Circus performances to entertain tourists

(Left): Rasmus Wurm, one of the street performers, juggles for the crowd. (Right): Flying high: Rasmus Wurm and Linnea Backgard. Photos by Tobias Adersson Akerblom (L) and Paul Philip Abrigo (R) / for China Daily

A plethora of performances will make queuing for the Sweden Pavilion a pleasure rather than a drag.

All performances are arranged by Cirkus Cirkor, a Swedish circus company, which will ensure that shows occur three times a day with different artists every two weeks.

During the first half of May, the Complete Dance Company, founded in Stockholm in 2008, will perform. The group consists of seven young men. They have different backgrounds, nationalities and dance styles including tap, swing, ballroom, break-dancing, ballet, hiphop, and contemporary.

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Other street performers, including Rasmus Wurm and Linnea Backgard, will play in the second half of May.

Rasmus Wurm is probably the only yo-yo artist in Sweden. He is a world-class yo-yo artist, juggler and clown with experience from both the theatre and circus. He discovered the yo-yo as a 20-year-old circus student when he tried to quit smoking. After a while he discovered that the yo-yo could be a useful tool in his profession and started to perform as a yo-yo artist.

Rasmus juggles with balls, ping-pong balls, fire, yo-yos and even small guitars. The challenge for him is to always entertain and fascinate his audience.

"I do a little bit of everything, singing, juggling, dancing, magic tricks, and stilt walking. I like to be versatile because I want to keep learning and do interesting things all the time," he said.

Rasmus grew up in Germany. He quit school because he thought it was too boring and moved to a circus school in Sweden for a more interesting life.

"I normally have to do daily exercises for an hour to make sure that I'm ready for performances," he said.

International award winning circus performer and air artist, Linna Backgard was educated at circus schools in Sweden, Russia and Denmark.

She has performed in shows in Stockholm and Tokyo and at the international circus festival in Belgium.

Backgard also runs a company called Udjat, which holds workshops and activities for children doing plays, fairy tales and fire shows. "I started working at a circus when I was 23 years old, which was quite old for a performer. I believe that there is nothing that is too late to do. What I need to do is to work hard, it doesn't matter when I started. I've performed rope acrobatics for about 8 years," she said.

Both Rasmus and Backgard promised that they would try and incorporate some Chinese elements into their performances. "As it is the first time we have come to China, we're not familiar with Chinese culture and traditions, so we'll have to learn fast," Backgard said.

More artists from Sweden are on their way to show off the best of traditional and modern performances at the Sweden Pavilion.

"We are keen to present all different types of programs to the tourists for the next a few months, such as street dance, circus performances, and jazz music," Emma Therkelson, the production manager of Cirkus Cirkor said.