Imagine Durban Promotes Tomorrow's Clowns without Borders

Eureka! Imagine Durban Puts Smiles on Tomorrow’s Homegrown Clowns


Written by Marlan Padayachee
Monday, 22 December 2008
In its quest to make a difference to the city’s environmental and human landscapes, Imagine Durban has transformed the lives of several young people from previously disadvantaged and indigent communities through the drama therapy of simply clowning around for a worthy cause.
Step aside circus institution, Boswell Wilkies. Let the drums roll for a curtain call to Vuka Circus, Durban’s first, homegrown circus road show.
With jobs becoming scarce for young graduates and school-leavers amid a global recession and economic meltdown, Imagine Durban, in an exciting partnership with the internationally-renowned Clowns Without Borders, has successfully harnessed the untapped skills of eight youths from the Durban’s inner-city townships and other areas. After a month-long programme, including workshops in the art of clowning around, twisting a balloon, juggling in pairs and scaling new heights on the shoulders of clowning colleagues, Eureka!
Vuka Circus is the latest red-nosed brigade that’s on the roll to put smiles on the faces of men, women and children throughout Durban, from the historic heritage site of Bhambayi’s Gandhi Settlement to the Valley of 1000 Hills.
The Clowns Without Borders’ mentoring and skills development workshops with Vuka Circus is one of the central themes of Imagine Durban, a project led by the eThekwini Municipality, to celebrate Durban’s cultural diversity, arts and heritage.
Imagine Durban is a Municipality sponsored project being implemented in conjunction with Sustainable Cities, a Canadian NGO and the PLUS Network, a network of 35 cities in 14 countries that has been established to share experiences in sustainability planning, that is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency.
A core element of the Imagine Durban project was to allocate funding for community Demonstration Projects that would directly benefit the citizens of Durban in a sustainable way. There are currently eight Imagine Durban Demonstration Projects that will be implemented throughout the Municipality addressing issues ranging from public safety and food security to art and livelihoods.
With the launch of the first Demonstration Project, Vuka Circus has arrived. Through choreography of colourful antics, juggling, animation, acrobats and even scaling shoulders, Vuka Circus narrates the painful and poignant stories of the deadly scourge of HIV-Aids and the post-apartheid nightmare of xenophobhia that has blighted the new South Africa’s human rights image.
Vuka Circus performed the awareness raising show eleven times in early December. Nine of the performances were followed by workshops in which children were taught some clowning basics after which they were divided into groups and the performers facilitated a discussion about xenophobia.
Through the skilful antics of Busi Biyela or Bongekile Mabuya or Sipho Mdletshe, or Michael Ncayiyana’s red-nosed clowning, the juggling prowess of Sabee Shozi and Mduza Nzuza, Thandile Phoswa’s prancing in hoops of joy and jubilation, the rookie change agents animates the intolerance of humanity towards each other, the desperate scramble for bread crumbs in the shrinking food chain cycle and a dash for menial jobs in the marketplace.
“Clowns are far more than showing how to twist balloons or creating balloon sculpture and Clowns Without Borders, with the excellent support of Imagine Durban, has empowered Vuka Circus with new skills as clowns, acrobats and jugglers,” said Jamie Lachman, Founder and Director Clowns Without Borders South Africa, soon after his protégés delivered their final laugh-a-minute performance at the BAT Centre on the city’s waterfront recently.
“Through juggling, acrobats, games and some clowning, children learn in a fun way how to talk about the recent xenophobic attacks on foreigners and how to deal with the burning question of HIV-AIDS that continues to affect parents and guardians and leaves children orphaned.”
Project administrator Lulu Ngcobo says she has witnessed some “amazing transformation” in the scores of youths who have benefited from the road shows: “Imagine Durban has given us an excellent opportunity to source the best talents from communities that are sidelined from the social and economic mainstream. These free skills development opportunities has empowered youths with professional development and life skills and many of them are now much more versatile.
Eleven performances later, the colourful clown troupe that makes up the Vuka Circus has brought smiles and laughter to the children and adults in schools and communities across Durban, highlighting the pangs of a post-apartheid society caught in a grip of grinding poverty and unemployment. They left their audiences in stitches.