The Circus Academy launched with much fanfare at the birth place of Indian circus two years ago is on the verge of closure.
No student from the state has shown interest in joining the institution and the employees, including trainers and cooks, have not received their salary for the past one year.
The academy itself, housed in an old cinema house gifted by the Rajkamal Circus company, has been reduced to a practising floor for artistes from Nepal and north-eastern states of India.
Governed by a management council chaired by the District Collector, the organisation is yet to be provided with the structure and status of other cultural academies in the state like that of fine arts or theatre.
M P Velayudhan, CEO of the academy, told Express that the government has serious reservations about proceeding with the activities of the institution which has a handful of non-Malayali children as students.
“The Sports Ministry is considering converting it into a training centre for other games,” he says.
Earlier, there was a proposal to set up a Sports Authority of India (SAI) Gymnastics Centre here, but the project never took off.
“The academy holds immense prospects, but it has been launched without a proper vision,” says Sreedharan Champad, a renowned trapeze artist and author of An Album of Indian Big Tops, a work chronicling the history of Indian circus.
He feels that the academy in its present form will only help circus companies to bypass the norms and get kids trained at government expense. “Unless there is timely intervention of artistes and visionaries, the academy would soon meet with premature death,” he says.
“If arrangements are made for circus show and exhibitions, the academy could act as a major tourism attraction,” says Gemini Sankaran, owner of Jumbo and Gemini Circus companies.
If properly planned, the Circus Academy could function on the lines of world renowned academies like Kyiv Municipal Academy of Circus and Variety Arts, Ukraine; National Institute of Circus Arts, Melbourne; and The Circus Space, London.