Hi, this is an article from our trip to the Kingdom of Bahrain.


Our trip to the Kingdom of Bahrain was one of the most pleasant experiences I've had as an artist in recent times. Vlad and I were invited to perform at the Bahrain Mall as part of the Ramadan celebrations. We didn't know anything about the job before leaving Kiev except that there'd be three shows per evening.

After a rather long and exhausting trip, we arrived on the island which is quite close to the United Arab Emirates as well as Saudi Arabia. A driver was sent to pick us up, and on the way back to the hotel, he told us a little about Bahrain and Ramadan. International banking is the main source of income, so the dry little island is packed with big glass buildings and not much else. The population stands at just over 500, 000 people and although Bahrain is Muslim, the people are much more relaxed than in other countries of the region. Jokingly our driver told us that on numerous occasions, he'd heard Muslim men (most often from Saudi Arabia) on the phone during Ramadan, assuring their mothers they were in Mecca or Dubai, when really they were in Bahrain drinking alcohol and talking to girls.


No one informed us we'd be staying in one of the best five star hotels on the island, so it came as a lovely surprise when the driver delivered us to the reception area of the palatial Diplomat Hotel. I tried to look cool, as if I did this kind of thing all the time, but never having stayed in a five star hotel before, hiding my excitement wasn't easy.

After a good night's sleep in one of the most luxurious beds I've ever had the pleasure of sleeping in, downstairs awaited a breakfast worthy of kings. In fact we ate twice a day in the hotel and I can honestly say, that in my whole life I never ate so well! There were delicacies from all over the world including shell fish and deserts that were out of this world. Both Vlad and I consider ourselves to be "Foodies", so for us the week in Bahrain was a little trip to heaven.

After breakfast we were driven to the mall with the other artists in our group to check the performance space. There were six of us in all. Originally from China, Ling and her assistant Iris were Londoners. Ling worked with a diabolo, performed simple magic tricks, and the highlight of her show was a foot juggling act. Iris danced with the Chinese Ribbon, a traditional folk dance involving two large fans with lengths of wide red ribbon glued to them. She also helped Ling with the interactive part of their shows where children where brought on stage to play with diabolos.

Mahmoud's specialty was the 'Tanoura', an Egyptian folk dance based on spinning, like the Turkish Dervish dances. He wore a white shift underneath a brightly paneled skirt that unfurled into a full circle when he began to spin. Like a big colourful pizza, Mahmoud could remove the skirt and throw it in the air, all the while keeping it spinning furiously.

The last member of our group was Tim, a tall juggler from London who juggled balls as well a spinning fire poi (chains with wads of material on the ends soaked in kerosene and set alight).

At the shopping centre we were slightly surprised to find that the ceiling was lower than expected. At only 4.7m high, it was the lowest we've ever worked at. Over an hour was needed to hang the silks and trim the ends which were now too long, and to change some choreography for the aerial ring which was now hung so low, a couple of tricks would be no longer possible.

I get nervous about performing things I haven't done a thousand times before, but the changes to the silk and ring acts didn't worry me as much as the coming performances of the adagio. We'd never performed it professionally before and hadn't rehearsed it in nearly two years. Resurrecting the adagio had to be done slowly because Vlad wasn't as big as he was when we last trained it. His muscles weren't big and strong enough to support his joints while lifting me. Having 62kg balanced on one arm put a great deal of stress on his spine, so we worked very slowly and carefully to prevent injuries. In the end it wasn't him we had to worry about.

A week before we were due to leave, I did something very stupid. After the trip to Bahrain I'd planned to go to Berlin for an audition for Franco Dragone's new water show. Hoping to add a couple of extra tricks to my repertoire, I asked Lena, a member of the girl's acrobatic trio 'To Re Mi' for help. She was training her new solo rope act and showed me how to secure myself for a couple of spectacular looking drops I'd seen her do. Twice I tried out the trick close to the ground, unwinding myself slowly to get the orientation right. On the third attempt I climbed higher and really went for it.

The trick worked, and I finished hanging correctly in the 'Amazon' position, but in addition there was an awful pain in my side. You know when you've injured yourself and it hurts like billy-o, but you don't want anyone to know? A wave of nausea washed over me and suddenly the noise in the sport hall became muffled as if my head was stuffed with cotton wool. What I'd done was undoubtedly serious and if outwardly I only appeared a bit dazed, on the inside, it took all my self-control to curb the steadily rising panic.

Hoping that the pain was just temporary, I walked around for a bit touching my side experimentally. Feeling calmer, I eventually went back over to the silks and tried to climb, but it was impossible. The pain was excruciating.

How could I be so stupid? You never try a new and dangerous element before a major event like a competition or a job. What was I thinking? We absolutely needed this job and were really looking forward it. Five seconds of folly had perhaps changed everything. What if I couldn't go to Bahrain at all? I couldn't forgive myself for letting Vlad down like that.

After being unable work at all for four days, the first attempts at training were very painful. It probably wasn't a good idea, but I pushed through the pain and on the day before leaving for Bahrain, we did the adagio once through with the music from beginning to end, minus a couple of tricks. It wasn't exactly what you'd call good preparation.

In the last minutes before going on stage, I'd worked myself into a frenzy of nerves. My side was throbbing despite the pain killers, and I had no idea what the end product would look like. I told myself we were just performing to passers by in a shopping mall and that they wouldn't care if I wasn't perfect, but in my heart I was terrified of looking bad on stage, even if just one person stopped to watch. In actual fact, the space was packed with hundreds of on lookers.

The number went more smoothly than I had dared to hope for. Vlad murmured to me reassuringly all the way through, I concentrated on my breathing, and tried not to rush. Both of us confessed afterwards to suffering from dreadful leg cramps for most of the act, but we must have hidden it well. It was with a big smile of immense relief that I took the final curtsey.

The act that received the most positive response was the tango on silks. We had been slightly apprehensive about it before hand as it's the most passionate or sexy of our acts. The agency had said we needed to tone it down a bit, and that we were not to touch each other. How can you do that with a tango? In the end we performed it with just a little more reserve than we usually do and the crowd loved it.

Ilse, the South African woman in charge of the project explained that they weren't really expecting any complaints, especially from Bahraini's. The last year though, an irate Saudi man had complained about the costumes of the artists. She said not to worry about offending anyone, that my costumes (which I had specially made for the event) were lovely, and to perform the way we wanted to.

There was a moment of drama right at the end of the tango on the second day, when plaster rained down from the ceiling as I fell for the final drop. Hearing the patter as small pieces of something fell on the floor, my first thought was that maybe something from my costume may have fallen off. It was quite frightening when I looked up and realized that plaster around the chain from which the silks where hanging had broken up and fallen out. It's moments like these that really drive home how dangerous this job can be. One false move or faulty rigging can mean the difference between life and death.

Ilse reassured me however, that the falling plaster was purely cosmetic and had nothing to do with the safety of the structure. The chain dangled through a hole in the ceiling, but was actually secured from a steel beam higher up in the roof. The hole and chain had then been plastered around to make it look neater. Our swinging on the silks had merely loosened the plaster around the chain. Ilse took us to see the massive chandelier which usually hangs over the stage area, explaining that it had been removed especially for us. Apparently it had been quite task as it weighs over 500 kg and had taken 16 men to carry it.

After the shows, we were mobbed by people wishing to talk to us to take photos with us. Many young girls were impressed with Vlad's good looks and physique, and had even given him flowers. I'm used to it now, but I have to say it was strange at first to have my husband receive more attention from strangers than me.

On one occasion though, a group of about thirty girls descended on me wanting to take photos. Thinking they were probably too shy to talk to Vlad, I invited him to stand next to me, but the girls in a flurry of protests forbid him to come near. Good naturedly, he offered to take the photos so more girls could be in the picture, but horrified, they told him it is forbidden for men to take photos of them. Rather abruptly, they shooed him away and turned their full attention on me.

All at once they fired questions at me, many saying "I love you". Those words in Arabic have a different meaning; a positive greeting more along the lines of "I'm pleased to meet you". I didn't know this and couldn't bring myself to say it back to them. The stress of the last week culminated in a mild case of the flu, caught on the plane coming to Bahrain. I was drained and tired and to top things off, a big cold sore had broken out on the tip of my nose. Knowing how I looked, the barrage of compliments from the girls about how beautiful I looked made me cringe with embarrassment. I towered over all of them and as they looked up at me expectantly, I wished a big hole in the floor would swallow me up.

I was saved when a few of the girls realized that Tim was surreptitiously trying to photograph the scene. Momentarily their attention was occupied with him and Vlad, and I managed to slip away.

Apart from the shows in the evening our time was our own, so Tim, Vlad and I set out to cram in as many of the tourist attractions as possible. On the first day we found a beach not far from our hotel reserved for foreigners to swim at. Bahrain is surrounded by beautiful blue/green water but because of modesty, the locals don't swim.

One day we hired a driver to take us on a tour, and this time Ling and Iris joined us. First we drove around the richest parts of town where the houses were grand. We passed sites where land is being reclaimed from the sea to build more shopping malls. Then we stopped at an old fort built by the Portuguese where we could still see how people lived hundreds of years ago. Villagers near buy had painted all the apartment buildings with colourful murals to combat the problem with graffiti artists.

We drove across the bridge to Saudi Arabia and stopped at the border to take the lift up in a tower which looked out over the sea. It was so hot outside, that after about 30 seconds in the open, I felt as if my life force was being sucked out. Tanja, a Russian girl who worked on the reception at the Diplomat told us that the weather now was lovely in comparison to the heat of high summer, where the temperatures soar over 45 degrees Celsius during the day. In olden times Bahraini's had methods for cooling their houses using wind towers, but these days the entire island is air conditioned. During the day the streets are deserted and it seems that no one walks anywhere, at anytime. Except for poorer people, everyone travels (no matter how short the distance) in the comfort of air-conditioned cars.

To finish with, Ali our driver took us to the Grand Mosque, a spectacular edifice paid for entirely by the King himself. Only the best materials from around the world were used in its construction with the marble being imported from Italy, blown glass lamps from France, and woolen carpet from Scotland. The crowning glory was the enormous crystal chandelier hanging from the center of the dome, which was a masterpiece from Austria. Although relatively simple in design, it was truly a luxurious place of worship that must have cost a fortune to build.

Bahraini's are very proud of it and run tours in English for foreigners, hoping to educate Western people about the true nature of Islam and dispel a few myths. Before entering we had to don the right kind of clothing. Women were given a black robe (Hijab) and a head scarf, and men wore thaubs (long white shifts).

Our guide was a young woman in a Burqa who'd been educated in English since childhood in an international school and spoke about 6 other languages. Bahrain is the first place where I've seen women in the Burqa, with only their eyes showing. It's done in the name of modesty, but women still find ways to decorate them selves. Since only the eyes are visible, they dress them up as much as possible. I saw many women, especially the wealthier ones with heavily applied eye make-up extending almost to the edges of the face. Arabic women favour flashy jewelery with lots of sparkling stones, and often the Hijab itself, although black, is adorned with Rhine stones. Despite all efforts to the contrary, fashion and vanity always find ways to establish themselves, regardless of restrictions.

At the end of the tour we were invited to a lounge area for Arabic coffee and sweets (which were delicious and unlike anything I'd ever tried before) in a part of the mosque devoted to discussion of Islam with foreigners. There was a table set up for henna painting, another for basket weaving, and a large board where people were teaching visitors a little Arabic script.

The manager of the mosque spoke to us and poured rose water into our palms to splash on our faces. His was one of those wise and instantly likeable faces with eyes permanently crinkled with smiles. He carried with him a small bowl in which burned either Frankincense or Myrrh, I'm not sure which. He explained that for the best quality, a tiny piece as big as his thumbnail, could cost up to US$2500. He told us to come back at anytime and he would arrange to take us personally on a tour of his home town, Muharraq, the oldest part of Manama. I found this very generous and open offer, quite touching. People in Australia are friendly, but this kind of generosity to strangers is in a different league. My aunt Sandi always said that Bahraini people were some of the loveliest she'd ever met on her travels.

The next day with Tim, we visited the Muharraq souk, or market, and it would have been good to have the Mosque manager to show us around. Maybe we missed something, but most of it was filled with shops selling all kinds of useless, flimsy products made in China. It was also a hub for all the shops selling traditional Arabic sweets and biscuits, the kind we tried in the Grand Mosque. Vlad and I bought about three kilograms of the stuff for the family in Kiev.

Everybody else in the group traveled home on the morning of the 16th, where as our flight wasn't until midnight, effectively giving us one more day to relax and see a bit of the capital, Manama. After breakfast we went for a swim at the beach, rested in our luscious bed during the hot afternoon hours and set out in the early evening to explore the Manama Souk.

The souk was larger than the one at Muharraq, and entirely populated by Indians selling cheap souvenirs, hand bags, fake designer watches, and other cheap plastic products. One persistent vendor insisted on fitting me out with the full head gear of an Arabic woman. As two layers of synthetic cloth were wound about my head I began to perspire. Vision was limited by the eye slits on the Burqa and I began to feel slightly claustrophobic and just a bit silly. After all, my head was covered, but I was still standing there in my safari shorts and running shoes. Flushed with the heat of embarrassment, I pull everything off of my head, mumbled thanks to the vendor, and hurried away as quickly as I could. What must it be like to have to wear such things all the time?

Slowly, we made our way back to the hotel to prepare ourselves for the trip back. We had a fantastic time in Bahrain and I'm very glad we got the chance to work there, because it's not a place I would probably choose to visit otherwise. It's not a real tourist destination, but none the less, it had all the elements of an ideal holiday; a bit of beach, a bit of culture, a bit of luxury, and best of all, we were paid to do it. This is the circus life!