Stefi Slavova’s first steps were on the dirt floor of a circus ring in Sofia, Bulgaria, her birthplace. She doesn’t remember the first time she rode a horse or her first attempt at acrobatics; she was just born into it, she said. She was a natural.

Slavova is a fifth-generation animal trainer who’s worked with sea lions, horses and exotic animals. She is the head trainer for Splash, the only traveling sea lion exhibit in the United States, which can be seen this year at the Great New York State Fair. It’s the shows 17th year at the event.

During the show, Slavova meanders around stage interacting with the three sea lions: Kitty Kat, Stella and Syra. They don’t perform tricks, but instead showcase their innate behaviors refined into a stage act. A flick of the nose balances an inflatable ball, a scooch across stage is a moonwalk to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and a conga line ends the event to showcase the strength of the sea lions hind-flippers.

Mixed into the show are messages about the environment, the importance of recycling and global warming. Slavova throws up a water bottle, the sea lion smacks it down. They don’t appreciate trash, she announces to the crowd.

Standing to the side of the stage is her life partner, Marco Peters. He came from a circus family too. Born in Amsterdam, Marco spent the summers of his childhood traveling around Holland with his brother, Philip, and his father, the ringmaster of the German circus Sarrasani. For him, it was just the same; he was a natural.

“My father was a television producer and he loved the circus,” Peters said. “Every year, German circuses came to Holland for a few months and they needed a native talker, someone who spoke Dutch. So every year, he would become sort of a guest ringmaster in Holland, and that’s how I got introduced into the circus life.”

The two have worked in some of the greatest shows on Earth — Marco with Philip and Slavova with her family. She was the first female to ever do a three-man high, which is a horse-riding circus act with one performer standing on a moving horse, another performer on the first’s shoulders and a third performer on top of the second’s. He is the inventor of the Double Wheel of Death, a rotating metal contraption comprised of two steel wheels at opposite ends, suspended roughly 60 feet above the circus floor.

On opening day of the French Cirque d’Hiver Bouglione de Paris, the brothers performed on the wheel and received five years worth of contracts, including Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus, one of the largest traveling circuses in the world.

 

“In one evening we just got booked and booked,” Marco said, his Danish accent slipping through his Ys and curving at the double Os.

In 1985, the Peters brothers joined the Ringling Brothers on a world tour. Marco was 24 years old and a ringleader of the big animals, such as lions, jaguars and tigers.

That’s where he met Slavova.

“We met and you know how it goes, love and everything,” Marco said. “It was perfect because she was from a circus family as well. When we’d go on the road she’d never ask ‘Oh, why is there no air conditioning?’ Well, the animals need the air conditioning and not us. She understands that.”

After seven years with Ringling Brothers and a lifetime of travel, the two were in search of a sense of stability. Alongside Philip, Marco started his own company, Squalus Inc., in 1991. The same year he and Slavova’s first child was born.

“We started off as a traveling shark exhibit,” Marco said. “At that time, our girlfriends would swim with them in these huge tanks and the men were outside talking about the sharks.”

The act only lasted four years.

In 1995, Marco was approached by a friend about two displaced sea lions. He adopted them, left the shark exhibit to Philip and started Splash.

“From the beginning, I knew that by building something like this to transport marine mammals, I knew there was a chance to really be scrutinized and be taken under the loop and people would look at me and say ‘Well, what is he doing?’” Peters said. “So I wanted to make sure it was foolproof.”

Twelve days out of the year for the past 17 years, Slavova and Peters have stood at the State Fair in Syracuse on a fold-out stage of a custom-made 18-wheeler with two water tanks, two diesel generators and two air conditioners for travel. Two of everything: foolproof.

They travel with six sea lions, all either rescued or born on the road with them, like Syra, who celebrated her second birthday on Sunday. She’s named after the city she was born in: Syracuse.

“You have to have the love for animals,” Slavova said. “You have to be able to dedicate basically your life, because I always say these animals don’t choose. They love us no matter what. They don’t care if I come here with makeup or anything. You just have to be willing to dedicate your life to the animals.”

Published on September 3, 2015 at 1:24 am

Contact: kasotelo@syr.edu