Clowns Without Borders - USA

Gwen and Elisa return to Cairo for their fifth project. This time joined by Nate Dixon and three local artists, Maysara, Nora and Jakob who perform with the Cairo based group: El Khayal El Sha’bi, which means, The Folkloric Imagination.

Selena (CWB USA) Jamie (CWB SA) and Sibongile (CWB SA) are in Addis Abeba setting up a local capacity building project in partnership with the Worldwide Orphans Foundation. From Feb 16th through Feb 28th they will be meeting with people at WWO, performing shows, teaching workshops, and leading training workshops.

CWBSA has established successful links with Woza Moya and has followed their support by organising a show to be done in schools within the area. The shows held at its core the intentions to create joy, laughter and happiness. It also aimed to promote activities that inspire creativity and action. After a week of rehearsals, the creation of a 1 hour circus show including hilarious clowning, juggling, magic cigar boxes, tricky sticks, break dance, acrobatics and tumbling was choreographed to music which was used during the rural tour.

In May of this year, Clowns Without Borders traveled to Sudan to bring fun and laughter to children who have lived through war, poverty and displacement. Using contemporary clowns and circus performances and workshops, CWB taught children new skills and helped pull communities together in celebration.

In 2005, Sudan emerged from a twenty-two year civil war. Today, it is one of the poorest countries in the world, home to 6,000,000 internally displaced people. Over 40% of the population is under the age of fifteen and millions of children live in refugee camps outside of towns and cities.

Project Egypt visited Cairo, Egypt for the forth year in a row. The majority of the children we saw were refugees from Sudan living in inner-city Cairo. Some other groups we visited were Egyptian orphans, street kids, children with cancer or developmental disabilities and refugees from Iraq, Palestine, Eritrea and other counties.

When we first clowned for the girls they were quite shy and unsure about all of our strange, silly behavior. Nevertheless, last year, when we returned and performed a second time, the girls seemed to remember us and they enjoyed our show a whole lot more. As for our most recent visit, I am very pleased to report that the girls were ecstatic to see us again, and that they laughed thoroughly at our clownish proceedings. Not only that, they seemed to have been anticipating our return and had much they wished to share with us: particularly acrobatics!

Over the past month and a half, we have performed 29 times for over 5,000 children while teaching 3 week-long workshops on life skills and emotional well being as well as the most recent workshop on drama to an adult community theatre group. Our trip has taken us to some of the most rural areas in Lesotho – villages one can only get to via pony or foot – as well as the outskirts of Maseru, the capital.

Gwendolyn Rooker and I returned to Cairo, Egypt for three weeks of performances and workshops focused towards Sudanese refugees. We also performed at some of the institutions which we visited on our first trip to Cairo in February 2006.

Most days, I couldn’t wait to perform for the kids. I’d wake up so excited to do the show that I would be ready an hour early and have to sit around in my striped socks and goofy glasses saying, “is it time yet?”. What a clown nerd. Oh, and I finally got my clown a dress. Jamie says it makes my clown look more gentle. Which is good because my clown is kinda punchy. Also we’ve managed to work my bad magic in! Now it’s not embarrassing, it’s funny. - Alice Nelson

Our schedule has been grueling from the time we arrived in Piggs Peak to yesterday when we performed 3 shows for children in nearby primary schools. In the last 5 days, we have done 11 performances around Mbabane at Drop-in Centres, primary schools, and high schools. Our focus on this expedition is quite different from previous trips when we could afford to devote our energies entirely to working with the children. Beyond the routine of the shows and rehearsals, a lot of our time is spent developing group dynamics, teaching clown technique and stagecraft, and managing the logistics of feeding and organizing 8 performers. We are collaborating with more siSwatis than expected – Sibusiso, the group leader, has organized a troupe of 7 performers that have been rehearsing and practicing three days a week for the past month.