Vietnam’s ‘circus princess’: Behind the applause, a life of pain and sacrifice

Circus is a highly specialized performing art that demands years of relentless training. Behind a few minutes on stage lie countless hours of sweat and tears, along with the constant risk of unexpected accidents, some potentially life-threatening.

Yet circus artists continue to devote themselves to a profession that demands enormous sacrifices in health without necessarily providing financial security. For female performers, the challenges are even greater as they also navigate the responsibilities of being wives, mothers and caregivers.

VietNamNet presents a series on the women of Vietnamese circus, revealing the lives behind the spotlight that audiences rarely get to see.

Petite and approachable, with a gentle smile rarely far from her face, Pham Thi Huong hardly looks like someone who has spent much of her life defying gravity.

For more than 20 years, however, the circus has been her world.

Her journey has brought international medals and the affectionate nickname “circus princess.” But behind those achievements are years of punishing training, frightening falls, financial struggles and moments when walking away seemed easier than continuing.

Glory built on sweat and tears

Born in 1990, Huong entered the circus at 13, an age when the spectacle of performers flying through the air still seemed almost magical.

Like many children, she had known circus only from television, watching acts that made audiences gasp in amazement.

“I admired the performers so much,” she recalled. “Then one day, teachers came to my school to recruit students. I was selected for a preparatory course at the Vietnam Circus School. After graduating, I joined the Vietnam Circus Federation and have been there ever since.”

The glamour she had watched on television quickly gave way to a very different reality.

Her first days at circus school were filled with flexibility drills, splits and physical conditioning, exercises that pushed a young body beyond anything she had experienced before.

“I kept wondering why it had to be so difficult and so painful,” Huong said. “But then I would watch the older performers, forget all the pain and tell myself I had to keep trying.”

It took five years before she finally stepped onto a stage. Her heart raced. Her hands trembled. Then the performance began.

That feeling would keep drawing her back through the most difficult years of her career.

Among Huong’s proudest achievements was a gold medal at the international circus festival in Saratov, Russia, a city widely associated with the country’s rich circus tradition.

“It was overwhelming,” she said. “My heart felt as though it was going to jump out of my chest. I was so happy and proud.”

The medal represented only a few minutes under the lights. Getting there had taken seven years.

Huong and fellow artist Chu Thuy Hong spent those years developing Du son, an aerial act built around an innovative treble clef-shaped apparatus. Every movement had to be tested and refined, often through painful trial and error.

During one training session, Huong plunged from a height of around two to three meters.

She hit the floor and could do nothing but lie still, stunned by the pain and shock.

For circus performers, Huong said, injury is less an exception than an occupational reality.

“A fall from that height can break your arms or legs, damage your spine or even threaten your life,” she said.

There were periods when Huong considered choosing another path. Injuries, pressure and financial difficulties all tested her resolve.

What kept her in the circus was not the medals or recognition, she said, but something harder to describe: the moment the lights come on and the audience begins to respond.

“It is that feeling of being completely immersed in the performance, of putting everything you have into the act,” she said.

Without dialogue, they must communicate emotion through their bodies, movements and expressions, turning feats of physical skill into stories.

“We have to connect with the audience through our eyes and our movements,” Huong said. “If we concentrate only on technique, the audience will not feel anything.”

Huong and three other Vietnam Circus Federation artists - Chu Hong Thuy, Luu Thi Huong and Lo Ngoc Thuy - won silver with their Du non act at the eighth IDOL World Festival of Circus Art in Moscow in 2024. They also secured bronze at the Golden Elephant International Circus Festival in Spain.

Pham Thi Huong and three Vietnam Circus Federation artists perform “Du non.” Huong, Chu Hong Thuy, Luu Thi Huong and Lo Ngoc Thuy won silver at the eighth IDOL World Festival of Circus Art in Moscow in 2024 and bronze at the Golden Elephant International Circus Festival in Spain.

Then the cycle begins again: practice to maintain strength, sharpen technique, create new acts and pass experience on to younger performers.

Moments of exhilaration on stage are followed by hours of repetition away from it.

“People see me in training clothes much more often than in dresses,” Huong said. “I only really dress up for weddings or special occasions.”

“When other people are taking their lunch break, I’m teaching,” she said. “When other people are sitting down for a proper meal, I might be grabbing whatever I can eat just so I can make it back to training on time.”

But Huong has something that has made those sacrifices easier to bear: a husband who understands exactly what the circus demands.

They know each other’s exhaustion. They understand the risks behind every difficult maneuver and the uncertainty that comes with choosing an artistic career that demands so much physically while offering limited material rewards.

“There was a time when things became so hard that my husband decided to stop,” Huong recalled, her eyes filling with tears. “When he told me, I cried.”

In a household where both husband and wife are performers, the hardships can be doubled.

Looking toward the next generation, Huong believes Vietnamese circus still has considerable room to develop internationally.

Training conditions are better today and young performers have more opportunities than her generation did. But no facilities or support can replace what she considers the two essentials: passion and perseverance.

“Some young people receive a great deal of support but give up very early,” she said. “Others genuinely love the profession, and they can go very far.”

Huong knows the difference because she has spent most of her life making that choice herself.

It is a life in which achievement is measured in medals and applause, but paid for in aching muscles, falls, missed meals, financial compromises and countless hours of training that audiences never see.

Perhaps that is what keeps the circus lights burning: performers such as Pham Thi Huong, quietly absorbing the hardship behind the curtain so that, for a few minutes under the lights, audiences can experience only the wonder.