Hola a todos! PWB team Nicaragua has completed another week of our Leon project, and that was our final week of workshops and show preparation with Las Chavaladas and Ninos Del Fortin. It’s been challenging, heaps of silliness, and bittersweet as we near the end of this project, and I am here to tell you all about it. As they say in Nicaragua, Dale Dale! Let’s go!
We’ve completed our last week of workshops, and boy was it a lot of work! the best kind of work I might add. I’ve been thinking a lot about my purpose here and what being a volunteer means to me. One thing I can say is that the feeling of knowing that I’ve had a positive impact on a child’s life and that I’ve left them with new skills and happy memories is an affirmation to me that I am where I need to be. Yay social circus and making a positive impact in the world!
Okay okay, let’s get on with the blog update!
I have done a tour previously and have some experience with show development with kids, and there were many similarities with the creation process here vs. in India (I toured with PWB in India in 2015). One example is that there are always kids that may not want to participate, and are nervous to go on stage. I think the team did a great job accommodating the more reserved and shy kids. For instance, we noticed that the older kids didn’t always want to work with the younger ones at Ninos Del Fortin. A solution we came up with was to separate the older kids and let them create their own pieces, and the outcome of this was that more children were willing to participate in show development.
As a team it is very important to us that the kids enjoy participating in the show. We don’t want them to feel like we are forcing them to learn routines just because they should perform. That being said , we do our best to encourage and teach them new skills, and give them space to play and practice the things they want to. Most of our days of work last week consisted of physical warm ups, group games, rotating workshops, open box (kids can practice whatever they like at the stations provided), show development, and then a “show and tell” of the acts. Performing can be very intimidating, so we taught the kids a theatre exercise to get them warmed up for the stage. In this exercise, a person or a group of people walk onto the “stage”, acknowledge the audience, and then bow. We had the kids walk on stage with props to simulate what it would be like for them when they perform. A lot of them were shy to do this, but I think ultimately it helped them get a feeling for what it’s like to be on stage in front of heaps of people!
Happy hula hula playtime at Ninos Del Fortin!
Work with Ninos Del Fortin was a bit more challenging because of age differences and the amount of kids we work with there, but in the end we pulled together a handful of stellar silly acts! The Las Chavaladas boys were super keen on act creation and a few groups needed very little assistance creating clown + prop pieces! Personally I feel that all of the kids are rock stars and I am excited to see them do their thing on show day this upcoming Friday.
Helly hoops playing “Stacks on” with kids at Ninos Del Fortin!
PWB had a couple of stellar shows last week as well! Our first show was with Escuala Movil (mentioned in the previous blog post by Ivy). They drove us to a barrio they travel to and we performed our show in the middle of a dirt road with a super enthusiastic audience of adults, children, and many a passerby. There were multiple times during the show when we had to make way for vehicles and people, and that was the perfect time for us to practice improvisation! What do you do when a huge truck needs to pass through the middle of your street show?! You go with the flow, and direct them through with juggling clubs of course! The second show we did was in front of Las Chavaladas. It was a massive street show extravaganza! The road was blocked for us, we had a massive crowd, and an hour long pre show with a boomin’ sound system! This show was unique because we had a fire show after! I burned a dragon staff for the first time! We also got to play with a couple of our students at Las Chavaladas pre show, and it was so cool to see them in their element, smashing diabolo and some acrobatics with the team!
Show time!!
Post epic street show group photo, featuring Jacob basing one of our students Corbin in a two-high!
This week we have 4 days in a row of shows (11 total!) and then we have a big “Despadita” party with all the children at Ninos Del Fortin and Las Chavaladas. The party ends with the big show with out students, hooray! I know they’re going to be great! As much as I want to see them perform, I am much more excited to have another day of playtime with them. It will be the last time we see them on this project and I’ll miss making jokes with them, trying to have conversations in Spanish (getting many confused and funny looks along the way because of my broken Spanish/Spanglish), teaching workshops, and spending time with these Gems of Nicaraguan kiddos.
As I said before, it’s bittersweet. Life goes on, so Just keep swimming… and juggling 😉
-Sara Noelle
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