karakashi.

The circus' first performance, Shkopi Magjik, (Magic Wand) was staged in 1959. In 1964 the circus started to maintain much higher standards of performance with the premiere of Fluturime akrobatike (Acrobatic Flights). From 1952 to 1973 the circus operated as part of the Estrada of Tirana; in 1973, the circus split off to become its own company.
In 1975 the circus started using a canvas tent for the first time and began to perform in other parts of Albania besides Tirana. In 1977 the Drejt lartësive (Toward the Heights) show premiered in Tirana; in that same year a studio started to work full-time on the preparation of new artists by the circus masters. This brought the number of the people working for the circus to more than a hundred.

In the 1990s, after the fall of communism and with Albania's transitional problems, the circus' staff shrank to almost half of what it had been in the prior decade. The canvas tent started to have problems and it was not repaired until 2000. A United Nations Development Programme
United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...

 project financed some of the circus' activities and by 2010, the Tirana Circus was doing much better than in the 1990s, still being the major circus in the country. However, after the serious financial problems of 1990-2010, the Tirana Circus has been placed under the administration of Albania's Ministry of Tourism, Culture, Youth and Sports.

Athletes' nest

Many Albanian athletes have emerged from the Tirana Circus, the best known of which are former World Champion weightlifter Ymer Pampuri
Ymer Pampuri
Ymer Pampuri is a well-known Albanian weightlifter who in the 1972 Summer Olympic Games became the first Albanian to break an Olympic record in weightlifting and also the first Albanian to become World Champion in this sport.-Life and career:...

 and Olympic weightlifter Romela Begaj
Romela Begaj
Romela Begaj is a female Albanian weightlifter, who represented Albania at the 2008 European Weightlifting Championships where she took home the silver medal. She also represented Albania at 2008 Olympic Games in China where she got the 6th position overall.2008 olympics games in Beijing-External...

. Weightlifter Ymer Pampuri (born in 1944) started his circus career when he was only 7, the same year the circus was founded, and grew up as an acrobat. Later on he started to practice weightlifting. He stopped competing in 1981 when he was 37, and he returned to circus where he was again an acrobat until 1994, when he retired at the age of 50.
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