Piti Español: "Arriving in Apartheid Africa was a huge setback."

Piti Español (Barcelona, ​​1954) is a writer and screenwriter for television and film. He is also a theater creator. He has been a gymnasium and acrobatics teacher. Thirty years ago, he first published The African track, now republished by La Campana. He recounts his most fantastic youthful experience: a trapeze artist in traveling circus companies in places like the Netherlands and, above all, South Africa.apartheid.

Why the reissue of the book?

— I showed it to Joan Riambau, the editor of La Campana, and he liked it a lot. But he suggested I write a new prologue and epilogue and incorporate photos, of which I have many from those circus years. Oh! And thirty years ago, the people's names were made up. In the current edition, the names are real.

What was it like to revisit the book, thirty years after its first publication?

— Fantastic! Despite the good reviews, few of that first edition sold. It's a very lively book, very self-ironic, and I don't think it's self-important. I had a great time revisiting it and those years I remember.

When you wrote it, what prompted you?

— Granada was compiling a collection of travel books, and they suggested I write about my years in Europe and Africa as a member of the traveling circuses I traveled with. It was a period of my life I kept fairly discreet about, and I hadn't planned to write anything about it. But I dared.

You became a trapeze artist to change your life. I can think of few more radical life changes.

— I'd already been a gymnast and acrobat, and I already knew how to do somersaults. And if you add to that the two personality traits that have always been with me—courage and recklessness—then you have the explanation.

Reading you gives you the feeling of ultimate daring: wanting to be a trapeze artist and actually becoming one. No compromises or too much training.

— Yes, it's possible. Moving from Sant Gervasi, Red Flag, working with Joan Miró, etc., to a profession then as undervalued as the circus was a daring move.

Your vocation as an actor led you to try to avoid military service by pretending to be crazy...

— Yes, a lot of people did that. Acting depressed, sickly, peculiar... but it didn't work!

You say the circus had it all: a show, a theater, a town, a means of transportation, and a zoo.

— A world that moves, a traveling world, arriving at a place where there is nothing and setting up a village. And two days later, dismantling it, moving to another location, and starting over. It reminded me a lot of when I was little and we went scouting. Arriving at a meadow, next to a river, camping with him, and creating a new, itinerant, ephemeral world.

And the animals! It may seem unbelievable today, but the circus worked with live animals, some of them very dangerous.

— It was very respectful, but you eventually got used to it. I was even offered to work with lions, but I wasn't keen on it. And that's when lions and tigers aren't the most dangerous, panthers are!

Do you think it's logical that animal shows and exhibitions in circuses are prohibited today?

— With animals like felines, it makes sense that this happened. Living caged forever wasn't a decent life for them. But with horses, for example, I see it differently. I think shows with horses in the circus could continue to exist without a problem. They would be well treated, just as they are well treated in sports competitions.

You debunk the stereotype of the circus as a "big family" that always gets along. You describe egos, tensions, disagreements... A world that isn't always idyllic.

— In those years, you could find yourself with colleagues with very low educational levels. Furthermore, people who spend their lives traveling find it difficult to establish strong personal connections.

And there are loves...

— Yes, especially in South Africa, I had an intense love life. I've always been very romantic. It was great; it gave me many memories and many friends. I've maintained close friendships with some of those lovers over the years.

What caught or hooked you most about that world?

— Pretending you're flying, that you're an angel. This has a powerful effect.

The knowledge you acquired has been very useful to you after that stage, right?

— Of course! I helped put on circus shows at the Children's Hall for children at risk of exclusion, from broken homes, etc. I've written about the circus in Time Out and in theNOWI have collaborated at the Liceu with performances that required acrobatics, for example. And with the first Sea and sky, by Dagoll Dagom.

The book's time in apartheid South Africa is central. And there's a brilliant image: when you looked out at the audience from the dance floor, it was like seeing a slice of ice cream.

— Yes, chocolate - the dark ones -, cream - the white ones - and vanilla - the mixed or coloreds—. When there were only Black people in the audience, it was very nice to be there when the clowns came out and clearly see all the smiles in the audience. The whiteness of the teeth they showed.

How was your arrival there?

— A stunning blow. There were whites-only benches, the same with the train cars and the bridges that crossed the tracks. Romantic relationships with people of other ethnicities were not allowed.

What is the essential life lesson you have learned from having experienced this reality?

— How societies, in order to maintain their supremacy, are capable of the most abhorrent barbarities. Whether it's white Africans during apartheid or Israelis in Gaza. They come to believe that what they do is just. This is based on the denial of the other, on the belief that the other is half human.

That eloquent "thank you, sir" that appears several times.

— They told you this naturally, integrated into their way of being. They lowered their gaze when you spoke to them, clasped their hands when you handed them something, and stepped aside to let you pass. Mental and emotional reactions they had completely accepted. An internal mindset due to so many years of oppression.

In South Africa, at the age of 27, you realize for the first time that time has passed.

— Yes, at a train station. When you're young, you think you're immortal, and then I saw clearly that time was passing, running, flying. And that I was finite. It was a shock.

Have you never stopped taking risks?

— God bless you. After finishing the circus, I traveled across Africa by truck for four months. I lived in New York for two years with my wife and our first child. Sometimes you make a profit, and sometimes you lose—big losses.

Have you returned to South Africa?

— Yes, with my oldest son and my wife. I revisited the circus, and it was fabulous. And I've also been able to keep in touch with quite a few people from those years. Susie and I, with whom we had a relationship, have seen each other often; I've been to her house, and she to mine.

You returned in the time of Mandela's release.

— Yes, but you still noticed things. On the train, everyone remembered that there had been carriages for whites and carriages for blacks. A black boy sat in the seat in front of us, and you could see he was unsure. "I have the right to sit here, but I'm not quite sure yet." They kept calling you "owner."

"Adventure always pays off," you write without hesitation.

— I've always been very clear about it. It always pays off.

Any recent adventures?

— I'm always trying new things. Especially in the world of writing, scriptwriting, theater, opera, and film.

Do you think the circus in Catalonia is a fairly well-developed and beloved art form? Has sufficient effort been made?

— I don't think so. There's little support, few gigs; it takes a lot of willpower, a lot of dedication, a lot of vocation. But there's something very good about it: the number of people who have loved it and who still love it. Schools and education are quite well integrated. Now the circus is no longer something shabby like when I started. Now there's an interesting intellectual story behind it.

What made you want to fold up and go home?

— I had started late, which was important. And I also became disenchanted; I saw clearly that it had an expiration date. I crossed the continent by truck and returned home with nothing.

And here you immediately started in the world of television scriptwriting.

— With David Cirici, whom we knew from school when we were very young. We were lucky enough to be some of the first screenwriters, and we worked a lot!

Oliana Muelles!

— Yes, we were the scriptwriters.

And the bad guys of the series, the remembered Mans Blanques!

— Yeah, kid, there were no actors to do them, so we ended up doing it ourselves. I still have the bronze astalek at home!

'Connecting station', my dearest.

— With Jaume Cabré. It was very moving. We thought it through very carefully, and it was very well directed. There were extraordinary actors. A very intense, very dramatic world.

Of everything you tell in the book, what struck me most was the revelation that you dream a lot about your circus years. Always with an unfinished feeling. You arrive late, you don't know where the circus is, you can't find the tights...

— Yes, I dream frequently. Sometimes with a certain anguish. The memory of the need for perfection, for protection, the discipline imposed on us... You couldn't leave anything behind. You had to enter the court immaculately. Always thinking, "Don't screw up, you won't screw up."