TOKYO —

When Juan Carlos Bratoz meets people for the first time and tells them what he does for a living, it always brings a smile to their faces. The 42-year-old Argentinean, who goes by the name Cachi, is a clown in the world-renowned Cirque du Soleil. Cachi has been performing in Japan with Dralion since February 2007, usually doing two shows a day.

It’s 3 p.m. and the matinee has just finished. Most of the circus performers are having a rest, a bite to eat or practicing before the next show starts at 4:30. Cachi is happy to sit down for a quick chat. He has his routine down pat after all this time. Born in Buenos Aires, Cachi originally planned on becoming an electronics engineer. When he was 20, he attended a theater workshop, which got him hooked. Within a year, he was performing in various plays as a comedian and training in mime, clowning and acting.

Cachi says his “comedy bug” didn’t come from attending circuses when he was child, but rather from TV. “I loved watching the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers and ‘Get Smart.’ The Stooges were perfect at slapstick. When someone knows how to play the ridiculous, that really makes me laugh,” he says.

Cachi kept doing more clown work with various troupes in Argentina and performed in several improv shows. Then in 2000, Cirque du Soleil held auditions in Buenos Aires. “They were casting for acrobats, clowns, singers and actors. I did a three-minute routine and then improvised,” Cachi recalls. “They took me as a potential and four years later, I got in. My first performance was in Vienna in 2004. I was so nervous I don’t remember anything about it.” After Vienna, Cachi performed in England, Switzerland and Spain before coming to Japan.

Do audiences around the world laugh at the same antics? Yes and no, Cachi answers. “When they do announcements for sponsors, I yell out ‘Blah, blah, blah.’ Audiences laughed at that in London and Switzerland, but not at Spain or here. In general, we do the same things but the timing is different for Japanese audiences. It might be faster or slower, depending on the routine. But I connect very well with Japanese audiences. I speak a few words of Japanese in my routine to make a better link with the audience. I thought the young children might be scared of me at first, but they haven’t been.”

Cachi says it is a challenge to keep the act fresh after doing it so many times. However, he knows that for each audience, it is probably the first time. “I try to do some little thing a bit different in each performance.” He and the other clowns polish their act by joking with technicians and actors in the troupe. “That’s how we train and warm up,” he explains. “Other performers can practice in private, but clowns can’t train without an audience. We need a response.”

He says that everyone in the circus is like a family. “Sometimes we get on with each other, sometimes we don’t. When the show is finished, we go home, but since we live in the same places, we often end up going to the same tourist spots, restaurants or whatever,” says Cachi whose wife is on tour with him.

After finishing in Tokyo on April 6, Dralion moves to Fukuoka from April 23-June 15 and then it is down to Australia. The Cirque du Soleil will have a permanent home in Chiba from December, but Cachi is not sure if he will be back. He is sure that he will be a clown for as long as he can. “It is my career.”

For more information on Dralion and show times, visit www.dralion.jp.

5 Comments

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  greenteaonsens at 01:19 PM JST - 25th March

  clowns have always bugged me

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  Altria at 01:52 PM JST - 25th March

  There's fierce competition for jobs out there at the moment with all the NOVA employees laid off...

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  frontandcentre at 02:58 PM JST - 31st March

  Sorry - I thought that this was a story about Shintaro Ishihara - my mistake

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  RDennison at 12:15 AM JST - 3rd April

  Cirque du Soleil clowns are always the best. It will be so nice to have a permanent show in Chiba.

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