Clown Aid

This is a slightly ambitious title because what do I really know about circus in this country? The answer is not much, but what I do know is that it is an important art form here. In my childhood circus meant the annual visit to Bertram Mills big top. I remember the animal acts - lots of horses I seem to recall and of course the lions - and the various high wire acts. But naturally I really liked the clowns. There were two sorts of clown. There was Coco the Clown, dressed in a white satin suit, with a pointy white hat. He wasn't funny. Then there were the slapstick clowns in baggy trousers and jackets, looking a bit like tramps, who often performed with a ladder and buckets of water. I longed for them to appear because they made me laugh.
Ever since then I have related to the word clown in terms of those childhood experiences. But now I am learning about a different kind of clown, much more like the Fool in King Lear. Jung recognised the clown as the Trickster archetype. The modern clown, with the painted face and baggy clothes, sometimes the red nose, is part of this tradition. A clever character, masquerading as a simpleton or as a naif, but always underneath very smart, even scheming.
Diego Gene at the Escuela de Comedia in Granada was inspired to learn clowning at the Knebworth pop festival back in the 70's while he was in England. At the back of the huge field there were a whole gang of clowns and he was was hooked. He's been honing his skills ever since and passing them on to a new generation of young performers here in Nicaragua, where the clown is recognised as a representative of the poor and oppressed, a character who gets the better of the powerful.
So my trip here has really taught me something, that clowning is much more than buckets of water and ladders, though they are a part of the tradition. Clowning is the human response to the unpredictability and cruelty of the world, a response that involves both laughter and sadness, anger and acceptance. But ultimately clowning is subversive, a revolutionary response to human existence. How appropriate that clowning is such an art here, that groups of young people like Performers without Borders come here, to teach and to learn. They do just as much to feed the spirit as the Mayagna Children's fund does to feed the stomach. Both are a vital part of the help all of us can give. So, do send in the clowns please .....