In-Depth Look: Athletic Trainer for Cirque du Soleil – Alegria

Valentina Bustamante, MS, ATC, LAT is an Athletic Trainer (AT) and Performance Medicine Therapist for Cirque du Soleil – Alegria. She has been a certified AT for over 10 years and has experience in multiple settings including high school and collegiate sports, military and now performing arts.

Describe your setting:

The performance arts setting is extremely diverse in every possible way. The performance medicine team within a touring show includes two to three therapists, who travel year-round with artists from all over the world. This setting is unique in the sense that we work with high level performers in a wide spectrum of disciplines including athletes, acrobats, musicians, jugglers and clowns.

We coordinate all aspects of providing injury prevention, emergency response, assessment and injury management, as well as medical referrals when it comes to the performers. In addition to all athletic training duties, it is our responsibility to train our staff to become our supporting emergency response team, planning workload management with the artistic team based on show schedule, as well as tear down and setting up our workspace within the tent in each city.

Describe your typical day:

There’s no such thing as a typical day at the circus. Nonetheless, I like to start my day with a run or workout, followed by coffee shop hopping, or some exploring of the current city.

The workday generally starts around noon with “Pmed” call in time, which is the time when artists who have restrictions or had any acute injuries from the night before would come in for treatments or assessments. We cover acrobatic trainings and use this time to integrate functional progressions in rehab programs, practice our emergency action plans and train our support staff. At about two and a half hours before the first show, we attend our lineup meeting with the artistic team, which is where we report artists’ restrictions and status changes. Pmed continues to have “clinic hours” for ongoing treatments or rehab up until show time.

Prior to the show, I generally try to go to the kitchen and grab a bite before changing into my show blacks for show coverage. During the shows, we cover high risk acts from the side of stage and low risk acts from the backstage area where our Pmed department is at. During the show we get to work on admin tasks or manage acute injuries as they occur. There’s a lot more variance in terms of other tour activities, medical visits, logistics of purchasing medical supplies in different countries and coordinating medical networks for the upcoming cities.

Some days are long and exhausting but the ability to travel the world while providing quality medical care to these amazing acrobats is something I am very grateful for.

What do you like about your position/What motivates you in your role?

I love that I get to travel to cool places, I’ve been to Korea, Japan, United Kingdom, Spain and we are going to Italy next! I love working with individuals from all sorts of backgrounds, hearing and learning other languages, being able to assist performers in doing the thing they are so passionate about. I’m highly inspired by those around me and the places we go to, I love the “extra-curricular” tour activities such as planning wellness week, decorating our Pmed space with personalized rubber ducks that make people smile, driving forklifts during tear down, interacting with other departments, and participating in our clown workshops.

What is your greatest achievement as an Athletic Trainer?

I am working in the setting that was my dream job as a young athletic training student. This position involves much more than being a well-rounded clinician, but also a leader and trusted member of this circus community where no task is too small, and everyone plays a role in supporting our show.

What advice do you have about your practice setting for a new AT looking at this setting?

Find ways to expand your skill set and reach out to your networks for opportunities to shadow. You should have strong work ethics, be humble and willing to step out of your comfort zone.

This article was originally published in the 2024 winter “Cert Update” newsletter.