I personally know some people involved with them and donating their time to help out with shows in very risky areas of the world.
After hearing some of their stories I got a deep appreciation for the work they do, it might sound silly or borderline stupid to some people but to me it's such a beautiful social experience, to go into conflict areas, extremely poor regions of the world afflicted by disease and bring something that is pure joy to an audience that doesn't have access to that. There are some extremely beautiful souls volunteering for CWB, knowing their work won't solve any parts of their audiences' social situation but trying to give them inspiration to keep dreaming, I definitely feel something deep inside my soul was touched after meeting some of them.
Clowning in modern/new circus is much more related to physical comedy than to "traditional" clown as we expect. There are still some of the traditional roles like the whiteclown, the auguste, the character but they are reinvented/remixed with more outlandish comedy and acts like acrobatics and body tricks (one of the best clowns I've seen has some amazing ping-pong balls juggling with very physical acrobatics in them).
The people I know who worked in CWB have very different styles of clowning, they all work to adapt their acts to the local culture, it's really important for CWB volunteers to understand and cater to the local culture, they do research to avoid anything that could be remotely offensive, etc.
Just to source this a bit: my girlfriend is a circus artist here in Sweden so I have some insider view into it, it's actually a very fascinating part of the performing arts.
Looking at some of the videos and pictures, it seems they aren't always wearing what I'd call "stereotypical" clown outfits - just maybe some light makeup and clothes that clearly stand out, while they do "funny things". Juggling bowling pins and dropping them is probably universally understood, even if you have no idea what bowling is.
Funny to see CWB here. I ran into CWB's founder Moshe Cohen[1] at FOO Camp back in the 2006[2]. His performance there was sweet and funny. I had a coffee with him post-FOO too.
IMHO there are few nobler acts than going into high-conflict areas to help people reconnect with the inherent humanity in shared experience and laughter. The work CWB is doing is beautiful.
I used to work in the humanitarian sector, which is frankly a complete shit-show.
I once was drinking with our local EU humanitarian representative, a grizzled veteran of many missions. It's his job to oversee projects running on EU money, which is one of the largest chunks of any response. I really respected the guy, one of the smartest and capable people I met in the business.
He'd been in Haiti, which is famously one of the worst of the worst, and I asked him what the best piece of work he saw there was.
Without hesitation, he said it was these guys. Refugee camps can be bleak and miserable places, and he said that when CWB were doing their thing, the whole atmosphere lifted.
When we think about aid, we think about food and water and shelter, but we're dealing with normal people who've often been severely traumatised. It's hard to understate the value of work like this. Particularly when most of the aid-workers you encounter just wander around doing surveys asking the same questions the last lot did.
This took a solid ten minutes or so for my cynicism to die down, but I'm glad I took the time to read the comments because it is a deceptively good idea for people without a lot of hope or material benefits coming their way.
I wish them luck, this is probably a very difficult thing for volunteers to go and do
FWIW, they don't yet have a rating from Charity Navigator (note that this doesn't indicate anything negative, only that the org hasn't yet been evaluated):
There's quite a few of these circus outreach projects (off the top of my head I know performers without borders and the flying seagull project, but there are lots more) and they all seem to be small, scrappy, run by one or two long term organizers and with projects staffed by volunteers. It's not the type of charity that receives enough money to grow big enough to have the structure and paperwork that can be evaluated against the metrics used to judge larger organisations. I know that they often seek grants from larger charities and that requires a decent level of review & documentation.
Readit News
After hearing some of their stories I got a deep appreciation for the work they do, it might sound silly or borderline stupid to some people but to me it's such a beautiful social experience, to go into conflict areas, extremely poor regions of the world afflicted by disease and bring something that is pure joy to an audience that doesn't have access to that. There are some extremely beautiful souls volunteering for CWB, knowing their work won't solve any parts of their audiences' social situation but trying to give them inspiration to keep dreaming, I definitely feel something deep inside my soul was touched after meeting some of them.
The people I know who worked in CWB have very different styles of clowning, they all work to adapt their acts to the local culture, it's really important for CWB volunteers to understand and cater to the local culture, they do research to avoid anything that could be remotely offensive, etc.
Just to source this a bit: my girlfriend is a circus artist here in Sweden so I have some insider view into it, it's actually a very fascinating part of the performing arts.
IMHO there are few nobler acts than going into high-conflict areas to help people reconnect with the inherent humanity in shared experience and laughter. The work CWB is doing is beautiful.
1- https://moshecohen.net/about-2/
2- https://www.flickr.com/photos/dionh/226434543/in/photostream...
I once was drinking with our local EU humanitarian representative, a grizzled veteran of many missions. It's his job to oversee projects running on EU money, which is one of the largest chunks of any response. I really respected the guy, one of the smartest and capable people I met in the business.
He'd been in Haiti, which is famously one of the worst of the worst, and I asked him what the best piece of work he saw there was.
Without hesitation, he said it was these guys. Refugee camps can be bleak and miserable places, and he said that when CWB were doing their thing, the whole atmosphere lifted.
When we think about aid, we think about food and water and shelter, but we're dealing with normal people who've often been severely traumatised. It's hard to understate the value of work like this. Particularly when most of the aid-workers you encounter just wander around doing surveys asking the same questions the last lot did.
I wish them luck, this is probably a very difficult thing for volunteers to go and do
https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/204102508
That said, I do hope they get vetted soon, this is such a worthy cause and absolutely warms my heart.
https://anita.bertolami.net/project.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74qK0n8kA-w