Clowns Without Borders - USA

Moshe Cohen was the US artist in this project. Afterwards, he stayed on in Yangon to do 5 shows with the Belgian-Myanmar group.
At the same time he offered training sessions to Activity Facilitators who work with children in Training Schools and Child Friendly Spaces of disadvantaged areas. The training was similar to the delta workshops in focus, taking the work further by Moshe’s participation in AF activities in the field, thus providing hands on training.
This winter the international CWB push as all of last years groups are sending performances to Myanmar. Moshe Cohen will focus on working in the Training Schools, in Yangon and in Mandalay. He will be offering performances and furthering last year’s training with Activity Facilitators with more workshops and field trainings.

Anna Zastrow joins Dan Roberts and D’dy Soker (Indonesia based Hidung Merah artists) in Sumatra.
I have now been in Indonesia almost two weeks and it is time to report in! I am here joining Dan Roberts and his Hidung Merah (Red Nose) Circus and together we will bring clown joy to children living in disadvantaged or distressed conditions.

We are visiting poor villages around Jakarta, as well as the earthquake victims of Padang, and will possibly venture to Aceh, still recovering from the 2004 tsunami and civil unrest, or Sulawesi, where communities are caught up in religious conflict.

CWB will travel to India in December 2009 to work and clown with children and adults affected by HIV/AIDS, street children and children with limited access to education from tribal areas in the state of Maharashtra.

Dan returned to Indonesia in January 2009 in collaboration with Clowns Without Borders and his own new venture, Hidung Mera (Red Nose Circus). From Dan: I’ve been in Jakarta for over two weeks now and things have been quickly beginning to roll. Aside from being out of commission for several days due to illness, I’ve been busily meeting with different groups and creating a schedule for the next few months.

In a few words (for those without time to read it all), the project proved very successful in many ways: spreading large amounts of laughter, creating humorful performances in collaboration with Myanmar artists, and empowering local educators and activity leaders with new skills to increase the humor, joy and laughter component in their daily activities with children. In addition, the project brought skilled artists from numerous countries, disciplines and cultures together to reach out to a population that welcomes more laughter into their lives. The project was managed with fiscal efficiency and frugality, the collaboration with local partners was very dynamic. The total numbers are not yet in (Belgian and French project), however in the activities I was involved in we reached 6500 people in 20 shows, the great majority of them children. 50 plus educators and activity trainers participated in workshops as did a little over 100 children. The ‘French’ and Belgian projects are having/had (the Belgians are active until the end of February) similar impacts.. In addition, the Swedes have an active parallel project in Yangun with the Eden (Disabled) Center offering workshops and creating performance. The French Clowns Sans Frontieres started coming to Myanmar in 2004, and Clowns Without Borders looks forwards to more projects in years to come.

This is a project to bring clowning to disadvantaged children in Thailand and Cambodia. It is spearheaded by Anna Zastrow (Loka Humana) in collaboration with Jerry Snell (CIRCUS ACTION INTERNATIONAL) and in association with BOND STREET THEATRE and CLOWNS WITHOUT BORDERS. Through clown play, the kids will have the opportunity to exercise their self-expression, spontaneity and imagination, building their self-esteem and sense of possibility & accomplishment.

Dan’s first project in Indonesia.

“My final week in Jakarta was filled with new ventures and culminating events. My time in Jakarta flew by so quickly, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been here for 10 weeks!”
-Dan

Project “Muskurahat” has done 27 shows in 4 weeks and has played for over 5,000 children and many more adults. The project has gone wonderfully and this would never have been possible with the support and enthusiasm from all the people we approached. The overwhelming generosity we have experienced from people has been unparalleled. Before I start my ramblings on about my experience, I would like to say that none of my musings reflect in anyway, my gratitude for the support we have been given from our donors, volunteers and hosts.

The expedition, a return to Nepal by Desastrosus Cirkus and Moshe Cohen was funded by Spanish acrobat Elsa Moreno, who died last year of a blood disease and was a friend to all those participating in the expedition.

The main destination of this expedition were the Bhutanese Refugee Camps located on the South Eastern Edge of Nepal where approximately 110 000 of 150 000 Bhutanese refugees in Nepal live. Returning to a number of NGO’s in Kathmandu was also on the agenda, as well as a trip to the Children’s hospital and the Tibetan Reception Center.

-They are running towards us, spilling out onto the dirt road like monsoon flood waters.

-Eighteen thousand Bhutanese refugees surging forward in a sea of small brown hands.

-They are all reaching to touch the clowns who have traveled over great oceans and mountains, across a thousand rivers to this strange Fellini movie of a place, Nepal.