When balancing is in the job description

Marketplace Morning Report’s “What’s That Like?” series is exploring the odd, unusual and downright weird jobs that help prop up our economy.

Marketplace’s odd job series is spending some time at the wild and wonderful circus.

For Flouber Sanchez, the circus runs in his blood. As a third generation performer, Sanchez started his career as a clown at the age of 5 years old. But it was the high wire that eventually stole his heart.

Sanchez initially started training on the high wire with his extended family, behind his mother’s back. “I start training, hidden from my mother, because she doesn’t like the wire. When I become [a] little good, I show her, like, ‘Look, I want to do this because I’m good on it,'” he said. “She complained a little bit and after she let me do it.” Sanchez seemed to have found his calling.

After touring all around Colombia with his family and other shows, Sanchez got a call from a friend. Cirque du Soleil was in need of a high wire performer for one of their traveling shows, KOOZA. About a month later, Sanchez was up in Montreal training hard for his new act.

“In the beginning it was like, [a] dream, and it was unbelievable because I didn’t expect it. Like, I was in Colombia, training hard and doing my stuff, and then the next day, you wake up and you are already living the dream,” he said.

Nearly two decades later, Sanchez is still performing his balancing act and doing all sorts of seemingly impossible tricks with KOOZA. To learn more about life on the wire, click the audio player above.