Our first show was at Escuela Pequeño Sol (School Director, Elsa Mijangos) for about 150 kids. The school was a beautiful alternative primary & secondary school, & we had a lovely time playing for them on a brick stage outside. Mooky´s Abuela character was a total hit with the kids. After the show, Sara improvised a fun acro workshop with a few selected kids. We played with them for a while afterward. They loved my spray bottle! After we had packed, I overheard a group of little girls comparing how their grandmothers moved compared to Mooky´s character, which was very sweet.
Our second show was later that afternoon in Nicoletta`s backyard (she is clown volunteer Rudy’s neighbor) for a crowd of about 50. It was a small space, so a bit hard to play, but afterward, we had a good fiesta. There was a performing family in the audience that performed some fun clown and juggling after our show, and they were all lovely, and fun to play with. Even a few tiny kiddos (5-years old or so) organized their own show and invited us over to watch…they mostly just stood around with a large stick, but it was very cute!
We performed our 3rd show at Escuela Crescencias Rosas (500 kids, Director, Martin Cezar Domínguez Barriendos). It was a wild show with kids packed in, standing on chairs, and even on the edges of the stage. The two brothers of the family from Nicoletta`s came and did some great clowning and juggling before and after our show. During the juggling, the kids all screamed ¨Mas Alta!` (higher!!). Afterward, all the kids were really eager to get hugs and autographs and be in pictures with us. The autograph requests got a little bit out of hand, but the kids were super sweet and awestruck. My Spanish isn’t the best, and they would ask me questions and very patiently try to explain when I didn´t understand. One little girl was asking me how I got my hand inside the balloon. I told her it was very hard, but gave her a few balloons to practice. The director of the school invited all the payasos into his office for some lunch and talked about how our show was great, clean fun for the kids, and what a positive experience it had been for them.
The next day, we did two back-to-back shows at the secondary school in San Felipe (School Director, Roiver MorenoAguilar), a community just on the outskirts of San Cristobal. Each of these shows had about 400 kids in the audience!
The journey was a little bit complex. We went to two different schools before finally locating the correct one. One of the schools we mistakenly approached agreed to our offer to come back next week and do a show for them too, so it all worked out.
The school graciously let us use the director’s office to change and prepare. Our first show was a bit hard because all the kids were in the sun, so they were a but squirmy and distractible. The Payaso brothers joined us again and did some great numbers that bookended our show. It was a fun collaboration!
For the second show, we were already warmed up, and teachers figured about a better arrangement for the audience, and we had a really fun time connecting with the kids. The secondary school students were a bit older than we had played for previously, but still very fun and easy to connect with. Mooky got a huge reaction when she kissed the school director as her abuela character. After the show, all the kids wanted photos and to ask us questions. They are all quite gentle and polite and lovely to play for.
The school fed us lunch, and Jorge, the organizing teacher was very kind and passionate about his work and our work too. What a treat!
