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Minirigs on Tour : with Performers Without Borders
http://performerswithoutborders.org.uk/
Greetings from hot dusty Nicaragua and the Performer Without Borders Team who have just started their second month on tour here. Our trusty set of Minirigs have travelled with us to be our main source of sound for shows and workshops over the next 3 months…and a month in we have already made good use of them, so far performing 5 shows in various locations including a bus terminal, a basketball court (great acoustics as it had a high roof), and several dusty courtyards! We have done over 20 workshops in the last 2 and a half weeks, plus a week of workshops at a Circus and Street Theatre Festival for artists from all over Central America, Mexico and beyond. Performer Without Borders (PWB) have been working for 8 years now, with our first 4 tours being based in India. We have grown over the last 2 years and this year have 3 different teams, working in 3 countries (India, Nicaragua and Sierra Leone). All 3 tours have a fantastic travel sized sound system with them, courtesy of Minirigs, consisting of 2 Minirigs and a subwoofer…this is a massive improvement on previous years, the first 5 tours of India we had to cart about a heavy, battery powered amp – on and off trains, in and out of rickshaws, taxis and buses – the teams always have bags of circus kit and all their own kit as well and provide quite a spectacle as they travel to and from shows and between different organisations.
PWB work in countries that have high rates of child poverty and teach children there circus and theatre skills to develop their learning, creativity and team work, as well as helping them build confidence, empowerment and help to realise their full potential. We build relationships with local organisations by returning to the same projects year on year and working with the same children to improve and develop their skills. Often the children we work with are from slum areas or have been taken in and off the streets by other NGO’s who provide a home, food and education for them. We provide something different, laughs and new abilities and skills that we hope leave the children with something new and special that they would not experience otherwise.
This is the second year we have visited Nicaragua, the 6th tour of India and 1st of Sierra Leone. I worked on the Nicaraguan project last year and it is an absolute pleasure and very rewarding to be back here again and seeing the the same children and young people and how much they have developed and improved, and to hear that they have been performing shows since last year as well. The teams we send out on tour are comprised of circus, music, dance and theatre practitioners from across the world who have applied to take part in PWB’s tours on a voluntary basis – PWB currently does not any funding to support our teams financially, and raise all the funds for our tours through events and private donors. We are lucky to be supported by various companies such as Minirigs, who are kind to our cause.
The experiences of a PWB tour are unique, giving volunteers a chance to develop their teaching and performance skills as well as personal growth and a once in a lifetime travel experience. No tours are the same, each one provides sights and sounds specific to the country and culture, and the volunteers get to experience life in another country in a way that most travelers do not, getting to know a local area, the children there and how they live.
This years tour of Nicaragua started on the beautiful pacific coast of Nicaragua in Las Peñitas. The team had 10 days of ‘Bootcamp’, time to create a show, get to know each other and work out what we will be teaching and sharing with the children this year. The Minirigs came into their own the first day, when we decided that dance would be something we could offer this year, and 2 of our members choreographed a dance routine for our show – a mash-up of Bollywood, ballet, vogue, thriller, the Macarena, too legit, Gangnum Style and the harlem shake…something that we have since found that the children love watching and seems to be a highlight of the show, despite only 2 of the team being trained dancers! We have a show that involves juggling, acrobalance, hula hoop, diabolo and slackline walking to name but a few of the skills. This show will be performed many more times in many locations, with the Minirigs accompanying us to all our outreach shows. The show last week in the local bus terminal was fantastic fun – a disused half finished building was our stage, surrounded by local shoe-shiners, market workers and the occasional drunk and street children who work or beg in the terminal, it went down a storm and we couldn’t have done it without our music set-up – it really makes the show – especially as only a couple of us are confident enough in spanish to be able to talk to our audiences, which is what performers normally do in street shows! Our mash-up dance is now being taught to the children in our first project, with their favorite part being the harlem shake – they all love dancing and daily request that we do the dance at the end. As well as taught sessions we do free play sessions with music playing to add to the fun it really is a sight to watch 40+ children practising circus and dance! I’m looking forward to next week, when the children will create their own show, which will be performed in their local barrio basketball court – we hope to parade there, accompanied by percussion, and then they will perform various numbers – including the dance one – to a soundtrack blasted out full volume from our sound set-up….Thank you Minirigs!