In various locations from Sayeda Zeinab to Helwan, youth are gathering to watch a most peculiar performance – a group of four French and three Egyptian performers, all with red noses.
Clowns Sans Frontiers (Clowns without Borders), are an artist collective based in France. Like their medical counterpart, Doctors without Borders, the group comes to provide resource in underserved communities, collaborating with local artists to achieve that. Though now based in many countries, the group began in France; their first mission was serving Bosnians after the war.
“We go to places that don’t have any shows, Gabriel LeVaseur, co-artistic director of the performance, told Daily News Egypt. LeVaseur who has traveled to eight countries with the organization, performed last in Ramallah, Palestine. “We serve places that have been hit by war, or have large refugee populations.
Egypt, once a center of culture in the Middle East with cosmopolitan cities, now joins countries like Rwanda and Costa Rica, on the group’s list of places lacking basic resources.
The play, performed in outlying sections of Cairo, captured a variety of realistic and fantastical experiences with artfulness and pleasure. A large ostrich with the face of a silver funnel and the wings of a dust remover, moved slowly through the audience, manipulated by Patricia Mariner, the other artistic director, and LeVaseur. A shivering homeless person, played beautifully by Maysara Omar, was taken notice of and helped by his fellow clowns. This scene eventually erupted into one of the delightful song and dance numbers that became the signature of the performance.
The show was a throwback to my childhood – a time when I believed in magical things and possibilities. The faces of some of the children in the audience reflected this as well, staring with smiles and awe, with some jumping on the stage to dance along. Performers in the group seemed unable to restrain their delight and came with an uncommon generosity and exuberance of spirit.
There is no fixed group of members within Clowns Sans Frontiers. Over 400 volunteers are involved, so missions like this one to Cairo are arranged by their small group of administrators. Though not at all evident in the performance, the four French members of the company had never before worked in this combination. “I knew Bill and Celine, but not Patricia. Patricia knew Celine but not me or Bill, and so on. It is the first time we all work together, and that is part of the idea.
When asked how they managed to work together in so little time, Mariner, still in character after the performance, proclaimed, “It is very simple! and bounced over to LeVaseur for a comedic slap across his face.
The French artists involved, Gabriel LeVaseur, Patricia Mariner, Celine Naji and Bill, come from a different artistic backgrounds. Mariner is the group’s professional clown. Naji is an acrobat and LeVaseur is a musician and street performer.
The group worked together over four days to put together the performance which consisted of a variety of scenes, each imbued with warmth and comedy. Ordinary objects in the troupe’s hands took on new roles and meanings, transforming into birds, airplanes, automobiles and musical instruments. French artist Bill used an umbrella as a parachute, when forced to jump from an airplane with broomstick wings.
On their fanciful use of objects, Le Vaseur said, “For us, the clown is like a child. They can change reality with open imagination.
The group, he says, strives to “open the hearts of the young who are suffering from social problems. They have also devoted four nights of their time in Cairo’s informal neighborhoods and have worked with street children. “We go and see what they need, referring to both material resource and simple pleasure.
Picking up an empty bag of chips, Le Vaseur fashioned a small hand puppet.
“We use what is available, anything. He then proceeded to show a comedic “relationship between two glass bottles. “We don’t want to come here with expensive puppets and make people say, ‘wow’. We want to use simple objects, to show the children that anything can be used creatively.
Two of the local artists, Neama Mohsen and Shaker Said, are members of the Egyptian street theater group, El Khayaal El Shaabi. The third, Maysara Omar, a teacher who works with street children, has made her theatrical debut with this performance.
“We worked together beforehand for four days, from 10 am to 6 or 7 pm. The training was so different, said Said. “Clowns are not something that is [Egyptian]. We have a history of Aragoz and other street theater, but not clowns, so that was very new.
“There are also places I have never gone, never seen or thought to perform in, he said.
Omar was impressed with the combination of strengths on both the artistic and social levels. “The work of clowns, he said, “is very poetic and subtle. It is not just laughter.
Clowns Sans Frontiers are performing today at the Don Bosco institute, Shubra, 11 am and Shehab (NGO), Ezbet El-Hagana, at 3:30 pm.
