Things in Jakarta are going better than ever before! In the last four months, things have been so busy I haven’t been able to find time to update the blog. Despite the lack of communication, we’ve had many wonderful things happening.
In the end of May, I performed at Yayasan Emmanuel’s annual gathering. Almost 2,000 children attended the event and it was a blast. The event was a celebration for all of the children that are supported by Yayasan Emmanuel’s orphanages and tutoring centers. They enjoyed a day of outdoor games and live entertainment on the stage. It was really nice having the opportunity to participate in such a great event.
When I returned to Jakarta in the end of July, I came back with a new focused plan here in Jakarta. We’ve increased the number of visits per week to Cilincing. We now visit Cilincing Wednesday and Friday. We’ve also finally added our English lesson component to the project. The kids now enjoy 2 hours of circus training followed by two hours of English lessons. We’re lucky to have another new member to the Hidung Merah Circus team, Deddy Purwadi. Deddy is a phenomenal mentor and English teacher for the kids. They have absolutely fallen in love with him and its great to have him around to help.
After our second class of English lessons, several things became blatantly obvious to me. Many of the students don’t know how to read. Some of them have been out of school for two or three years. I have one girl, who dropped out of school after grade 1. She can’t read or write and can’t even tell time from a standard clock.
The same day that I began to realize the serious lack of education these children were getting, I was approached by one of my middle school aged girls. She came to me after class crying, saying that this would be her last circus lesson and that she’d miss me a lot. When I ask her why, she shyly said that she had to return to the kampung to live with her grandparents. I ask her why again and she responded that her parents could not afford to pay the fees for middles school, so she’d have to return home and help care for her grandparents. I told Ondeng, to give me two days before she returned home. I told her, I wasn’t sure what I could do, if anything at all. But, please give me two days to figure out a solution. On the way home from Cilincing, I made a few calls and was able to come up with the funds for her schooling. The total cost for her to go to school for an entire year was US$165.
I returned to Cilincing the next day and went straight to the middle school that she was supposed to be attending. I spoke with the principal, who was reluctant to allow her to join, because she’d already missed 4 weeks of class. I gave him my word that I’d help catch her up with what she missed out on. I also told him that I’d need to receive monthly reports on her attendance, grades, class participation and behavior. We both agreed and I went to share the good news with Ondeng. Before we agreed to sponsor her school, I explained that her parents would have to take responsibility for financing her school as well. If they couldn’t afford the entire US$5 per month, how much could they honestly afford? Ondeng’s mother said that she could handle paying US$2 per month. This was my way of empowering her family to be part in educating there daughter, as well as making sure they were invested in her making it to class on time every day. They were all shocked that someone they didn’t even know was willing to sponsor her to go to school. We went to the local market and bought her the appropriate uniforms, school supplies and then to the school to register her for class. She began the next Monday and when I saw her on Wednesday, she was so happy to be able to continue her education.
This situation with one of my students got me thinking. Why can’t all of the kids go to school? Why does one kids deserve to go to school more than the others. In class, I asked the children to give me details on there schooling, if they were still in school. What grade, how many times they’d failed (if at all), times they had class, school name. During the circus portion of our class, I gathered the students who no longer went to school and asked them if they wanted to return to school. Almost all of the students wanted to go to school, but they were afraid to ask their parents for the money.
I returned to Cilincing the next day and gathered all the mothers and children in one house and laid everything out on the table for them. I explained to them, that we didn’t have endless funds, however I would work my hardest to find as much funds as we needed. This being said, I explained that I was not yet equipped to “make there lives easier” by paying for all the school fees. I told them that I could only help with what they honestly couldn’t afford. I said this to everyone in a large group, so that they would feel obligated to tell the truth. And they did. One mother was just so grateful that I had “convinced” her child to return to school. She said, they could handle the school fees them selves, they just couldn’t convince him to go to school. I offered to go to school with her and talk with the principal, to ensure that he would accept the child’s late registration. He did.
From this meeting, we registered two more kids in middle school. We have three more students who want to go to school, with permission from their parents, and now its just a matter of finding a school who’ll allow them to join the school year late. It’s proving harder than you’d think. But we’re working on it still!
Our Sunday performance troupe at JIS is going strong and the kids are making amazing improvements! They are working hard and learning skills that I never imagined they’d be working on so soon. The first few weeks, the KDM kids weren’t able to join us, because of other obligations and it was great to see how much the Cilincing kids were longing to see their older circus partners. They’ve really begun to build a strong bond and it makes me very happy to watch.
We had a great benefit performance last week, starring some very talented and popular Indonesian musicians. It was really wonderful to see how many people were interested in performing for free in celebration and in hopes of raising funds to support our project here in Jakarta.
Things continue to roll faster and faster every day. With the acceleration of events and plans in the field, comes of course the added need for financial support. If you or your organization would be interested in helping to sponsor any of our projects here in Jakarta please contact me: dan@circusindonesia.org
The month of May was the busiest month we’ve had all year. I performed for groups as small as 15 and as large as 1,800! The performance troupe had their debut weekend of shows that went fabulously and we were on national TV 3 times! The kids and I had a blast at the local amusement park with Andrew and Nana White! This months blog is filled with lots of pictures cause our photographer, 
The Hidung Merah Circus Performance troupe, which is composed of the Cilincing kids and the Yayasan KDM kids have been working hard every Sunday for the past 4 months. When we first came together, our focus was to begin building an ensemble with children from different backgrounds and different experiences. Then, we began building skills. After all the kids had the beginning foundations, the kids all chose one area of skill that they wanted to focus on for 4 weeks and create an act. 
Many of the acts were directed by the older kids and simply polished by me. And of course, we couldn’t call ourselves the Red Nose Circus, without lots of clowns. All the kids were in at least one clown act. The kids worked hard and some got frustrated along the way, but none of them gave up. I was so proud to watch them perform that during their first show in Bekasi, I was honestly fighting back tears for the first 15 minutes. What a group of kids!
We are so lucky to have the support of my former high school, Jakarta International School. The JIS shop teacher and aide built a circus ring for us to use as a stage for the show and the fine arts aide made us a beautiful red backdrop. The athletics department loaned us a few gymnastic mats for safety and that’s all we needed to have an amazing performance space that simply enhanced the amazing work the kids had created.
Our show weekend started with a jigsaw puzzle of loading vehicles. Two SUV’s, a truck, a few students who’d come to help load everything, a few spectators that didn’t want to miss out on the kids’ big debut, me and ‘Pak Maman (HMC’s new driver!) We hoped on the Toll road and headed out to Bekasi, West Java, home of the Yayasan KDM street children. The yayasan’s pavilion was decorated with streamers and balloons. The KDM kids had already begun setting up chairs when the Cilincing kids arrived. They were very excited to see where their friends lived and some were a little nervous about the big show they had coming up. The kids all helped unload the vehicles and began setting everything up.
Luckily, Pak Maman and I had set everything up the day before as a test run to make sure we knew the fastest and easiest way to do it. I told the kids that Pak Maman was in charge of setting up the stage and if he asked them to do anything, they should listen. It was great to see his sense of empowerment and then immediately start delegating jobs and tasks for the kids to do. It’s great to have Pak Maman around, especially on days like this.
As soon as the stage was set up, the props were laid out in an organized manner and the music was cued to the right spot, we all gathered around for one of, what I hope will be the first of many, pre-show ring curb chats. I went over how the rest of the afternoon was going to go with the kids, answered questions about the show and tried to calm any nerves and reassure them all that they would be amazing. I told the kids what one of my favorite college professors used to tell us before we started a new show. 
“You have worked hard and created a piece of art. A piece of yourself. It’s a good show. You’ve all prepared as much as you needed to prepare for this show. And now it’s a gift. And our job as performers is to give this gift to the audience. To give them the gift of amazement, awe and laughter. If we do that alone, we’ve all succeeded.” And they did!
Mba Renie invited several of the local elementary schools to join us in our celebrations and the younger kids from KDM all gathered to watch the show. A handful of my friends and HMC supporters showed up to enjoy the show. It was a special treat when the orphans (now high school and college age) from the One More Chance house (students of mine from 2008) were able to hop on a JIS bus and make it to watch the show. It was especially cool watching the OMC kids and the HMC performance troupe kids interact after the show. They had never met before, but they had a common thread. They were all circus students.
Before the show started, I told a few of the kids to bring the bag of foam clown noses out into the audience and pass them out amongst the kids. It was really fun to watch my students clown around and feel comfortable being goofy in front of people they’d never met before!
Sunday’s show day started early. Very early. We arrived at Cilincing around 730am and the kids had already begun cleaning the trash and debris from the clearing in front of the village. Pak Wahar, the father of one of our students and the go-to-guy to get things done around the village, had ordered 2 very large tarps to put on the ground, because it had rained the night before and the ground was still wet. Pak Wahar had also ordered a tent top pavilion to be set up for the audience to sit underneath, so they could watch the show without the very hot sun beating down on their backs.
Pak Maman immediately began directing the kids and volunteers from the community about where and how to set up our ring curb and back drop. I worked with a few kids to organize props back stage. When the KDM kids arrived, the stage was all set up and the show was ready to begin.
The show was even better than the first. The kids were more confident, funnier and had a great time. So did the audience! By the end of the kids show, there were at least 500 people gathered around the ring watching. So many, that any of the people still sitting underneath pavilion, had to stand on their seats to see the action. I saw a few teenage boys climb up a water tower to get better seats. Reminds me of baseball games in Chicago. There were tons of highlights in the show, but I will share a few.
The first moment that made me very proud was from a conflict that happened before the show. One of my 14-year old boys from Cilincing had been having problems with a group of boys from a different village. Because of all the commotion, the boys had come over and started trying to cause problems. The kids had told me stories about this group of bullies, but I didn’t think they would be brave enough to actually come to this village to start an issue. 
I was busily unpacking, organizing and preparing for the show, when the youngest boy ran over to me and grabbed my attention. “Kak Dan! Ada yg brantem!” (There’s going to be a fight!) I looked up and began walking quickly towards the altercation. Three boys from the other village “staring off” with the one boy from Cilincing. Before I could reach them, one of the older KDM boys(19) walked right in between the kids, put his arm around the Cilincing boy and walked him away. As they walked by I heard him telling the younger kid, “You are better than that. You don’t need to fight with those bullies because of words they use.”
I was so proud of my older student for backing up his younger partner, but even more proud that he was not backing him up by punching on of the bullies. He was teaching him how to be a mature young man. How to be the bigger man. I walked up to the three bullies and asked them with a big smile on my face, if they needed anything. They of course did not. They turned around and walked off. The second part of this story, was during the show. The Cilincing boy who was being taunted, was on stage doing his two-man clown act, when I saw, who else but the bullies, hanging around the edge of the ring. 
I watched the boy on stage notice the bullies and I was afraid that he would lose all concentration and/or begin to act cool or tough. He saw them. He smiled and then he went on making the other 497 people in the crowd laugh hysterically. When the bullies saw that they weren’t going to get a rise out of this clown, they left. Just like that. As they walked away he gave me a glance and a wink, and I was very, very proud.
The second highlight of the show was a 13-year old girl named April. Crystal, my assistant coach from JIS, had choreographed a short dance/contortion/gymnastics act with two girls. April was very reluctant to do this in practice, but Crystal was insistent that she was too talented in this area to not show it off in the performance. April’s partner was very sick the weekend of performances and wasn’t able to make it to the Cilincing show. I thought for sure that April wouldn’t perform or that she might perform, but she’d be so embarrassed that she’d go through the movements as fast as possible and run off stage. Boy was I wrong!
Before her act, I stopped the music and explained to the audience that the next act was very special. April was the only student who was going to be performing a solo act and this took a lot of guts, so everybody needed to give her an enormous round of applause before she even started just because she was brave enough to do it alone. I watched April’s mom and grandmother cheer and scream so loud that it made her laugh out of embarrassment, but the good kind of embarrassment. She performed her act gracefully and eloquently. 
I watched her mother not take her eyes off the stage for a second the entire time she was performing. Her mom was proud and so was I. When she was finished, she didn’t run of stage, instead she took a proud bow and the audience went wild. This was a great moment for April. Especially because April is one of the girls from last year, who disappeared the day of the show, because she was too shy to perform a few group acts with 20 other kids on stage with her. She has really grown in the last six months. I can’t wait to see where she goes from here.
The third highlight of the day’s events came during my clown show. After the kids show was finished, and they packed up all the equipment, I had them all come out to the audience and then I performed my one-man show. 
What really impressed me was when the same older boy from KDM who was helping the younger kid not fight, Darmadi, was completely engaged with the audience my entire show. I do a lot of audience participation and it was so cool to watch him help bring kids on stage and reiterate directions that I gave. He did this all without me asking. The best part is when I ask a kid in the audience with a pony tail, to hold their pony tail out and I would through a juggling knife from the stage to cut their pony tail off.
I’m very careful when I pick this kid and I always whisper to them that I am not really going to throw the sword. This girl didn’t hear me or didn’t believe me. I was in the center of the ring and she was following directions, but I could tell that she wasn’t digging it. Before I could even say anything, Darmadi ran over to her, tripping on the way to make her laugh and then stood right next to her, reminding her that I was just joking. She immediately became more relaxed and I was able to drag the gag out longer than ever before, because she was laughing, the audience was laughing and nobody was scared.
Hidung Merah Circus is so lucky to have the support of so many people and organizations in Jakarta and around the world. You’re support keeps this project going and enables us to make a difference in the lives of children who need help. If you or your organization can make a donation, big or small, please contact Dan at dan@circusindonesia.org.
I’ve begun focusing a lot of my time and effort towards a few specific groups, as well as continuing to perform at different venues across Jakarta. In the end of March, I brought 15 children from Cilincing to watch a performance by their older classmates at Yayasan KDM. The KDM children had been training mime for a few weeks with a French gentleman and it was a great experience for the kids to come and watch. After the performance, the KDM kids gave the Cilincing kids a tour of their home. It’s more like a complex, housing nearly 100 homeless children, with a dinning hall, classrooms, basketball courts, a greenhouse and a compost and recycling room. After the show on the bus ride back to Cilincing, I ask the kids what they thought of the mime show. They loved it! They thought it was so funny and it was great to watch them reenact their favorite parts for the entire bus ride home.
Cilincing classes have been going very well. We’ve started taking attendance and all the kids have been showing up every week. During this last month, we’ve focused a lot on creating new clown acts. It’s really wonderful to watch the kids begin to understand how to be funny on stage, without just acting silly. They are beginning to learn the fundamentals of clown to the point that I can give them an outline of an act and they can fill in the details by themselves.
One of the highlights of the last month is performing live on TVOne for the victims of the Situ Gintung levy break. When I arrived in the area of Situ Gintung it was absolutely devastating to see the destruction that occurred. I looked down the miles of canyon where the water destroyed everything in its path. Miles and miles of dwellings were absolutely flattened and washed away. I performed with a group of popular Indonesian musicians at one of the higher ground affected areas. When the morning started, there were about 100 people who came to watch and by the end there were at least 500 people from around Situ Gintung who had come to watch the entertainment. It was a nice event, and I hope that the children and adults were able to forget about their shattered homes and livelihoods for a few hours of smiles and laughs.
We’ve received a generous invitation from Andrew White and Nana Mirdad to take the Cilincing kids to Dunia Fantasy, an amusement park in Ancol. Andrew and Nana are both popular television actors and they wanted to bring the kids on a trip somewhere they’d never been before. I think the kids are just as excited to be hanging out with two TV stars as they are to be going to an amusement park for the first time.
Another highlight of the last month is the opening of Rangga Rinjani’s photo exhibition, based on the Hidung Merah Circus. I attended the opening and was a bit embarrassed to see a huge blown up picture of me making a goofy face, suited up in my clown gear. He did a wonderful job with the photos and we have been so lucky to have him documenting all the hard work that the children and I have been doing.
As frustrating as the bureaucracy of developing nation’s politics can be, there is a silver lining to this story. Two extra weeks to work with my students in Jakarta! And that’s exactly what I did. It wasn’t possible to schedule a lot of shows or visits to new locations, but what was possible was to schedule classes with my regular students from Cilincing, Bekasi, SD Unwanul and our Sunday Circus classes.
The first weekend there was very little interaction between the three groups unless I specifically partnered two kids together. However, there was a very nice moment when, Neng, a 12-year old from Cilincing, decided to help out one of the older boys from Bekasi and teach him how to spin a plate. Really cool to watch her filled with so much pride that she knew how to do something a 17-year old boy didn’t. The older boy was very friendly and receptive and when he finally learned how to spin the plate, Neng gave him a big high-five and told him how great he was doing. After class I organized a pool party for the kids and the kids had an absolute blast! Thanks to the supervision of a JIS teacher, Kathy Nestroff, the kids were able to jump off the diving board, play water basketball and water polo, and float around in inner tubes. They had so much fun and so did I!
The next two weekends of Sunday Circus were filled with more great relationship building, new skills and more after circus activities. One afternoon I booked JIS’s little theater and we turned it into a movie theater with a video projector. I brought a few Charlie Chaplin films and a few Cirque du Soleil videos and the kids were absolutely amazed. I think their favorite act was the juggling act from Corteo, because ever since watching it, they’ve all been trying to learn some of the tricks from the video.
I made my second visit to one of Emmanuel’s tutoring centers, SD Unwanul. The kids were super excited to have me back again and I was happy to be there. We split up into four groups this time, one for each of the basic circus skills and one group for me to play theater games with the kids. 
I wanted to begin learning their names, since I’ll be returning every two weeks to work with these kids. We had a great lesson and its really nice to see the kids get so excited about doing such a simple thing, like spin a plate.
Cilincing classes are going better than ever. The students are excited, disciplined and really beginning to move to the next level of skills. As my relationship with these kids grows and gets stronger, they are beginning to open up about their personal lives to me. I spoke with one girl, who told me that she is
very hopeful that she will be allowed to finish high school. She told me that her real dream is to go to college and get a degree in management or marketing. When I ask her why she chose those two majors, she told me, that was what she was interested in. I was impressed. She is 14, has learned how to speak a decent amount of English with a friend and a dictionary, and she really has a dream of becoming the first child from her village to get a college degree.
I got to thinking after this conversation about how I could help these kids. Some of the middle school aged boys have already dropped out of school and some of the kids don’t know how to read or write. I’m in the process of creating an educational program for these kids, where they will learn circus for an hour or two and then they’ll be given lessons in reading, writing, English and math. This idea isn’t completely mine. I’ve taken two programs that I’ve seen work successfully in the past and combined them. The first is from a circus I worked for in Chicago when I first started teaching called, CircEsteem. They tutor their students after each circus class, and the kids have gone
on to get full scholarships to college and become straight A students. The second is from Emmanuel’s tutoring centers where, he works with his orphans in these four categories, because they are essential to a child’s education. I’d like to start this work as soon as possible and I just need to get my hands on some workbooks or other educational material. In the long run I’d like to hire tutors, who have experience doing this type of work, but for its going to be me.
The week started out with our Sunday Hidung Merah Circus rehearsal. Today a few more JIS students and the regular Cilincing crowd joined us. The OMC kids couldn’t make it because they had begun end of trimester exams. We had a great class as usual. The kids are really beginning to become enthusiastic about not only playing with the circus equipment, but actually learning new and more difficult tricks. We had a few special guests today and the kids were very excited about it. 
Deddy, whom the kids had already met and they were very excited to see him again. Also, a friend of mine, Andrew White, who is apparently a very popular TV actor, came by with his little son. I knew Andrew was an actor, but never really knew to what capacity, until he walked in late and all the girls started whispering and giggling. I ask the kids if they knew who this guy was and they all screamed, “Of course we do!” The kids had a blast playing with Andrew’s 3 year-old son and teaching Andrew and Deddy how to juggle and do different circus skills. They really go a kick out of it when I climbed up on Andrew’s shoulders into a two-high.
Wednesday I visited Cilincing as usual, and we had another great lesson. The kids are showing great improvements after a few weeks of coming to circus twice a week. Not only are their skills improving, but also their attitudes are changing. They don’t give up as easily, they hardly ever say “I can’t” and it is a rare thing to hear a boy and a girl complain about working together. This is the same group of kids that last year; I had to separate into two classes, because the boys and girls refused to work at all if the other was present. After a few weeks of forcing mixed gender pairs, they are not complaining or making fun of the pair by calling them boyfriend and girlfriend.
Thursday I traveled all the way to West Jakarta leaving my boarding house at 630am to perform a show for an Indonesian elementary school. They kids were rowdy and excited and it made for a very interesting show. It was also possibly on of the hottest rooms I’ve ever performed in. Before the show even started, I was soaked with sweat and as I performed, I could feel the sweat dripping down my face.
Saturday I returned to the homeless shelter in Bekasi for our biweekly lesson. The kids were very excited to see me back and met the car at the front of the complex. I separated the class into two groups. 13 and under and 14 and above. With the younger kids we workshopped some basic circus skills for about 50 minutes and then moved into a simple clown routine that the kids always get a kick out of learning. When it was time for the older kids to learn we broke up into two groups; one of the groups had free reign of the circus box and the worked on partner acrobatic skills with me. They were all very enthusiastic to learn and such nice kids that I decided to put the offer on the table for the older kids to join our Sunday Circus lessons. I wouldn’t be able to pick them up, because I was already sending a bus to Cilincing, but if they could get to JIS, they could learn circus with the Cilincing, OMC and JIS kids. I passed a notebook around and ask them to write down their name if they were interested, and if not then not to put their name on the list. About 15 of the 25 kids signed up and were excited to join the fun.
After class, I was hanging out with some of the kids and one of the young boys pulled me to the side. He had a story that he wanted to tell me and I was curious to hear it. He started telling me about how he became a street kid. He said that when he was about 6 years old, he ran away from home, because his parents used to beat him up and treat him like a slave. He decided he’d rather live on the street than be treated in the horrible way that they were treating him. He said he was on the street for a few months when he met, “Ka John”, who brought him to the shelter. I wasn’t quite clear who John was, but the love that this boy spoke his name with, showed how much it meant to him that this man found him and essentially saved his life. The story brought me to a “fighting back tears” stage, but it also made me realize how wonderful of an institution this shelter was. The kids are treated with love and respect. They are clean and polite. They even have different recycling bags set up around the complex to throw out plastics, paper, glass and garbage. They have an alternative education schoolhouse on the grounds, where the older kids begin learning trade skills so that when they turn 19 or 20, they can go out into the real world and get an average job. I feel so humbled to be able to participate with an organization that is actually saving children’s lives and helping them move out of poverty. I’m very lucky to be involved with this group and I appreciate the opportunity every day.
This week started out with a fabulous class at JIS with my Cilincing students, JIS and One More Chance students. Class started out with mostly Cilincing kids and a few JIS kids. The OMC kids weren’t able to make it until the last 30 minutes of class. It was really nice to see them all again and exciting that they hadn’t forgotten the circus skills they’d learned last year. The Cilincing kids were very shy at first, and since the OMC kids were only there for about 30 minutes, they didn’t get much of a chance to warm up to each other, but I know that in the weeks ahead, these kids will all become good friends. Sunday classes at JIS are also a really great opportunity to expose the kids to more circus activities that we don’t have room or equipment for them to use in their village.
I invited a JIS high school student to come help teach gymnastics on Sundays. She is a coach at a local studio and I thought it would be nice to expose the students to other teachers than myself. I was a bit skeptical at first, because she is still a HS student, but she is proving to be wonderful with the kids and they are taking quite a liking to her!
Wednesday I went back to Cilincing for our weekly class. Seeing the kids twice a week is really making a big difference in so many ways. Most obviously, their circus skills are becoming stronger and stronger each week. One great thing about working with these kids is that they have virtually no fear. When we work acrobatics, they just climb up and go for it! If they fall down, they laugh about it and get back up to try again.
whirl when the regular kids aren’t using them.
Thursday afternoon I performed and gave a workshop for an after school drama program at a low income public HS. I was introduced to this school by Mas Ochid, a JIS fine arts aide, who runs the after school program for free. When I arrived at the school, it was quite a spectacle (as it usually is) to have
a bule (expat) carrying all these funny looking objects inside from the car. I performed the show to a very receptive crowd of students, teachers and the principal of the school. After the show we spent about an hour workshopping some basic juggling skills and the kids seemed to really enjoy the lesson.
Friday I returned to Yayasan Emmanuel’s tutoring center in Cilandak (south Jakarta). I performed a show here last year and gave a workshop to the students. It wasn’t clear to me whether or not the kids were the same as last year, but they were so excited to be a part of the day’s activities. It’s a really wonderful feeling when you perform a show for a group of kids, no matter how large or small, who couldn’t be happier that you were performing for them. They were enthusiastic and attentive, playful and curious and it made for an amazing time for all parties involved. There were around 50 kids, so after the show we broke up into three groups and learned how to spin plates, juggling scarves and toss flower sticks. The sounds of their laughter and glee were enough to make me never want to stop doing this work.
When I told them that I had arranged with Emmanuel, to visit their tutoring center twice a month until June, they were even more excited. I ask them if they wanted me to come back and teach them more circus and they all responded, “Mau!”(We want!) When I pretended to misunderstand them and said, “Oh… You didn’t have fun. No problem, I don’t have to come back.” They all responded in their loudest voices. “Enggah!!! Kita mau kamu kembali lagi!” (No! We want you to come back!) The enthusiasm from the kids is what it’s all about for me. Watching them fall in love with an art form that I myself fell in love with over five years ago is a really beautiful thing. And, I feel lucky each day when I wake up and know that this is the gift I get to give them.
When I arrived in Cilincing, all the kids and their mom’s were waiting in front of the village. The kids were all dressed in their red CWB t-shirts and the mom’s had all packed backpacks for them with bottles of water and snacks for the road. The excitement was so thick in the air; you could have sliced it with a knife. Before the kids got on the bus, the mothers all cautioned them to behave well and to make sure they sit in their seats and wear seatbelts.
When we arrived at JIS, they were even more star struck. JIS was like a fortress to them, surrounded by enormous gates with 2 security checkpoints and flat screen TVs in the hallways. On our way to the gymnasium, I took the kids on a little tour of the school and showed them different parts of the school. The part of the school they enjoyed the most was the swimming pool. I told them they could just jump in, that I’d have to get permission from the school first but maybe in a few weeks, after Circus we could have a pool party! They were very keen on that idea.
When we got to the gym, there were gymnastic mats, a mini tramp and a german wheel! The kids just about exploded with excitement. It took some time for me to calm them down and explain that we would play on all the equipment, but we had to do it in a calm and orderly fashion so that no one got hurt. We had a great 2 hour circus lesson. 
About half way through the lesson, I took the kids out to the water fountain and they were amazed that they could drink straight from the faucet! When they looked out at the beautiful football field with the running track around it, they asked me if that was for running on. When I told them yes, they asked if it would be all right if they ran on it. Of course I said yes, and the kids, bursting with joy, ran three laps! I finally had to stop them from running, because I didn’t want them to be too exhausted to finish the circus lessons. When it was time to finish, they begged me to let them stay another hour or two, but I had to go because I had another show in an hour. The kids all piled onto the bus and headed back to Cilincing. The bus driver told me later that every single one of them was sleeping by the time they arrived in Cilincing.
In the afternoon, I was picked up by a friend and taken to an orphanage in Depok, Jakarta. There were around 75 kids of all ages. I met the Bapak of the house who showed me around a bit and then the yayasan I was connected with helped me find a spot to set up. I chose to work outside, so that when the locals from around the neighborhood, heard the music, they would come over and watch too. It was a really nice show and the kids were very excited! There was a great vibe in the air this day, because not only were the kids getting a clown show, but the boyfriend of one of the yayasan members had come along and he is quite a famous Indonesian actor. Ironically enough, the first Indonesian movie I saw when I was in high school here, was a movie that he starred in.
After the show some of the Ibus had prepared tea and snacks for us. Even though I was exhausted and not particularly hungry, I knew that its an insult if you deny an offering of food. We sat down and had a few cups of tea and one of the yayasan members explained to me how this orphanage had begun. The bapak had simply started taking children in off the street into his family, until there were so many of them that he had to become official. It warms my heart to hear stories of people’s generosity like this.
Monday I visited an after school program to bring creativity and art to poor children in Jakarta. The building was a small schoolhouse, with only a few rooms. The kids were all waiting quietly and respectfully when I arrived. I handed out clown noses, scoped out a performance space outside, and threw on my clown gear. While I was getting dressed, the kids all went across the street to the neighborhood badminton court. As I approached the field, the laughter began erupting! I started the show out with making everyone stand up and sit down, move closer, back up and such. It’s a way for me to be able to understand what kind of vibe the kids are sending out on any particular day. They were sending out a great one! When I asked them to move closer, they did and when I said, “Oops! Too close!” They all laughed and moved back.
It was really funny when I found out that one of the boys in the audience’s nickname was “Badut”(Clown!) We had a great time goofing around and I felt like the audience really enjoyed the performance. After the show, we had a workshop of circus and the kids really got into it. One of the boys already knew how to juggle and amazing his peers with his juggling skills! When it was time to go, al the kids gathered around to shack my hand and to it to their foreheads. It was a great afternoon!
Wednesday was my weekly visit to Cilincing. The relationship that I’m building with these kids is really great, especially now that I will be seeing them twice a week. Their work ethic and perseverance is becoming so much better than the first weeks I worked with them last year. It used to be that if I asked a kid to do something difficult, most of them would try once or twice and if they didn’t get it and I wasn’t standing right in front of them, they would give up and move onto a different skill. They are starting to learn now that if they don’t get something right away, all they have to do is practice. And some things will take them several days or even weeks to learn.
It was a bit of a hectic day in Cilincing, with TransTV shooting for their report. It seemed like half the village was either in the room or standing outside looking in. Luckily, today we moved into a larger home that gave enough space for the kids to spread out and not be stepping all over each other as they were trying to learn. Today we continued our basic acrobatics. For the first time I had to really firmly to some of the boys, because after they learned how to stand on each others shoulders and we had moved on, they were so excited about being able to do a two-high, they were doing it all by themselves. I explained to them, that if they wanted to practice, they had to have another person standing behind them in case they fell backwards. It is exciting and terrifying that these kids seem to have no fear! It’s good because they take risks and don’t put up walls around difficult tricks, but it’s a bit terrifying because I don’t want them to do these things without me. I explained this to them and the rest of the class whenever any of them would do an acrobatic trick they always had someone spotting.
Saturday afternoon, I was picked up and brought to a homeless shelter for street children. It was a really nice facility with a school, basketball court, bunks for the kids to sleep in and a dining hall to eat at. I performed my show and then gave a circus workshop afterwards. I was so impressed with these kids and their creativity and natural talent for learning circus that I decided to return every other week and give progressive lessons. 
We decided that the younger kids would study first and then the older kids would study, so that I could focus on more appropriate skills for age groups. When I told them that I would return in another 2 weeks, they responded by saying, “Jauh!!! Minggu depan aja!” (Too far away! Come back next week!) I was pleased with there excitement, but explained that Bekasi was too far away for me to come every week, but that if they were interested, they could join my Sunday circus lessons at JIS with the Cilincing, OMC and JIS kids. They were even more excited about that idea!
Wow! When the ball starts rolling, it rolls fast! This week was filled with amazing classes and performances around Jakarta! I started Monday out with Chinese New Years, so everyone was busy watching and celebrating the year of the Ox! I was able to catch some really fantastic acrobatic-esque performances and traditional dragon dances. Everywhere you went there were loud drums beating and tons of people gathering around! I was also lucky enough to get connected with an Indonesian 
photographer, 
Wednesday was my weekly visit to the Cilincing fishing village. I have to say, this was probably the most amazing class I’ve taught with the Cilincing kids. I decided to let the kids spread out a little by working outside of our usual tiny classroom. The kids were worried about getting the equipment dirty, but I told them we could just wipe them down if they got too messy. As a result of these added learning spaces I didn’t have to separate the boys and girls, because most of the boys went outside and then the girls felt much more comfortable working inside.
Class lasted well over two hours today, because the kids weren’t getting bored at all! They have finally stopped giving up after they try something new and don’t get it immediately. I often work on teaching them to not say, “aku tidak bisa”(I can’t do it) and instead to stay, “aku belom bisa”(I can not yet do it”. Today for the first time, I began to see them not just repeat these words to please me, but actually to believe that they could master any skill if they just kept trying.
Towards the end of class a few of the kids and I went outside our small classroom to an area where there was not any height restrictions. I had begun teaching them some simple acrobatic skills last week, to help them begin learning how to use their bodies in a “circus” way and today I wanted to teach them, what I consider, the fundamental trick in pyramid acrobatics, the Two-High. When I told the kids what we would be doing, many of them looked at me in shock, and then started laughing, thinking that I was joking. When they realized I was serious, one of the girls said, “Kak Dan, bisa percaya kamu ya?” (I can trust you, right?” I assured her that she could and in fact the area that we were working in had a bamboo pole about the height of a handrail once we were standing upright, so if she got scared, she could just hold on to the railing. Not all the kids wanted to try it and I was okay with that. In fact, I was shocked that it was mostly the girls who were interested in trying it, because they are usually the hardest to persuade to try new things. The laughter and adrenaline was amazing. The boys stood back and watched as the girls did something they were too scared to try. It was a really great moment for the girls and for me to witness them have such huge personal successes!
As I began to set up for the show, the very friendly home staff began laying out carpets for the kids to sit on. I gathered up a few things I needed for the show that I don’t carry with me and started hit play on the boom box. As the kids came out into the living room to the sound of Merle Evans and his traditional circus band, you could see the excitement spread across their faces.
After the show I set up three stations for the kids to rotate through and get a chance to try some circus themselves. At first they were tentative to try things and they all gravitated to the flower sticks because they looked the easiest. It was amazing how in such a short amount of time, there confidence and bravery grew, because by the end of the hour or so workshop, they were trying everything and jumping in front of the video camera brought by TransTV. TransTV came to film a show and workshop so they can air a 5-minute report about the work that’s happening with Clowns without Borders and Hidung Merah Circus in Jakarta.
The YEWP staff helped bring my stuff back to the performance space and I began to set things up. The village that I was about to perform at is a scavenger village. They make their income by collecting trash and then selling it to the recycling factories for pennies. I was set up to perform in front of their garbage carts, so it smelled a little. I tried hard not to show any reaction to the smell as not to offend anyone and found a corner to change into my clown gear.
This was very possibly my most memorable show in almost two years of performing the same show. As I began to sweep the stage as a set up to sweeping the audience, I realized that the stage was actually filled with garbage. So when I finished sweeping the stage and began sweeping the kids, they didn’t realize I was joking. They politely moved out of the way and kept clearing a path for me. It wasn’t until I bent over and started bumping into people with my bum that they realized I was joking and they started laughing hysterically.
I’ve added a bit in the show where I ask a mother or father and their child to come on stage with me. I ask the father to stand behind me with his hands up and then I have the child climb to my shoulders. Making sure of course, that they both know what’s going to happen before it does, but that the audience has no idea. I was excited to see that there was a father who was so excited to come on stage and be a part of the show, calling for his daughter to come up with him. Once the girl had climbed to my shoulders and I’d stood up straight, I instructed the father to stand in front of me and take his daughter’s hands. She then steps to his shoulders and they do a two high together in front of their whole village. The smile on the daughter’s face was almost as big as the smile on her father’s. Once applause stops I lift the girl off her dad’s shoulders and they give a big tada together. It was really beautiful to watch a father have this moment of triumph with his daughter, especially because, too often Indonesian fathers and daughters don’t have close relationships because of the culture gender rules. I was very please with this gag today!
My second attempt to visit Cilincing was more successful than the first. It didn’t rain much last week, so the roads had cleared and we were able to reach Cilincing in a little over one hour. When I arrived at the village, I was immediately reminded of the strong fish aroma and the wandering goats and dogs. The kids were all very excited to see me again. I met a few of them at the front and they said hi and immediately ran to get the rest of their friends. We held class in the living room of a family whose house hadn’t been damaged by the flooding. As we walked back to the home in which we’d be having our lesson in, I was astonished at the devastation of the homes on the shorefront. The houses that we once held class in, were now filled with rocks, their shells torn away, leaving only rubble and bamboo frames standing. I ask one woman, who was showing me the remains of her home, if she was able to get everything valuable out before it was all taken to sea. She said that luckily, they didn’t have much of value to be washed away, but they were able to get the majority of things out with only minimal water damage.
After about fifteen minutes of surveying the destroyed homes, all the kids had arrived from different parts of the village and were waiting for me in the living room down the alley. When I entered the room, I was welcomed with warm smiles, a few hugs and one of my favorite sounds, “’Kak Dan!” I asked the kids how many of them remembered some of the circus skills that we’d learned last year and a few spoke up with positive reactions. However, the overall consensus was that it had been too long ago, and they couldn’t remember how to do anything. It was at this point that I wanted to use the old metaphor, “It’s like riding a bike”, when I realized most of these children probably had never rode on a bike. So I skipped the metaphor and told them that it would come back to them quickly and to just give it a try. Sure enough they were shouting for my attention to show me their most recent success within five minutes of the beginning of the lesson.
The kids had all grown up a lot and quickly remembered the way I run class, not allowing kids to quit before they try something and insisting that all students show a mutual support for each other. I noticed about half way through class that the girls were still standing in a line in the corner. They were intimidated by the boys and didn’t want to be laughed at. At this point it was too late to separate the class, but I will definitely do this for next week. After an hour or two of spinning plates and juggling, we all sat down and discussed a few things. I explained to the children about a Sunday circus class at Jakarta International School in south Jakarta. I told them that I could arrange a vehicle to take them to and from their village and if they wanted to join, all they had to do was come with a smile and not be afraid to meet the other students who will be attending. Several of them were very excited about the idea of training circus with other kids and some of them were just excited to leave the village and take a ride to south Jakarta. I explained to the kids that this program would start in a few weeks and they were all welcome to join if they wanted to and if they got permission from their parents. We ended class and several of the older boys offered to haul my trunk of circus equipment out to the car for me. Then the kids very respectfully shook my hand and touched it to their forehead and ran off shouting excitedly about a number of different things.
