For Ukrainian circus performers, future still up in the air

By JUSTIN SPIKE
Associated Press

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Nearly a year since fleeing Ukraine for Hungary amid the bombs and terror of Russia’s invasion, more than 100 young circus performers still hold intensive daily training sessions in Budapest while waiting to see what an uncertain future holds. The group, whose members are between the ages of 5 and 20, found a home with the Capital Circus of Budapest after leaving their circus schools and lives behind in the cities of Kharkiv and Kyiv in March 2022. A trainer who fled Kharkiv with an initial group of 12 students watched and reflected as some of the young circus artists swung from suspended rings, dangled from aerial silks and rehearsed acrobatic stunts in Hungary’s capital.