come back for kids

Alex is coming back to Dharam sala, around the 13th of october, for circus class for the kids. Looking for evolution in their skills.

out of india ...circus continues.

After two months of classes of circus arts, it is time to return to Europe. upon leaving the children, it is my sincere wish that they continue to practice their disciplines my absence.
The children took on difficult tasks and mostly applied themselves tremendously well to their practice, working at developing skills of balance, and dexterity, strength and dexterity.
I have the word of the children themselves, Jamyang and the others at Tong Len that they are continuing to practice now.
I intend to return to the mountains, check on the kids, teach more, bring new equipment and hopefully inspire some more teachers to jump into the project and come to bring new knowledge and tequniqes!

I would like too give thanks to Jamyang and all the staff of Tong Len for all they have done in the slum and all they have done to help me in my work, to thank Alex and the other teachers who have already given their time and energy to help and to believe in the children, also the hostal managers for their time and patience and big smiles of encouragement. And lastly, to thank all of the children they have brought rays of sunshine into my life!

i'll be back!

christopher bull

thanks day

thanks day was today!
back stage antics were fun for all and the kids surpassed themselves on stage, getting great write ups from three major national newspapers and putting good feeling throughout the room in the hearts of parents, sponsors, teachers and staff alike!
the children have been highly credtited both for their dancing as well as circus skills!!!

preparing for thanks day

well, the theme of the week has been very much "preparing for thanks day" -the first problems were at the start of the week where my health took a real turn for the worse and as a result, i could not even make it up the steps near the guest house where i stay, let alone the long haul down the mountain in a bumpy old jeep for classes.
then, when i did make it down there, the children were often occupied by their preperations for thanks day.... at first i was a little put out by an unusual lack of enthusiasm to circus, until that is, one day, i was lucky enough to get a sneak preview of their imitation bollywood dance and i was happy to see that they had incorporated pretty much everything they had picked up in Alex's great classes and even more to boot!
the last day of preperations meant a visit from a bombay friend and clown, Martin D'Souza (aka Flubber ther clown) and he was more than ready to give some heartfelt words of encouragement to the youngsters, explaining what is clown, magic and circus, how we can present it and where it can lead us.. from the back of the room, my smile also broadened as i heard him speak and i was happy to get a second positive description of clowning, -such a funny old art!

is anybody out there

hello everyone, i am getting so many positive and encouraging emails from so many of you and want to write to thank you, i am however also keen to write this wee missive to encourage any and all of you to become official folowers and coment about the project, i know many of you are reading this and it would be lovely to connect on the blog!

thnks again!

chris

circus life continues as normal.

photos curtesy of Tristan Wheelock - www.TristanWheelock.com

so back to normal after the show, time to tape up damaged props, check the ropes and matresses are in good condition and everything is safe to continue our groundwork to make the fantasy of circus come alive in our minds and so, we can transmit the sense of wonder, spreading delicious moments of laughter reflecting life and showing what is possible!

calm after the show

the day after the show (yesterday 18th june)
i am back to teaching groups of ten kids at a time, mainly because the children have other extra curricular activities to prepare for their "thanks day" on the 2nd july, but also makes the classes somewhat more managable for myself as i can spread my attention more effectively.
as a treat for all of us, the day after the show, i dropped my usual almost millitary approach to training and gave a gentle yoga class before allowing all the children to practice whatever discipline they chose!

show in charan

note; photos curtesty of Tristan Wheelock - www.TristanWheelock.com

17th june 2009
20 children filed along the dusty dirt track through their tent village, past curious stares and calls of greeting from their families and friends -the vilage dwellers.- They squeezed past the small rickety stage and squeezed into the tuition tent to complete the face paints and practice in preperation for their first "circus stage show".
"get stretching" , "where's that hat" , does everyone know the line up?" i shouted amoungst efforts to get the rope walking structure set up with the help of local residents....
we had to put one of our matresses up to hide the excited jugling, acrobatics and last minute human pyramid preperation going on back stage as the smallest of the children were trying to peek in to see what we had in store for them.

before too long (maybe half an hour after the planned start time) we got the show underway, myself as self appointed ringmaster and "Vishal" the smallest of the boys burst on to stage and as it was our "great pleasure to announce" acrobatic acts, devilish deeds of diabolo, and loads of tricks and laughs with balls came poring onto the stage!

after the first 7 acts or so, the circus (spontaniously christened as "circus milega") took a 5 minute pause backstage while the health section of the tong len project played a medical skit encouraging the local people to use doctors and medicines which are being made available to them through the tong len charity to reduce illness and improve the quality of life in the village!

back to the show and the second half brought onto stage ropewalking, club manipulation and a few other acts... there were plenty of drops, some acts needed help to get there balance on ropes or unicycles, but most importantly, the object was accomplished! everyone got the cance to be up on stage, to taste the thrill of performing and to feel the rewards of audience apriciation!

kids showtime for charan

so, it is time to get things up on stage.... i think the first and most important public will be the friends and families of the children in their homes in Charan (the tent village itself) we have set ourselves the task of getting a show ready within a week and encouraged the children to focus on only one discipline, to turn it into only one act and for the first time, we will look at costume including the new red noses which right now are white ping pong balls but watch this space and see what a splash of red paint can conjure up!

reporters reporting!

so many people have been really cool in that they are supporting this concept.. bringing circus to these wonderfull children, a few days ago i made a small performance for the raja of kangra and his gusts at his home and used the opportunity to promote all the work tong len is doing and especially about circus! ...today being international no child labour day reminds us that it is important for children to enjoy their right to play!

two other interesting supporters just turned up at a training session one day when i was training alone near my guest house, they are independant reporters from america and with the permission of Lama Jamyang (the founder of Tong Len) we invited them to experience some classes!

the kids loved the attention and i think it made them work even harder and the reporters enjoyed their time also! -hopefully we can get some of the shots to put up on the blog before too long!

who nose..

introducing clown was a joy, when the kids took themselves up in front of their friends to put on a persona with "funny voice" ..."funny walk" ...or in some cases, just downright funny, we all enjoyed laghing and any thughts of the hardships of life including bumps and scrapes from bad landings and muscle pains fromso much excercise all pailed into insignificance! it seems true, "laughter is the best medicine.

the only adjustments to the class will be the invention of some slightly smaller noses and a good bit of elastic!!!! though i will miss the laughs about the nose falling down.

Showtime

In honour of Alex's pending departure, and approapriately half way through the full two months of this, the first leg of social circus in northern India, we set the kids the task of putting on their first show!
My aim was to help them as little as possible and hope that they could find some way to organize the bits and prices they had been taught over the last month and organize the skills into short acts to present on stage!

SUCCESS!!!!

A joy to watch, "beauty out of chaos" everybody had the chance to show something.... A big challenge for anybody the first show as skills are not yet developed and even a clear concept of what a show might be is not yet in the mind.

A few students really shined, showing awareness of tjeir stage character even now and many children proved that even in a month you can learn enough about juggling to put on stage.

My hopes for the future are to integrate all the students into more acts where it is clear that they are all in the same team.. The seperation of the sexes is a sensitive issue in India but at least to try to reduce competition between the sexes and keep the circus a family affair, brothers and sisters working together!

Circus independance

Three days ago (soon after alex and I were debating the issue of whether the kids would continue to train in our absence) we both arrived late to the class, to our surprise, the children were not in their hostals from where we normally collect them.
We continued to the school playground where we normally teach, hoping that they had found their way there already.
Not only had they gone on ahead but so eager had the kids been to start training that they had seperated into their typical two groups (boys one side, girls the other) and were stuck right into a rigorous warm up almost as tough as the one I would give them.
Needless to say, Alex and I were overjoyed at their enthusiasm and dedication and the seeds of hope were sewn that maybe we will be seeing great things from these new circus people!

A picture tells a thousand words

kids on ropes

with a little help from a wandering holy man, the end of last week proved time to prepare the final preperations for the last discipline that i want the kids to try their hands (or should i say feet) at!

now that they have a few weeks experience of stretching and toning of their limbs, i felt the kids were ready for some rope walking! origionally, i wanted to build a tight rope structure for them like the kind that you may see in circus schools around the world but research in indian welding shops proved that this would be a bigger undertaking than we first hoped so i stuck to simple structures made from bamboo, the first problem was getting hold of the bamboo, as anyone who has tried knows, it is not allowed to cut bamboo 4 days of the week here for invironmental reasons.... the next problem was that the structures have one or 2 minor design faults, hopefully i can correct these in time for performance. in the mean time, it is proving successfull to improvise and so far, all but one girl as had a taste of rope walking balance and the boys are raring to go!

alex arrived!

fantastically, fabulously and funnily, alex arrived yesterday and gave a class today!

really good for me to have more help, excellent for the kids to have more teaching (especially from someone so proffesional). and we all enjoyed her style.

she also brought with her a young guy who is keen to teach as well, without much experience in circus but hopefully we can find something for him to do.

workshop in charan

charan is the tent village. also known as a slum, it is a temporary housing site with somewhere between 700 and 800 residents. conditions are hard, the people are recieving help from the tong len organisation but they need more!
it is good to make shows, to offer a couple of hours break from the hardships of one's situation.
from today, we got the chance to offer also a workshop so that the kids could try their hands at the circus skills.
will they learn? should they think of circus as a way to earn money? an alternative to begging? is it just a chance to hang out with a few westerners who care about their situation?
the answer is, who knows.. personally i know that it is hard work to get a level of circus that you can really make serious money with and many determined people quit circus before it takes them to the starry heights that each performer may dream of.
what i do know is that it is an opportunity! and opportunities are something all too few in a village like charan.
i have a dream that at least one kid may involve her or himself in circus and chase the dream too it's limits.......... if i can only give time to the kids and see them happy, it is also enough!

introducing......... unicyle

the boys group have noww given all the equipment bought in england and in india a thorough test, from balls to clubs, diabolos rings and unicycle! they try to take the utmost care of it of course, it is all going to fall down sooner or later. -gravity... the jugglers enemy or friend? -i would say that it is all an oportunity to learn! and this i think they will do before too long.

rain has made practice difficult for the girls as it always seems to rain on their day to train but they are hard working and determined and use the time to train even inside their hostal! stretching and balancing, we have reports that they already feel "fresher and healthier" from the good excercise.

classes under way

despite being new to the physical condition required for circus, the kids are doing really well, learning to stretch, balance and coordinate their bodies for the first time for some of them and are showing that they can do some simple acrobatics and are applying themselves to stretching.

i have already introduced some juggling equipment to the boys group also and they are able to get the hang of some things, showing equal intrest for all different props!

despite some stormy weather, we did some good stretching and yoga with the girls group yesterday, proving that even in the cramped front room of the girls hostal, there is space for circus!

in general, things are going well, the kids have taken to circus very well so far, the focus is still on the hostal kids for now although we hope to go into the tent village as soon as possible and offer at least some basic teachings there in within the next few days.

show in charan

still no classes as yet, hopefully we will be organised enough to get the required matresses for safety today...

yesterday was not entirely wasted day however as i mandaged to get together an inspirational circus show for the villagers of charan -the tent village-

it was a new and great experience to work with the villagers to set up the high structure for the slack rope and with their hard work in the baking sun, i felt comfortable to walk at about 2 meters.

more than anything, it was a delight to see so many happy and smiling faces! this combined with the enthusiasm especially from the older kids to learn something themselves was really fantastic!

inspirational show

as an introduction to circus skills (necessary as probably none of the kids have been to a real circus and most of them still confuse me with a magician) i performed a small show yesterday in the school in which the hostal children are regularly attending.... they clapped heartily at the juggling, laughed gaily at unicycle antics, looked on in wonder at crystal ball manipulation and seemed amazed by slack rope walking.

at the end of the show however, all they really wanted to know was "please sir, could you make the hanky disapear?"

today i will give the first class, warming up there limbs and joints to see what they may be capable of before moving onto trickier stuff in the coming week.

i am also schuduled to make a small show today in the actual tent village, conditions still seem really tough there but you can still see smiles on faces and i consider myself lucky to be able to try to bring them some of the magic of circus, -and i don't just mean that trick with the hanky-:)

planning the plan

sleepily i type this after a long day making the plan of when and where i will teach the kids... it seems that the project will be divided between one group of kids who still lice in "Chrarankot" -the tent village- and a group of kids who live in a hotal provided by the Tong Len trust, they are attending a formal school regularly and so are more used to a timetable but i have great hopes also for the former group also who benifit from a tuition tent in the middle of their tent village and all whom i have met so far are enthusiastic about the chance to learn some circus skills!

the Lhama in the photo is Jamyang, a fantastic man who is the founder of Tong Len and dedicates most of his time to the children.

meeting the adults and window shopping

So, the first meeting today with the Tibetan monk in charge of the Tong Len project!
i was happy to meet them, they were happy to meet me and we are all happy to be able to bring some circus to the children..
We outlined some ideas about what, where, and when to teach the kids, alternating between the kids who live in the Tong Len hostal (the kids who attend school more regularly) and the tuition tent in Charan, (the tent village in Lower Dharamsala).
After the meeting, i went on a scouting mission to check out the availability of things on my shopping list to make the classes safer, and more exciting! .....India being India and my hindi being as bad as it is, not everything will be easy to find but so far i have already tracked down some crash mats and leads towards making stuctures for both tight and slack ropes!
Tomorrow will be the day to check out the spaces to see if we can train in the space we have or if we must hire something bigger!
Watch this space............. ;)

delhi to dharamsala

the plane was easy and one day in delhi was enough... made a little painstaking the departure as the bus was late by about three hours but despite the nerve shattering road manner of our driver and the seemingly endless bumps on the road to the mountains, the journey was a success and i even got the chance to sit up front with the driver so that he could see a few magic tricks!

and so,........... 7:00am this morning, suitcase, unicycles, rucksack and i arrived safely and soundly to upper dharamsala.

i contacted the monks who run the school and hostel for "tent village" children and we have an appointment to meet day after tomorrow; should leve just enough time for some training, lesson planning and to simply breathe in the good mountain air!

preparing to leave england

a couple of weeks was just enough time to prepare for taking circus to a group of children living in a tent village half way up a mountain in the himalaya range!
to make sure that there will be plenty of exciting things to teach the kids, i got together a large shopping list of supplies from the juggling shop in london, including unicycle, clubs, rings and other things!

did a bit of extra fundraising by walking my rope over a canal and although the londoners were busy enjoying their pints and rare good summer weather, they took time to stop and stare and support with a clap of their hands and pounds in the hat!

physical preperation took the form of daily yoga to keep my body fit and flexible and enrolling as a member of the london circus school meant that i always had training space for rope walking, handstands and juggling.

lastly and by no means leastly, friends who could not make it here gave a large cash donation to help bring circus out here, hopefully this will go to buy some mats for safe acrobatics and even some kind of structure for rope walking!

the flight out of england was 10th may and i realised the benifit of all the yoga as i arrived safely at ther airport with 36 kilos of "stuff to juggle and one wheeled cycles" .....-off to india

me