The life of the Osmani's (1) Every acrobat knows their name or maybe knows them personnally, Connie en Julia Osmani. Two enthousiastic women who have been professional acrobats for about 36 years and give acrobatics-lessons for years now. We have visited them in their cosy appartment in Amsterdam for an interview. This resulted in a report about their life and work. This is part one. They don't come from an acrobats- or circusfamily. Their mother was on a boarding school. Father was of Polish origin, lived in Amsterdam and was a diamond-salesman. In the end their parents moved to Amsterdam and got six daughters and two sons. Because their father loved singing, music, opera, concerts, theatre and imitating) artists, the children got familair with these disciplines at young age. Six of them got singing lessons, ons brother became a violinist and formed his own band, one sister was the only girl to play horn in a brass band, two sisters became ballet-girls in a revue. Connie and Julia visited the balletschool, where they now and then met Jan, who later became Julia's husband. Jan had a trapeze-act with four men, and stayed abroad most of the time. At the moments he was in Holland and visited the balletschool, the taught the girls acrobatic trics. That's how Julia met him, and acrobatics. After a while all the other balletgirls stopped, but not Julia. She stayed interested in acrobatics. She trained with Jan in his sportsschool Oude Schans, a meeting- and trainingspot for artists. Performing In '37 - '38 Jan's group fell apart and he suggested Julia to make an act and perform together. Julia, who did everything together with Connie, only wanted to do this if Connie was in too. For Jan this was no problem and Connie, who hadn't done much training then, persisted on being a bottom person. After one year of training they had an act with Connie as lower person, Jan as middle person and Julia as upper person. At first, they where about 16 and 18 years old, they performed in clubs (for example the ballet school) and small theatres. Later all over the Netherlands at political cabarets, during elections for the Communist Party. All of this in the weekends, because on weekdays they had an other job. At the time of the mobilazation they performed for soldiers, and at that time they became professionals. South Amerika Via Jan they already had an agent, necessary at that time, who got them jobs. That started performances all over the world. They had to work to live, so they had to take all the jobs they could, regardless of political situations, in for example Spain, Cuba, South Africa, Moscow, Holland and South America. They luckily never had any problems with anything or anyone. After a three-month contract in Spain they went to South America where they had to train a stand-in for Julia, who was pregnant. The girl they trained stayed with them for seven years. Julia by then had a son and a daugther, both being trained on early ages of course. When the stand-in left them, and Jan stopped (because he didn't have enough patience to work with the children), the son (then age 14) and the daugther (age 11) joined Connie and Julia. The name Osmani, of which they don't remember how they came to it or what it means, continued to exist! Military Service For years and years Connie and Julia worked together with Julia's son and daughter. When her son became 18, he had to fulfil his military service. That would be a serious problem, because he was the main person in their act. He made the most beautiful high handstands and sensational salto's. Connie and Julia made a deal with the army that when they could get a contract for a longer period, their son would be excused. They tried to contracts all over the world, and the first one came from Ireland, with it's struggle between Katholics and Protestants. It was not exactly what they had been waiting for, but in this situation they had no other choice. Circus Fosset The trouble already started on the way there. The artist went by plain to Dublin, their luggage would come by boat. Because of a strike the luggage didn't arrive. Via the consul and after some time they got their properties back. The familycircus Fosset was actually a small circus. In summer it was managed by five brothers, who worked in a factory in winter days. One of the brothers was clown, musician and mechanic and mostly (because of the many defects) all at the same moment, so he often performed in the piste with dirty hands. The family possessed an elephant and a lama, but didn't have enough food for them. So they walked through town with both animals to collect food. There wasn't enough money anyway to pay all the artists at once, so the Osmani's got their pounds in the mailbox of their caravan every now and then. But the atmosphere was so reliable that they put up with it. Irish mud Everyday the circus performed in a different place, so there was a lot of work to do. Fortunately Connie and Julia didn't need to help building and striking the big top. They laughed loudly when they saw how the wooden planking was layed but not fixed, so the planks lifted as soon as somebody stood or sat on one side. And because Ireland has lots of rain, so the big top stood on a muddy surface most of the time, the planking was very important. But it didn't get that much attention: almost before the end of the show the planks where removed already, so the audience stood in the mud literally. Because of the dirt the Osmani's didn't want to perform at first. During their act they wore nice white selfmade costumes, but the table they had to work on was to dirty all the time. Connie's protest against this situation didn't help much, one brother after another send her to the one of the others. Moreover they where the most important act and therefore the final number in the show. They were proudly presented as the best act in the world, after which they where whisperingly asked what their name was. Then the front curtain wasn't held open for them; that would have taken to many persons because it was all teared. When they where in the piste, it sometimes (and always during a nice high trick) happened that somebody shouted: 'Get down, the top is collapsing!'. In spite of the fact that it was a chaos most of the time, Circus Fosset, which still existst, is very precious to Connie and Julia. Yvonne Swinkels