Getting to know the clowns of Clowns Without Borders
By Lisa Davis-Burnett
What can I do? Have you ever asked yourself that question?
In the face of tragedies across the planet – earthquakes, hurricanes, wars, famine – the unavoidable question is: What can I do? Many of us ask this question in the silence of our minds and then we shrug our shoulders and go on with our lives; some caring folks perhaps donate money to the relief efforts, which is a laudable response, if a bit impersonal. Whenever members of the Clowns Without Borders (CWB) team ask themselves what they can do, they know the answer: They can bring laughter, joy, emotional release and happiness back into the lives of those most devastated, if only for a few minutes. Those minutes, however, can turn to precious memories – a source of lasting comfort, and a sacred gift of humanity.
St. Maarten/St. Martin saw this humanity in action over the past two weeks when CWB came to bring silliness and love to school children and families across the island. We have been entertained by the talents and giving spirits of Gabi Sigaud Winter from Brazil; Alex Feldman from Boston, USA; and Ivan from Australia. These are people who left their homes across the world and travelled here to do what they could for the people traumatized by the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. Arriving in St. Maarten, the clowns had never met before and had to immediately devise an hour-long routine that would showcase each of their unique skills.
This is not a vacation. Far from it! Organizing their hectic schedule across the 14 days was the island’s own much-loved clown Albina Matuzko. Originally from the Ukraine, she performs her clown role under the name Klusha. Performing at two schools a day and including community clowning around sessions have kept the quartet busy to say the least. “We brought the clown show to 16 schools, four community gatherings and two seniors’ homes on the island,” says Albina. In between shows, the exhaustion is evident, but once the moment to perform arrives and the audience is assembled, the fun is infectious, and the clowns are immediate sources of unstoppable crazy, silly energy.
CWB is an international relief organization that has existed since July of 1993. The idea began when Tortell Poltrona, a professional clown in Barcelona, Spain, was invited to perform in a refugee camp in Croatia. This performance unexpectedly attracted audiences of more than 700 children, proving to Poltrona that there is a great need for clowns and entertainment in crisis situations. He founded CWB to offer humour as a means of psychological support to communities that have suffered trauma. The group spread quickly and became an international organization which now boasts members in 15 countries (Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States). The group attempts to join members from these countries to work together to send at least 100 projects throughout the world each year. Donations to CWB make this work possible, providing for the clowns to travel and have living expenses during the outreach.
Team leader on the outreach project to SXM was Gabi, who has been a professional clown for 12 years. She joined CWB two years ago and has been sent on projects to Guatemala, Colombia, Kenya, Ecuador, Turkey and El Salvador. She studied theatre and attended circus school in Italy. Over dinner in their residence, donated by an evacuated AUC instructor, Gabi explained that clowning for her is a passion. “Compared to theatre, it was so free! It’s like my artistic soul said, ‘This is it!’ Clowning goes beyond our ego.” Gabi used to clown on cruise ships in the Mediterranean and when the ship would dock, she would disembark and go in search of the clowning masters she had heard of. “I searched out Jango Edwards in Barcelona and others as I tried to learn as much as I could. Eventually, I returned to Brazil and started to teach.”
Gabi discovered CWB and immediately knew it was for her. “Being from Brazil, I knew about favelas and poverty, but this showed me how to use laughter to break down barriers and I found myself as an artist, and I started to understand the power of laughter to empower people who are in a tragic situation.” She related that some of her most impactful projects were when they arrived in Ecuador just one week after the terrible earthquake in April of last year. Then there was her visit to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, a place noted to be home to fleeing Ethiopians and Somalis since 1992. “There are people who are born there and grow up there, they don’t know any other place,” she shared with the group.
Watching Gabi perform is great fun, her gift for physical comedy is astounding, her face adorned with a red nose is expressive and her voice carries a comic note above the screams of laughter from the audience. She connects with individuals in the audience, bringing out their need for recognition. “When there is a disaster, many NGOs come and bring mattresses, medicine, food, but who brings the affection? That is what we do!”
The tall man dressed as Pinocchio is Ivan Smith who hails from Melbourne, Australia, but is currently living in London, England. Ivan learned his trade as a circus juggler but even with this career taking off with corporate gigs, cruise ship jobs, and festival bookings lined up, he felt something was missing. He discovered the art of being a clown when he took a two-year theatre course in Paris at the famous Phillippe Gaulier’s school. “The clown module was his [Gaulier’s] specialty and he was a ruthless critic, I wouldn’t recommend that school to anyone who wasn’t determined to go through fire and water, but when you emerge from this training you will have found your inner clown.” This is Ivan’s first CWB project, but he says he is hoping to join the CWB UK mission to the Rohinga Refugee Camp in Myanmar in the coming months.
Ivan says one of his favourite things about clown shows is watching the adults who are thinking, “I’m not going to laugh at this silliness; I have an education; I am a grown person;” and then seeing them break down and laugh against their inner urges. Watching Ivan as Pinocchio is heart-warming. He presents an innocence that is quite at odd with his physical height. Water plays a recurring role in the show the team devised for the schools and community centres, and water becomes something magic in the hands of Ivan, who juggles what appears to be spheres of water that emerge from splashes out of a bucket of water to the delights of the children and adults. Invariably, everyone will stare wide-eyed and mouths-agape as he handles the globes of clear acrylic, especially the large one that he rolls up his long arms and around his fingers like pure magic.
Alex is the official jester of the group. For the past two years, he has volunteered for CWB by performing in refugee camps and sites of crisis, including a trip last year to Haiti. His talents include acrobatics, juggling and playing the flute as well as general mayhem. He became a clown at the age of 21, drawn into the world of joy and irreverence. “I felt the call,” he said simply. A father of two teenage boys, Alex is busy in the Boston, Massachusetts, area performing for colleges, festivals and other special events.
Alex believes in the idea of a spiritual clown, “You can play the fool, but it goes much deeper than that. You have doctors, scientists, journalists, but a clown can wait, and just observe. When the moment is right, he will just zoom in [he illustrates with his hands like a jet] and make his reality everyone’s reality. I’m still learning, but I know I can make people happy.”
He says wherever he goes, the response is the same. Children everywhere are curious and eager to join in. He blogs regularly for CWB’s website and recently posted, “All children have the right to a joyous childhood, and I hope you will join me in this work. In less than two weeks, I'm going to St. Martin, which was clobbered in this last hurricane season. The island is still in an emergency situation, and our partners have asked for some comic relief. I want to share the news about the importance of joy. I know that moments of joy – joy in spite of everything – can amplify.”
Joining these CWB clowns is Albina, who burst onto the arts scene in SXM in 2011 with her one woman show, Baba Yaga. Albina is a natural force of comic intrigue. From her work at the National Institute of Arts to her new foundation for community theatre, Behind the Beyond, she is truly dedicated to bringing the art of laughter and inner clownishness into the culture of our island and the world. Albina downplays her performance in the company of these traveling clowns, saying, “I only focus on being the continuity between them.” Despite that humility, her Klusha character is irrepressible and adorable, able to charm a giggle from just about anyone.
Albina’s foundation for community theatre is still looking for a permanent home and a steady group of interested actors of all ages. Those with an urge to join in clowning around or serious theatre are encouraged to check out Behind the Beyond on facebook or call 1 (721) 522-6883.
You can find out more about Clowns Without Borders by checking out their website and facebook pages. CWB relies on the donations of supporters to do this important work. If you would like to help them keep up their efforts to help those on the edge of humanity, the website is an easy way to do it. Go to https://clownswithoutborders.org
“Clowns without Borders thanks Pierre Ferland and Loraine Talmi and the whole gang at Pineapple Pete Restaurant for their donations of healthy meals which gave us the energy for our laughter mission. We also are grateful to Priya Divina Mirpuri and Henna Budhrani and their strong Indian community for supporting our audiences with healthy food!”
