Clown duo provides medicinal laughter

San Franciscan clowns Jon and Tyler ham it up. Photo by: CHARLOTTE DUCROT

via CAAI

Thursday, 25 November 2010 15:00 Emilie Boulenger

TYLER and Jon, two clowns from San Francisco who perform under the organisation Clowns without Borders will give a show on Sunday for the NGO Homeland, located in Battambang, which helps street children.

The two volunteer artists raised money in the United-States to attend Tini Tinou festival, organised by the NGO Phare Ponleu Selpak. The professional circus arts teachers are performing workshops at the festival as part of their work with their company called Pi.

The playful duo decided to kill two birds with one stone, spending time performing at schools and other centres for children in Phnom Penh and Battambang.

The clowns decided to contact Clowns without Borders, a group that brings levity, contemporary clowning and circus oriented performances and workshops into communities all around the world. The group’s aim is to celebrate together and forget for a moment the tensions that darken everyday lives.

Jon and Tyler, who regularly perform a clown cabaret at the Climate Theater in San Francisco, are definitely ready to bring laughter to the people of Cambodia.

So far, they have already performed two shows, one at A New Day Cambodia, an organisation that provides shelter, food and education to underprivileged children and another at an international school.

“I can’t fix teeth or do surgery so I thought I had to bring laughter,” says Tyler.

“Everybody needs to laugh. It’s a form of social healing and it’s a wonderful thing to make someone laugh,” adds Jon.

Funny faces and fake slaps seem to work with Khmer children, whose smiles definitely touched the two artists. There’s no doubt that the language of laughter is universal.