Welcome Dawn’s News Letter!

Life has been an adventure! In the past 8 months, I have traveled to 8 South American countries, Toronto, Quebec and Thailand. In these travels I met circus people all over the world, from those performers who work the street every single day, to taking workshops with famously talented jugglers, and I have been inspired! This is just a little update, and the beginning of a newsletter I hope to send out every few months.

The Busking Project

I had invited a few couch surfers to stay with me in Vancouver. The Busking Project was a small group who were filming the diversity of street performance throughout the world. They filmed the inevitability of artists to show their art, no matter the circumstances or challenges placed before them. Nick, Chris and Belle had been traveling for 7 months and through 25 different countries when I met them. They were very kind, hard working and exhausted from their travels. I believed they were slightly insane. Yet, somehow, they inspired a fire in me that I hadn’t felt in some time, and I excitedly told them how cool I thought they were. It was not long after that they had invited me with them to travel through South America. They had invited 2 other volunteers along as well, Mardy and Giles and the 6 of us went filming all the street performers we could find!

We traveled through so many places and each has its own unique character. Columbia had these amazing story tellers who were enchanting and thrilling to watch. The stories were so mesmerizing that the residents of Bogotá did not pay notice to the rain. In Peru we met traffic light jugglers who told stories of friends who’d died street performing. I was lucky to perform in Lima, as the audiences were both entertained and generous. The boarder between Bolivia and Peru has the greatest boarder crossing I have ever seen, filled with chickens, pushy Peruvian women in funny hats and a market on either side which would satisfy your need for any and all shamanistic recipes. Chile was a place filled with street performers and sunshine, of which gave us generous hospitality, welcomed us into their homes and allowed us to see their family lives. Buenos Aires had the most inspiring classic traffic clown with the most playful energy. Uruguay was small and we filmed a great musical act on a beautiful white sandy beach. Rio was filled with clown conventions, interventions a samba bands dancing in the rain. It was a wild trip, with a great team. I hope to continue to work with them in the future. There are already 140 shorts on their video channel, from all over the world. Seriously, this was the most inspiring trip of my life.

Check out a little video of the buskers on the trip: http://vimeo.com/33460544

http://www.facebook.com/thebuskingproject

SPARK! Circus

These Kids Are Amazing

www.sparkcircus.org

SPARK! Circus is a volunteer organization that travels through the migrant schools and refugee camps along the boarder of Burma. This was my second tour through this region, and I feel I have a deeper knowledge of the plight of the people, and the city they live in. Our team is 22 eager and hardworking people. Everyday we travel to schools to teach the children a variety of circus skills and perform shows to their delight. These children have suffered the traumas of war at their young age, and SPARK! serves them by showing them the joys of play. Our team this year came together like glue, and we were ready for anything together. SPARK! Is the most colorful bunch of people you have ever seen, driving through town in a huge clown car on the way to perform epic fire shows for anyone who will watch. We attended 30 schools and 1 refugee camp over the 30 days we toured together, sharing the joy on the children’s faces to the sadness of their stories together as one unit. There were some teary eyed goodbyes before we all returned to our home lives. There is nothing quite like returning to Canada after you have seen the oppression that comes from the inability to speak freely, and the after math of war that comes with it.

Up Next!

2012 MadSkillz Festival!

June 22-24 – Again but Better!

http://www.madskillzvancouver.com/

The MadSkillz festival is back in action! Our Vancouver juggling community has come together for its 3rd year to create space for the best flow arts skillz you have ever seen! This festival attracts jugglers, hoopers, poi spinners, freaks and geeks from around the region to come together to train and perform. We have a wide array of crazy circus people coming to celebrate the reincarnation of Vaudeville and live theater. We will be rocking out for 3 days at the CircusWest, which is in the PNE Garden Auditorium! We seriously look forward to 72 hours of training and skill sharing, and we wait for this moment all year!

Check out the trailer: http://youtu.be/J_3Vjq84pGY

Vancouver International Busker Festival!

Vancouver’s First Busking Festival!

It’s exciting that Vancouver’s Busker community has gathered a team together to begin what is inevitable, Vancouver’s First Annual Busker Festival. We are expecting a wide array of international buskers and talent to come here and entertain these city streets in July of 2012! The City of Vancouver has given us the reigns, and we are creating an atmosphere of music and charms, disarming performers and wild costumes throughout the downtown core. After chasing all those street performers in South America, I will get to have the rest of the world’s talent come to Vancouver! How wonderful it will be to share the best of this type of beauty and skill with all of my friends here at home.

Life is blessed and inspired with huge amounts of creativity, and beautiful teams of people. I am humbled every day by those I associate with, these folks are incredible! I will send more updates with they’re crazy tales in the future, until then, keep dreamin’

Dawn