Guest post by Anna Caritj.
“Damas y caballeros…” the megaphone crackled, as a clown in full whiteface and broad, polka dotted pants scanned the crowd. One of the group’s instructors, Sergio Castellón, mounted a 10′ tall “tall bike,” and passed the megaphone down to another clown, producer and director Jason Randolph, who looked sharp in an oversized top hat, as he translated between Spanish and English. In Spanish, he welcomed spectators to Mi Circo, Charlottesville’s first bilingual children’s circus, pieces of which are on view through September at The Bridge/PAI.
Mi Circo is a non-profit program that works with Latino communities and at-risk youth, fostering creativity and teambuilding through a variety of circus activities like acrobatics, balance, clowning and props. It was started six years ago in Bogotá, Colombia, by Adriana Rojas who used comedy as a way of interpreting urban life. That project gave way to a variety of programs in which at-risk youth are introduced to the circus and the stage.
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(Photo by Anna Caritj)
These educational programs have since traveled to Queens, in New York, Brazil, and Australia. Earlier this summer Mi Circo was founded here and is set to continue as an annual, tuition-free summer program. The group holds practices in Washington Park and the Southwood Community Center, led by bilingual instructors as well as a visiting circus professional from Colombia. Practices often attract 15-20 students who spend the day playing games and learning new tricks, ranging from juggling and acrobatics to costume design and duck-duck-goose.
“By speaking Spanish," Randolph told me, "we want to let kids appreciate the importance of speaking a second language. It also helps them respect their peers who [don’t speak] English as their first language.”
This year, the group of 20 students participating in the circus included Latino, African American, and Native American children. Considering the diverse ethnic communities in the area, a circus seemed the perfect way “to bridge the gap,” Randolph said, “by offering bilingual activities and making it accessible to kids who have means and also ones that don’t…We want to give kids the opportunity to be part of a real circus [where] they’re empowered to act, to change things, to take on different personalities and just be creative.”
“We saw a bunch of new kids’ faces,” said Castellón of the reception at The Bridge earlier this month. “They were excited that we’re here and that we’re sticking around. The bad side is that the actual kids who participated in the circus didn’t show up. [They] never got a chance to be stars. They deserved that.”
A montage of events from Mi Circo, at the Bridge.