Clowns Without Borders - USA

January/Febraury 2010

Volunteers: Rudi, Michal and Andi Lou

Rudi will be based in Chiapas to perform and work with other CWB volunteers in around Chiapas in January and February. Currently he is doing a nine day project with Save the Children.

Andi’s journal:

I arrive to Chiapas on an overnight bus that is far too fancy, and yet I still have not slept. Tired, but excited, I’m greeted by Rudi at the bus station and we immediately  go into a chorus of “the most beautiful girl in the woooorld” in the most nasally voices we can muster at 8:30 in the morning. (Singing this song the first time that I saw Rudi was my instruction from Mr. Charlie Brown and I complied.)

So, sleep deprived and hungry I am whisked up to an amazing house far up the mountain just on the edge of San Cristobal. The house is like a small dream, with moons and stars as windows and crafted into the tiled floor. I’m in Rudi’s house, that he designed and built four years ago. We eat and soon after, head to town to meet Michal at the bus station.

As we arrive we find her with a backpack and an old small beat up suitcase,  dawning an extraordinarily large hat made from what looks to be banana leaves. We spend the rest of the evening going over logistics and get some rest so that we can start putting together the show…which we have two days to do.

10am the next day we are getting to work, warming up and showing each other what we’ve got to use for the show. All of this is done in the small yard on the side of Rudi’s house.

Between my nerves and my lack of experience, I was having a really hard time, but Rudi was good about pushing me to come into my character, no matter how frustrated I was. I was able to bring some of my character to life and felt a little better for it. After this struggle, I was relived to start learning skits, as they were more tangible for me and I could more easily find my place. Working hard we managed to put the show together in two days, which is quite a feat for people who have never met each other before. From there we went strait to performing.

We were late leaving the house for our first show and so we didn’t get all the set up time we needed. This meant that we ended up performing int he round for 650 school children and a school in San Cristobal called Angel Albino Corzo in the round…

It was a challenge to work a circle with new material, but the laughter rang at us from all 360 degrees and we felt good. It is an interesting experience playing for such a large audience with so few adults in the crowd,  it changes the energy so much. Not for better or worse, just different. It does help that there will not be anyone asking for their money back at the end of the show if it happened to not to well though

It is Friday evening and we have played five schools since Tuesday and its been getting better and better. We are learning how to interact and I am learning how to really develop a character in the context of clown theater. Its really challenging and while the stakes are not particularly high, the expectations can be, probably the highest coming from myself. I find that I spend too much time in my head and I need to come into my body more. But I am learning.

The kids are great and its amazing to see so many faces light up at the same time. Perhaps this is one of the differences between crowds of children and crowds of adults…not that adults don’t light up, but its not with the same innocence and truth. The other really fun thing about kids is the just scatter and scream when we walk to the crowd to get volunteers! Its such a beautiful sight as they jump up, smiles slightly covered with looks of exaggerated fear and keep pushing back until someone has the nerve to shake our hands.

The first week has come to a finish and we will head to Oventic, the Zapatista Caracole for this municipality on Tuesday.

Peace from Chiapas,

Andi Lou