Chapter 228: Corteo, the Clown and the Wayward Daughter

 

An advert for Cirque de Soleil's Corteo popped up on my Instagram feed earlier:

“Meet Mauro, the Dreamer Clown, watching his own funeral. He suits up to perform one last time, to dive into his memories, before ascending to the afterlife in a bittersweet farewell.”

A clown performing at his own funeral. (Click here for trailer )

It took me straight back to a book my mother gave me as a child, The Clown of God by Tomie dePaola.

Set in medieval Italy, it tells the story of a young juggling clown whose special trick is to cascade a myriad of colours until they whirl into a rainbow and then, with a flourish, “now, for the Sun in heaven,” a single golden ball tossed high into the air.

His fame grows. Then as the years pass it begins to wane, along with his skill. He drops the catch. No longer able to entertain, he grows old and poor and is chased from town to town, cold and hungry.

Until one Christmas Eve he takes shelter in a Franciscan church. Watching the beauty of the procession and the candlelit singing, he notices a statue of Mary and the Christ child looking far too solemn for his liking.

So he performs. One last time.

“And now, for the Sun in heaven.”

The following morning the friars find him dead at the foot of the statue. The Christ child is now smiling and in his outstretched hand is the golden ball.

I found that book again on Boxing Day when Mum asked me to look in the bookcase for a guide to Scottish birds she wanted passed on. 

“Do you remember getting this for me, Mum? Shall I read it to you for old times’ sake?”

I had forgotten what a tear-jerker it was. Thank goodness my eldest sister Jenny was there. I made it as far as the arrival at the church before becoming overwhelmed, my voice gave way and she quietly took over and finished it.

Conversation then turned to lighter things. My birthday was approaching, falling on my day off, and I was planning to come down to Petersfield to see Mum for lunch. After hearing her commiserate with another sibling about turning sixty, I wanted my slice of attention.

“Mum, when you next see me I’ll be fifty. What do you think of that?”

“Well,” she said drily, “with all your older siblings I should think you’ll be as smug as a bug in a rug!”

Only Mum went her own way in the New Year, and while I'd seen all the signs that this was to be our last Christmas together, nothing prepares you really.

So my fiftieth birthday began at dawn with me sitting cross-legged on the sofa rehearsing her eulogy for the following day, family memories lit softly by candlelight on the piano opposite. Later that morning, birthday life resumed. A circus cake stand and matching napkins from my sister. A Big Top lamp held open by the can-can of an acrobat called Lucy. Balloons and bunting. After a family lunch out locally, a Gibbon board was waiting on the doorstep, a portable slackwire decorated with butterflies.

Mum had taught me butterfly kisses when I was small. The Saturday after she died, a bouquet labelled “The Butterfly Kiss” appeared anonymously on my doorstep. Since then turquoise butterflies have surfaced in small places. On a smart supermarket bag. In a birthday print. On a card from my department covered in messages of support. I am told such things are common after loss, and with my Dad it was, and still is, the garden robin.

It is perhaps ironic that I grew up with The Clown of God, because while Mum had a great sense of fun she was not a fan of circus. A childhood visit to a big top had terrified my older siblings and was not to be repeated. Yet years later, after a major operation in her eighties, I found her in a hospital bed reading about Giffords Circus in The Lady, delighted by anecdotes about Tweedy the Clown, a fellow Scot.

Mum loved the ballet, especially the world of Frederick Ashton, whom she had met over lunch in Washington DC in the 1950s. La Fille mal gardée was the soundtrack of our school runs and she would waltz the car along country lanes in time (Click here for Will Tucker's expert clowning in the The Clog Dance), accelerating over bridges at my request so my stomach flipped. Perhaps the circus began there.

Years later at the Royal Opera House watching the ballet, after I had liberally spritzed some Pomegranate Noir during the interval, she was highly amused when the couple behind tapped her shoulder.

“So… is this your wayward daughter then?!”

I really was my mother’s wayward daughter, la fille mal gardée. She had to scoop me out of A&E several times and put up with me running off to Cuba, learning to fly, joining the circus, sailing round the world en famille and generally living at full tilt. And yet, for all my wandering, she was always the steady centre, my lighthouse, guiding home. 

Mum had a complete life, leaving behind six children, sixteen grandchildren and a further sixteen great-grandchildren. When we gathered to say goodbye, the tone was one of gentle presence, quiet dignity and stoicism, so entirely in keeping with her spirit. Being the youngest of six, it was a real privilege that my siblings entrusted the eulogy to me, and this time my voice did not give way. When I stood to speak, the tightness in my chest and the jelly legs from minutes earlier dissolved into something steadier. The liminal space where balance lives. A place of flow.

Mum used to say, “Lucy always has to have the last word.” And this time, I spoke for us all.

I remember years before seeing the musical Barnum with my sister Jenny at the Chichester Festival Theatre. It strikes me now that Mum had much in common with Charity Barnum, the grounded, pragmatic foil to the big-top bravado of Phineas Taylor. Towards the end, when Charity dies in her husband's arms, the stage falls dark and small tealights begin to glow like fireflies while Barnum reprises The Colours of My Life. Thinking of that moment gets me every time. Looking back at Barnum and at The Clown of God, it strikes me that those stories were early rehearsals. I did not know then how much they were preparing me. Teaching me how to let go. Circus has always known how to bow out. To release light into darkness. To send colour upward one final time. That really is the power of the arts. A rehearsal both for life, and for death.

“And should this sunlit world grow dark one day, the colours of her life will shine a quiet light to lead the way...”

Katharine Ann Margaret
Dearest Mum

8 July 1931 – 11 January 2026

Chapter 227: Stranger Things are happening...

 

This is a wandering piece, written at a threshold moment. I'm not sure where it is all going, but following a thread (Ariadne's?!) and a couple of loops back in time...

Opening Are the Double Doors of the Horizon

Some mornings feel electrically charged, as though the air itself is waiting for something to happen. New Year’s Eve has that quality, a thinning of the veil, a sense that stories are about to cross over.

It’s New Year’s Eve 2025. At 1 a.m. tomorrow, the final episode of Stranger Things will be released, suspended between one year and the next, a threshold moment if ever there was one.

At the weekend, an Instagram post from LA Opera popped up and quietly detonated my sense of narrative closure. Does Philip Glass’ opera Akhnaten reveal how Stranger Things will end? it asked. The caption explained that Glass’ music threads through the series, including excerpts from Akhnaten, The Window of Appearances and Akhnaten and Nefertiti. Happily, I missed most of the explanations and watched the second half of the season in one fell swoop that evening, searching for clues of my own.

I have returned to Stranger Things after skipping a few seasons through my youngest, through school, through cultural osmosis, more than anything else. As a languages teacher, speaking the lingo matters. So in the run-up to Christmas, in lesson-time I had flashing technicoloured bulbs that could increase in intensity (¡ojo! se acercan los demogorgons…), and in the final class we decoded the Stranger Things secret message illuminating the street in Madrid’s festive Postigo de San Martín.

Timing is everything. Like the lights themselves, it’s clever the way the episodes have been strung out, tension stretched, held, then released, like any circus act worth its sawdust and stars. I hadn’t realised one final door would be left unopened, waiting for the wee hours after midnight.

The music draws me in too. Those soundtracks open a familiar door, the 1980s humming just beneath the surface. But it was the Akhnaten connection that split the frame entirely, widening the field.

Years earlier, as a student in Spain, I spent time living with a Sufi and hung out with her friends. I learned to listen for what sits beneath the story, the messages folded inside other messages, the seriousness that plays at being light. It’s a way of seeing that lingers, leaving you Rumi-nating on meaning, truth, and whatever waits quietly at the heart of antimatter.

Serendipity did the rest. I hadn’t twigged that the LA Opera post was a cover image followed by explanations, so I spent the evening tracing patterns without a map. Instagram became a gameboard, tagging, replying, playful call and response. A friend shared a skit about Vecna’s beauty routine and suddenly it clicked. The costume. A dead ringer for Gandini Jugglers in Akhnaten. I laughed out loud.

Then came the moment.

In an alternate reality, as Heart and Soul drifted over the sound of children playing, I was taken back to learning on the piano, duetting with my sister. Had I unwittingly been playing Philip Glass all along?! I’d assumed it was Gandini Juggling who introduced me to his music. 

And yes, it all comes back to circus. Stranger things have happened.

My introduction to Glass came on Mother’s Day, when juggler José Triguero announced a Glass homage performance with Gandini Juggling at the British Museum, part of a community initiative ahead of Akhnaten opening at the English National Opera the following month.

After clowning around in a red nose with a daffodil, to the delight of my littlest, I legged it with her elder sister to Russell Square to watch.  Click here: Chapter 133 - Mother's Day at the British Museum.Blown away by the music as much as by the notes and spheres released, suspended and whirling through the air, there was a sense of inevitability.  

One of my dearest friends, Carolyn, partner in crime on so many adventures, is obsessed with Glass. He is her circus. Still, we couldn’t quite justify a night at the opera. As the final performance approached, the sense of something slipping away grew unbearable. So we went for it.

The last two tickets in the house. Right up in the gods, known in French as Les Enfants du Paradis. The phrase also names the classic film I was first introduced to by circus performer Hamish Tjeong, and which later resurfaced, beautifully reimagined by Giffords Circus.

[Shhh! cabaret 2016 on Youtube  / Click here: The making of Giffords Circus "Les Enfants Du Paradis"]

We were rows apart until a sweet student visiting from China noticed our predicament and graciously moved so we could sit together.

Exhausted, mother of three, moonlighting in circus, necking back bubbles like water, I nodded off at points and surfaced again in the most surreal dreamscape. Akhnaten is trippy like that. At the curtain call, I snapped a photo of the cast and inadvertently captured Glass himself, standing quietly at the centre. One for posterity.Click here: Chapter 136 - Akhnaten and Gandini Juggling

Later came lockdown. We signed up to the Met Opera app and Akhnaten went on repeat. The children drifted in and out. It became part of their sonic landscape, up there with Bowie, Dylan and Queen.

The opera was directed by Phelim McDermott. His wife, Matilda Leyser, later directed an exhibition on circus and motherhood at the Roundhouse.Click here: Chapter 142 Me Mother.

A year or two later, McDermott and Glass worked in New York with my niece, set designer Fly Davis (see www.flydavisdesign.com), on a piece for that premiered at the Manchester International Festival about reaching into people in comas through music, rather than bringing them out. Sounds familiar?

I chatted to her about it yesterday morning, after having taken my Qi Gong practice outdoors for once, by our Common pond. Akhnaten is, after all, a work of sun worship, and standing there at sunrise, before a conference of birds, time seemed to slow itself right down. The piece, The Tao of Glass, turns out to be returning to the UK this July, landing in the West End. One to watch out for. ¡Ojo! Encore. As is her current show 

One of the goosebump moments in Akhnaten for me comes when Zachary James’ baritone booms out, “Open are the double doors of the horizon”. The line lodges itself in the body. It has become a family refrain, spoken half in jest, half in reverence. So when he returned to the West End as Hades in Hadestown (meet him as Hades by clicking here), I had to get there.

Watching it, I realised the pull was the same. Akhnaten and Nefertiti. Hades and Persephone. And only last night, thought of Ram and Sita too, whose homecoming is marked by Diwali, the festival of light. The wooden carving we brought back from Ubud many moons ago has sat quietly in our bedroom for years, though I am only just beginning to understand the the twist in the story it carries, including its complications. Different cosmologies, same geometry. A descent, an exile, a return. Light leaving, light restored. Death not as an ending, but as a doorway.

The release of LUX last month has further stoked the fire. An album of sex, desire and violence, rooted in twelve female mystics, it moves between booming orchestral passages and flamenco flame. It feels less like a collection of songs than a sustained act of illumination. Ego sum nihil, ego sum lux mundi, she sings. I am nothing. I am the light of the world.

That line lands somewhere I recognise. Luceo non uro, I shine, I do not burn, my Scottish mother’s clan motto. Different herstories, arriving at the same understanding. This is where Celt meets duende.

Once you start listening that way, the same refrain surfaces everywhere. In Madeleine Peyroux' song Anthem, or ,Leonard Cohen lyrics. Further back still, in Hemingway. The idea that we are cracked, broken open, and that this is precisely how the light finds its way in. Different voices, different centuries, tuning into the same frequency, using art to amplify the signal.

I began For Whom the Bell Tolls in Spain while my father was dying. We visited Ronda, both the novel’s setting and the place where my father proposed to my mother, third time lucky. Akhnaten opens with a funeral. Death stalks Stranger Things. But so does light.

That, I think, is the point. Perhaps the universe has only a handful of messages at its core, and artists simply learn how to listen. They catch the signal, surf the (radio)wave, and amplify.

As we step cautiously into a new year, gently and slowly, aware that while there is much to be thankful for, many friends are weathering difficult chapters, and I have a couple of my own, I return to that feeling from this morning. The air charged. The veil thinned.

Whatever you are juggling, may the music and the light be with you.

It wouldn't exist without the shadows.

Happy New Year. Here’s to a opening the next chapter...

Chapter 226: The Odd Ones

 

The Odd Ones – Finding Flow

“The Odd Ones is a show about the differences of people. A social and physical dance about finding your place in a group, being authentically you, and about the adaptations we all have to manage when being with others.”

 Simon Granit Ossoinak, director and co-creator with Stasy Terehhova and Cristian Boscheri<
co-produced with Circusstad, and Perplx, a circus production hub and workspace for contemporary cirucs in Flanders.

https://www.simongranit.com/creations   For The Odd Ones video trailer on Vimeo click here..

It was a school night, and I was exhausted. My Year 10s have been practising dialogues about turning down invitations, and I had every excuse lined up myself: recovering from back surgery, lessons to prep, books to mark, supper to cook. Only curiosity won. 

The title The Odd Ones had me from the start. Circus is full of odd ones, my tribe of free spirits exploring the edges of what’s possible. And there was more: a long-overdue catch-up with Ade Berry, Artistic Director of Jackson’s Lane, and another dear friend, Lucy, a fellow teacher and circus lover who had never yet seen a show there. The promise of a large glass of wine, good company, and something strange and beautiful tipped the scales.

Lucy and I sank into our seats, two weary teachers on a school night, and of course a family of four children settled right in front of us. I nudged Lucy, and she winked as if to say, “So much for our night off!” The glimmer of a grinch was short-lived; the kids were immaculately behaved, eyes wide with curiosity. When their mother turned round to ask what was happening after the show and I mentioned the Q&A, her son’s face lit up. “That’s like behind the scenes?” he whispered, as if I’d handed him the universe’s best secret.

The lights dimmed.

Simon moved first, gliding diagonally across the floor, hands and feet crossing in counterpoint as if rewriting gravity. Perhaps it was knowing his Finnish heritage, my mind leapt northward to Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights, to the mulefa, those strange wheeled creatures whose movement is both awkward and sublime. Then came Stasy, spinning serenely, a whirling dervish lost in her own orbit. Cristian followed, hesitant and angular, all elbows and knees, looping a strap round himself until he tangled in a gangly knot. If Mr Bean had studied under Alexander Vantournhout  (see post Chapter 129 on Aneckxanderr) this would be his act. Deadpan, elastic, and utterly captivating. The audience chuckled, drawn in.

The opening unfolded through solos and duets, one performer always slightly the odd one out. Cristian’s awkwardness marked him first, but what struck me wasn’t his oddness so much as his awareness of it. Stasy’s otherworldliness offered counterbalance, coaxing him out through quiet grace and warmth. Simon, by contrast, was a storm of cartwheels, flips, and lightning energy.

As the show evolved, their quirks began to echo, overlap, and finally blend. They mimicked, borrowed, and absorbed one another’s movements until difference became dialogue. Cristian’s journey wasn’t about changing who he was but recognising his own power. Stasy grounded the chaos; Simon fractured and reformed the rhythm with impulsive energy that drove the dynamic forward.

I really enjoyed how the show carried the imprint of street theatre and that direct, unguarded dialogue between movement and emotion. Cristian’s breakdancing brought a raw, syncopated energy that made his awkwardness even more expressive, speaking in its own rhythm, a physical language that slipped between vulnerability and humour. He’s an extraordinary physical actor, disjointed yet fluid, comic yet tender, folding the rhythm of the street into the discipline of the stage.

Beneath it all pulsed a score of loops, synths, and heartbeat rhythm. In the Q&A later, we learned the composer Stijn van Strien (see soundcloud - click here) had spent two decades as a DJ, and you could feel it. The music didn’t accompany the piece; it shaped it. The performers moved with and against its current, sometimes gliding in sync, sometimes breaking away into silence. That conversation between beat and body, pulse and pause, became its own choreography.

Cristian and Simon wove through one another, arms and legs interlaced in a human puzzle, pausing in mirrored curiosity as if to ask, “Where do I begin and you end?” Stasy crouched low, testing her balance, then Simon lifted her, placing her lightly on Cristian’s curved back where she hovered in improbable stillness.

Later, the trio sat in a row, legs scissoring like a living Newton’s cradle, momentum rippling down the line. Another sequence had them leaning back, spine to spine, a bendy domino chain. When Cristian, the tallest and least flexible by circus standards, couldn’t find the angle, they simply switched places, adapting and supporting, making space for one another’s limits.

Then came the collision. Simon launched himself full force into Cristian’s arms. It looked aggressive but wasn’t; it was an explosion of energy seeking containment. Cristian caught him with quiet steadiness, and the gesture became a metaphor for community, for how we hold each other’s wildness and create soft landings.

As their bodies found unison, something otherworldly emerged. Their limbs intertwined until they resembled a multi-limbed creature, part Geek Love freak, part Malik Ibheis dreamscape, grotesque yet tender, absurd yet beautiful. It was a choreography of difference refusing categorisation.

Each performer spoke a different language - parkour, ballet, breakdance, clowning, mime - but over time those dialects merged. Mimicry became empathy. By the end, there was no longer an odd one out. The friction and laughter had given way to flow. What began as three distinct bodies became one evolving rhythm. The Odd Ones turned out not to be about strangeness, but connection.

---

Creation and Conversation

In the Q&A, the company spoke with Artistic Director Ade Berry about how The Odd Ones came to life. It began as a development of Simon’s graduation solo, sparked when he mimicked a fellow performer’s clowning moves and then developed from there the thought of how “oddness” exists in contrast with others, hence the desire to expand from solo to collective. The dramaturgy sketched out as an arc that and detail developed as through the dynamic between the performers as they responded to the kind of open-ended questions that fuel creative process: What happens if I push here? If I mirror
you? If I try that again? Slowly, a pattern began to breathe.

The piece evolved over eight weeks between September and May, shaped by three “outside eyes.” One explored teamwork and trust, another, coming from a street theatre background, focused on emotion and how it’s carried through movement, while the third refined choreography and light. The use of lighting praised by audience members in the Q&A.

Stasy, clearly an introvert, admitted she was more comfortable moving than talking, yet she spoke with the same quiet eloquence she brings to her body. She described how they built sequences that showcased each performer’s strengths while transforming their weaknesses into points of connection. Cristian spoke of trust, of how exaggerating real interactions onstage revealed truth through play. Ade picked up on that thought, noting that adulting consists in (re)connect to that the inner child.

Simon agreed. “The choreography might not change,” he said, “but we do.” Each night they inhabit the same structure yet find new selves within it. That evolution, he added, came in part from asking their parents about childhood quirks and folding those memories back into their characters. 

This morning, reading Philippa Perry’s latest on Substack, I found her reflection on annata, the Buddhist idea of “no fixed self”, echoes that same philosophy.

“The self isn’t a solid, unchanging thing you can pin down once and for all. Instead, you are a flow of sensations, thoughts, feelings, and memories that come together in this moment. You don’t have to uncover one perfect, authentic self and defend it forever. You can allow yourself to change and to keep discovering yourself.”

That is precisely what The Odd Ones celebrates: belonging without erasing difference, and identity not as a fixed point but as something found in motion.

Afterwards we all decamped to the pub. It was a joy to meet Simon, Cri and Stasy, exhausted yet energised. It was great as well to meet Charlie Holland in person, former juggler and one-time programme director at Circus Space, now circus historian, writer, and reviewer of London shows for Kate Kavanagh’s The Circus Diaries. He is also the biographer of The Marvellous Craggs, soon to be published.

Together we raised our glasses, kippis, to the odd ones everywhere.

A Teacher’s Eye

With both parent and teacher hat on, I recognised the personalities on stage instantly. Stasy’s gentle introspection, Simon’s impulsive curiosity, Cristian’s shy clown.. I see that spectrum every day: daydreamers adrift in thought, ADHD whirlwinds unable to sit still because the world moves too slowly, anxious thinkers threading their way through the noise, my classroom in motion.

Circus understands that world. It gives permission to be fully human, to fidget, to fail, to connect.

Simon mentioned that in Sweden, the state shares half the cost with schools to bring performances like this to students. How I wish that were possible here. The Odd Ones would speak to my students, not just those with identified needs, but every teenager caught between Who am I? and Where do I belong?

The next morning, still glowing from the night before, I brought trailer and discussion of The Odd Ones into my Year 10 Spanish lesson. I wrote them a short dialogue for translation inspired by the evening that dovetailed neatly into their current topic; we laughed and talked about what it means to take risks and be seen.

With our World Languages Day coming up, celebrating over a hundred heritages, I’ll remind them of this piece, how Italian, Swedish-Finnish, Estonian, and Dutch performers can move together seamlessly, switching between languages of body and speech. My own Swedish and Italian students in year 7 were glowing that morning too when I showed them the clip, proud to see their cultures, as well as natures, reflected. They stayed behind at break for an encore! 

Coda:

I came to Jackson’s Lane for the play, but also because I knew Ade is leaving after eighteen years as Artistic Director, and that is a fact he mentioned in the Q&A. Ade has been instrumental in forging international circus links, travelling the world and building bridges, especially with the Finnish Institute. Those connections have shaped my own life: from seeing Ilona Jäntti dancing in the woods, to learning “kippis!” from Sakari Männistö and marvelling at the whole Gandini juggling; to Onni Toivonen bringing the house down in the first Shhh!  cabaret ( see post: click here - thanks to Hamish Tjeong for the introduction) that I curated for Jacksons Lane two years running; to the warmth of acro-duo Sasu Peistola & Jenni Lethinen and the sublime Hanna Moisala, from shibari to tightwire. And of course, the Moomins, I will get to Jacksons Lane for that Christmas show! Through it all runs a thread of oddness, maybe the very thing that drew me, Little My. While really I was too caught up in its flow with Ade and Lucy, pictured below, to feel maudlin at the time, there was a certain poignancy. A wondering. Will that connection remain? Watch this space...

Chapter 225: Sand by Kook Ensemble

 

I have been turning over memories of Sand by Kook Ensemble, the creation of Sean Kempton and Michaela O’Connor, ever since I saw it with my daughter back in June at Jacksons Lane. Devon, where the show is set, has always been a mythic county for me. My parents lived there by the sea when they were first married, after they met in the Navy. As the youngest of six, born almost two decades after my eldest sibling, I grew up hearing Devon stories and always felt a kind of yearning to know the parents of those days too.

I finally got to Devon back in 2019, the summer we returned from sailing. I was staying with friends in the National Park and nipped over to Barnstaple with the kids to see Sean and Michaela’s A Simple Story. A family piece with their daughter Chloe at its heart, carrying the teasing subtitle you’d expect from a couple of clowns: Two Idiots Raising a Genius, which delighted my own kids too. It was lovely to meet Sean’s parents afterwards, and I remember him talking about Devon beaches near home with such affection, but ran out of time to make my way to the coast. So back in June this year at Jacksons Lane, when Sand opened with gulls, breaker posts and sandbanks, I really was transported.

The power of memory is central to Sand, only ironically I can’t remember where I’ve put the notebook where I jotted down all my impressions that night on the tube journey home. Now, months on, I find myself travelling by train again, notebook in hand (on the cover of which reads "Creative Ramblings of a Restless Mind"!) reconstructing the evening, this time on my way to see my mum. At ninety-four she still has a prodigious reach into the past yet is increasingly both frustrated by and resigned to what she calls her “glitches” of short-term memory. We watched my father fade gently just past one hundred, ebbing and flowing like the tide.

The show begins at breakfast. A clock ticks. Dylan juggles with a boyish persistence, trying to coax a smile from Heather, who sits staring blankly at her newspaper. The effort is comic at first, his tricks bumbling and bright, but something hovers just beyond reach. The clock keeps watch over them, its steady hands a reminder that time itself is part of the story and later those hands will be shifted back and forward, as if memory could be rewound or hurried on.

From there, the story unspools across two timelines. The young lovers meet by chance in a supermarket, a tin of beans passed between them like fate disguised in groceries. What follows is a rush of play, flirtation and trust and mirroring of past and future selves: a grace of bodies tumbling in turn in acrobatic rolls down a dune (my favourite part), juggling that becomes courtship, a hand caught mid-fall that steadies into intimacy. At one point they build a precarious human pyramid, the kind of trick that depends utterly on balance and trust, before collapsing back into laughter. A clowning streak runs through their encounters, never undermining the tenderness but grounding it.

Between the older couple there is both tenderness and the shadow of dissonance. A breakfast ritual slips into confusion when incongruous objects are placed into the bowl. The older Heather steadies the older Dylan as though her whole frame has become scaffold and anchor. A chair becomes a barrier between them, a piece of furniture suddenly charged with all the frustration of not being able to connect. At another point the younger couple take shelter under an umbrella as the older Dylan rains down sand from above. The phrase "brain like a sieve" springs to mind, and it occurs to me here that the umbrella is a sieve is upturned and lined with memories as a barrier, but while memory gives some respite and shelter, ultimately it cannot stop the downpour. 

And then, in a moment of startling delicacy, a single feather is set adrift. Audience members in the front rows lean forward and puff it back into the air. What might have been a standard clown gag with a balloon became something else: a reminder that memory is sustained not by weight but by breath, by the lightness of being recalled and retold. Without that, it will simply drift away.

The performances are finely tuned. Myles MacDonald’s older Dylan clowns with a fumbling sweetness that makes the moments of forgetfulness hit harder. Dilly Taylor’s older Heather holds her ground with a resigned compassion, her body taut with both love and weariness. Álvaro Grande’s young Dylan brims with physical energy, throwing himself into acrobatics with a kind of reckless joy, while Ebony Gumbs’s young Heather moves with lyric grace, her aerial sequences suspending her between flight and rootedness. Together they create a dialogue across time, a sense of selves that are continuous and fractured all at once.

At one point, the younger and older pairs shadow one another so closely it feels as though memory itself has conjured them, doubling across generations. It made me think not only of my parents but of my son too. Just this weekend a cousin over supper remarked not only on how much my son resembles his father, but also how the way he and his girlfriend were interacting reminded her of us. That doubling of likeness, gestures, and intimacies felt like an echo of what unfolded on stage, where love and memory ripple forward even as they return.

The sand itself is both material and metaphor, and the most striking image comes near the end, when the older Dylan juggles balls that crumble in his hands, grains scattering in concentric circles as he whirls them round. It crystallises the whole piece in one gesture: beauty dissolving even as you try to hold it, “like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel.” That line, from the song The Windmills of Your Mind, came back to me on another journey to Mum’s this summer, when a cover by Jacqui Dankworth (daughter of Cleo Laine and Jonny Dankworth) played on the radio in the home stretch. Her version, with a flamenco-style improvisation that broke the song apart mid-way through, remade it into something both yearning and unsettled. The lyrics turn on a single image. That was Sand... lingering in the way love and memory ripple forward, keeping us connected as the seasons turn, and reminding us that, like a feather on a breath, what we share keeps us uplifted.

Footage of show and audience feedback:  click here
Photography: Roy Riley www.kookensemble.com

Chapter 222: The Juggling Saint

 

Normally, the only thing I celebrate on 31st January each year is my sister’s birthday. But this year is a little different. A few weeks ago, I found myself in a school hall, listening to a headteacher introduce some professional training to staff. He began by showing us a picture of a juggler, a tightrope walker, and a magician’s hat and asked what they had in common.

Me! I thought. Obviously!  But nobody there knew me as "Lucy Loves Circus". Circus in general? Too obvious… what’s the trap?!  While I paused to consider, a hand shot up.

"Don Bosco!" came the confident (and correct) answer.

Wait... what?! I was both surprised and curious.

I had heard of Don Bosco before: an Italian priest famous for his work with disadvantaged and at-risk young people. "It is not enough for a child to be loved; they must know they are loved," is one of his key quotes. I was fortunate to experience that knowledge first-hand, both at home and at the two convent schools that educated me.

The first convent, though located in Sussex, was home to 26 Southern Irish Sisters of Mercy, and if you’ve ever watched Derry Girls (though set north of the border) you’ll get the gist in terms of sharp humour, no-nonsense wisdom, and plenty of stories about the lives of saints and miraculous happenings. They certainly had my measure. I can still hear our very own Sister Michael, declaring, "Lucy Young, get up off that wet grass this minute, or it'll be another little holiday you'll be wanting...!"

The second convent, run by IBVM sisters (now the Congregation of Jesus, CJ), had a different character, was more progressive in style and approach. In place of the traditional habit and wimple, the sisters wore home clothes, with a simple cross quietly marking their vocation. Being introduced there to the writings of Anthony De Mello bringing together Eastern and Western Christian spirituality (prayer through yoga, breathwork, and meditation) made a lasting impression, as did the strong emphasis on thoughtful reflection and questioning. One of the sisters even taught me to gate vault on long country walks in the hills, which was my first experience of legs flying over a bar, long before trapeze.

Both schools had one thing in common: aside from the fact they were also staffed by lay people of both sexes, it was the nuns who set the ethos. They were fiercely strong, opinionated women who had no qualms about speaking their minds, were fabulous raconteurs (raconteuses?!), and were devoted to the principle that faith seeks reason, to quote St. Anselm.

But back to today’s saint: Turin-born St. John Bosco (“Don” being the title for Italian priests), known as the juggling saint. A century before my own education, he pioneered teaching methods that were innovative for his time, combining reason, religion, and kindness, prioritizing prevention over punishment. As a boy, he had been fascinated by local carnivals and fairs, teaching himself to juggle, perform magic tricks, and cross a tightwire. These were skills he later used in the classroom to inspire his students and ignite their imaginations.

He founded the Salesians of Don Bosco, a religious order dedicated to education and vocational training for young people, particularly the poor, inspired in turn by St. Francis de Sales, the 16th-century saint renowned for his gentleness. And, fittingly, the patron saint of writers, journalists… and, I imagine, bloggers.

---

Playing around with ChatGPT the other evening, I tried generating an image to share with the Salesian school community I had met, celebrating their patron saint’s circus spirit on this his feast day. But the AI kept inserting macabre details (memento mori imagery, particularly skulls) despite my prompts to remove them.

ChatGPT’s algorithms had a point. A saint’s feast day commemorates the day they died rather than the day they were born. As I’ve just discovered, rather belatedly, their death is seen as their dies natalis ("birthday into heaven"), marking their entry into eternal life with God.

For me, the AI’s eerie insistence on memento mori wasn’t entirely out of place. Classical philosophers embraced it as a reminder that we all die, not to instill despair, but to sharpen our focus on what truly matters. Seneca used it to avoid procrastination. For Marcus Aurelius, it gave life purpose. Epictetus taught that by keeping death in mind, we free ourselves from unnecessary distractions.

However, wary of how this might land with pupils, I kept trying to edit out the skulls and getting increasingly frustrated with each prompt revision, culminating (sixth or seventh attempt) with an exasperated: “NO, NO, I SAID REMOVE THE BLOODY SKULLS!!! …please!” It still didn’t register. Maybe I was too polite. Or overdid the exclamations!

In the end, I took matters into my own hands, quite literally, transferring the image to PowerPoint and using some copy and paste to cover the unwanted details with flowers. While Don Bosco might have approved of my sleight of hand, it was probably not very Stoic.

---

My stubborn battle against macabre imagery reminded me of another meditation on impermanence. Recently, I listened to The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh, the Bhuddist monk who was a Nobel Prize nominee (nominated by Martin Luther King) and Global Peace Prize Winner. He describes a practice among young monks in training: meditating on their own mortality, visualizing their bodies decomposing, flesh returning to the earth, until nothing remains but dust. Morbid as it sounds, such reflections lead not to fear, but to a deeper embrace of life. Carpe diem.

On that note, Don Bosco also urged: “Do good while you still have time.” That phrase has been on my mind lately, as I approach a milestone birthday and feel an increasing urgency to get my words out, especially as my back struggles to keep up with my energy levels, and I find myself on standby for surgery, a stark reminder of time’s passage.

So, in writing this, what began with a professional development anecdote has taken me on a diversion, and it is  one with all the fun of the fair! Teaching, in many ways, is its own kind of circus act. We juggle responsibilities: lesson planning, pastoral care, endless administrative tasks. We walk a tightrope balancing discipline with encouragement, structure with spontaneity.

Doing a litte more exploring this week, I discovered the Circo Social Saltimbanqui in Córdoba, Argentina. It is a Salesian social circus that embodies Don Bosco's legacy by using circus arts to engage and uplift young people. This initiative not only preserves the spirit of Don Bosco's innovative educational methods but also resonates deeply with my own personal Trinity: All things Spanish-speaking, the circus arts and my own speculative pilgrimage of faith.

Reflecting on all this, I realize that the best educators are those who not only see the wonder in the world but also find creative ways to communicate and share it. Don Bosco's transformation of a childhood fascination into a life-changing philosophy serves as a powerful reminder of the impact that passion, when combined with purpose, can have on the lives of young people worldwide. 

Click here: Circo Social Saltambanqui

Chapter 221: Magnificent Zippos Encore!

It was another quiet May morning strolling down Althorpe Road towards Wandsworth Common. On a breeze floated a few petals from the cherry blossom, scented with a touch of jasmine. But what really put a spring in my step was the sight at the end of the street of a red and white candy-striped awning of the prettiest tent in the South. MAGNIFICENT Zippos Circus was back!

This is a special year for Zippos. They have just been awarded the Big Top Label, the Michelin star of the circus world and the only British circus to earn it. Not only that, this year marks the 50th anniversary in entertainment of Martin Burton, aka Zippo the Clown. I will never forget a chance conversation about him with a visiting emeritus Oxford professor, over from the US to teach English at Wadham College for the semester. When circus cropped up in conversation, as it tends to with me, he recounted how his tutor in his Oxford days had been Burton's father-in-law, who said to him, "Some people say their son-in-law is a clown... mine really is!"

Funny that last year the show was called Nomads as this year we, in the audience, were a pretty well-travelled bunch: we went as a family with my husband's Flemish cousins, newly arrived in London after years living in Hong Kong, friends of theirs over from Belgium, my husband’s nieces over from Switzerland, and aerialist friend Isabella over from East London, who I met through doing aerial at National Circus and who has made both my own tightwire boots and aerial gaiters (check out magical world at www.isabellamars.com. A few days later I went back for an encore with my friend Sam, whose husband Jon taught me fire-juggling, and whose gift of a circus girl pendant was my talisman sailing round the world, and beyond. A week later, I went back for the hat trick. This time with a colleague from my teacher-training days in Camberwell, another Lucy. Lucy is the most creative DT and art teacher, and we had met originally when I first stopped outside her classroom to admire a display of circus-related pieces, from handbags to posters, that her pupils had made. We've been on a number of circus-related adventures since, from Circolombia in Coventry to Revel Puck in Hackney Marshes, but this was the first time Lucy had come to my neck of the woods, and it was such a joy to have an excuse to catch up and welcome her here. While waiting for Lucy at the entrance, fashionably late, I chatted to the roustabouts, who were all from Kenya, as is Lucy originally. No sooner did she whirl in than they were all chatting away in a wave of Swahili, that swept us up and along to ringside seats. It really did feel like the whole world was coming together.

The acts delivered thrills and delight. Paulo dos Santos, the Brazilian clown par excellence, balanced physical comedy with jaw-dropping acrobatics, flipping between humor and daring feats with effortless charm. We cheered on Ukrainian clown La Loka, bringing mayhem and mischief, who danced through her routines with infectious energy, ran circles through her hoops and performed a fab Cabaret turn. There ain't nothing like a dame! Jackie Louise took to the air with breathtaking grace, suspended high above the audience as if floating on air. Alex Michael, meanwhile, toyed with the audience's nerves leaping between trapezes, and suspended in suspense on the Sky Walk — no strings attached! 

The energy soared with the motorbike globe riders, whose octane-fueled rush felt like a heart-pounding finale, but the show was far from over. The Magnificent Mongolian Warriors leaped and tumbled on the teeterboard, their precision and strength defying gravity itself. Then came the Timbuktu tumblers, whose sheer joy rippled through the crowd as they built human towers and limboed under poles and flipped on Chinese poles, as well as skipping into rhythm like poetry in motion. . Hungarian Anna Usakova captivated us on the tightwire, tangoing across with natural ease and then in ballet shoes, crossing "en pointe", blending elegance and drama in equal measure.The Novotny family act blended humor with skill as Toni spun plates and his son Nicol charmed the audience with his diabolo mastery. Each act left us wide-eyed, suspended between disbelief and admiration. My daughter loved the fact that there were so many female performers taking centre stage, and the diversity of role models.

However, not all were similarly delighted by the arrival of the Big Top. It had been raining recently and, while Zippos received the green light from the Council to go ahead and park, the ground was still soggy as the HGVs and caravans arrived. My heart sank, wondering what else this would churn up, as I caught sight of a poe-faced man snapping his camera to document each tread in the ground. Some people prefer to look down at the mud rather than raise their eyes to the stars, I reflected.

I was not alone. Some passersby were delighted to see the circus again, "such a pretty tent!” However, its beauty was lost on others. It wasn't long before the council was bombarded with angry messages, and accusations against Zippos appeared on X (formerly Twitter) like "you've butchered our Common" or "it will take months, if not years to put right."

The damage to the grass really wasn't that bad. No worse than the annual funfair. A week later it had already bounced back, and soon families were back picnicking there, and team sports running around again.

Sadly, on this occasion, the Council did not see it like that, and in a knee-jerk reaction heaped on the circus restorative measures that can only be described as cripplingly draconian:

1. Charging a substantial fine to cover the costs of repairing the grass, when surely that is what the original fee is meant to cover.

2. Further punishing Zippos financially by curtailing their stay, forcing them to cancel opening night and the performances on the last day.

3. Banning Zippos from ever appearing in any Wandsworth green space again.

I understand that the Council is keen to protect and preserve community spaces, yet this heavy-handed approach felt unnecessarily punitive— not to mention a bit rich coming in the year of the proclamation of Wandsworth as “London Borough of Culture 2025."

So as this year comes to a close, while I am so grateful for the marvel and wonder the Zippos brought yet again to our Common, the refuge it affords to artists like La Loka and the Ukrainian dancing girls who flanked the acts, I am not a little heartbroken at this ban of exclusion by Wandsworth Council.

I hold on to a flicker of hope that perhaps, just perhaps, someone on the Council might see sense. And if not? Well, the magic of Zippos lives on. Right now, they’re dazzling crowds at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park until 5 January, 2025. Roll up, roll up! Click here for more info: hydeparkwinterwonderland.com/things-to-do/zippos-christmas-circus/

Chapter 220: Life as Circus: Lessons from Art, Language, and Beyond

After running off to the circus for six years, then sailing around the world for two, retraining as a modern languages teacher when we got back seemed like the most logical progression. From balancing on tightwires to navigating ocean passages, the classroom offers its own challenges in communication, adaptability, and connection. Though there’s less trapeze involved now, the same principles of flexibility and storytelling still shape my work — just juggling more lesson plans and scaling fewer ropes!

But even before that, my lifelong passion for languages had already shaped how I see the world. It’s a love older than my fascination with circus, though both hold similar truths at their core: a sense of fluidity, adaptability, and the ability to cross boundaries. Much like circus performers move in liminal spaces — balancing on the edge of what is possible, and historically on the margins of society  - linguists operate between worlds, embracing other cultures, looking from the outside in, and translating the untranslatable.  Whether I’m in the classroom or balancing on a tightwire in my garden, I am constantly reminded that we are all part of the same performance: creating, learning, and moving between worlds. 

Learning languages has therefore always meant more than just mastering grammar or vocabulary for me. It’s about stepping into different perspectives, immersing yourself in new worlds, and cultivating a flexible mind that can switch between cultures as easily as performers leap between apparatus. This idea of linguistic agility was further sparked by a gift from a colleague recently: Through The Language Glass: Why The World Looks Different Through Other Languages by Guy Deutscher. The book delves into the fascinating ways that language shapes thought and how our worldviews are reflected in the words we use. It’s an exploration of the dance between language and culture, reminding me again of how the work of a linguist is, in its own way, an art form — much like circus, where we play with boundaries and invite others to see the world anew.

Recently, I took up Arabic on Duolingo, in part to offer me an alternative dopamine hit to Instagram when I need a break, but also for the love of it, and to move outside my comfort zone linguistically. I’m always banging on to my students about the rich heritage embedded in Spanish, a language deeply influenced by the cultural exchange during the convivencia of medieval Spain, a time of coexistence between Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities*. The Arabic legacy can be found in words like alfombra (carpet), alcalde (mayor), or even the wishful "¡ojalá!" (may it be so! if God wills it!), which are reminders of this intertwined history, even  if the latter phrase in Spanish no longer carries any of the original religious connotations of "inshallah", it still expresses the same sense of hopeful longing. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know, and how much there is to explore.

Speaking of exploration, I know it’s short notice, but if you can, check out Natalie Inside Out, tonight at Jacksons Lane. Natalie Reckert, a world-class hand-balancer, teams up with digital artist Mark Morreau to breach the fourth wall digitally by merging acrobatics with immersive video projections. The performance promises to be both playful and challenging of the boundaries, as well as exploring self-image in today’s image-driven world. By combining the raw physicality of circus with videography’s ability to manipulate and amplify, they uncover hidden details — like the subtle creases in her hand carrying a handstand or the thoughts running through Natalie’s mind as she executes a move, blending humour, poetry, and digital art to create a shared experience with the audience.

Coincidentally, today I came across a post on Instagram by Israeli-born artist and photographer Ben Hopper that echoed this idea of the interplay between camera film (if not digital) and performance. I have followed Hopper for years, after the installation of portraits of circus artists that was shown and the Roundhouse, he’s a great photographer with an ever curious mind…. and in his latest project Making Art with the Enemy, he collaborates with artists from countries that have severed diplomatic ties with Israel. Much like Reckert and Morreau’s exploration of performance and technology, Hopper’s work seeks to challenge and bridge divides. It’s a call for coexistence and reminds me of how art and performance can offer new ways to connect in an increasingly divided world.

One thing I’ve learned from both circus and language is that, to paraphrase an old Guinness advert, art reaches parts of us that nothing else can. I’ve felt this while watching Fauda, a Netflix series that follows an Israeli undercover security unit. The seamless transitions between Hebrew and Arabic drew me into the reality of a world full of tension and complexity, but also brought home how important it is to see multiple perspectives.

For this reason, when a colleague from the Languages Department at school invited me to the cinema to see the Palestinian film The Teacher, I jumped at the chance. The sheer humanity and courage of the story resonated with me, and through the presentation of individual experiences (based on real life events), the film offered insight into the lives of millions who live through conflict. It captured the power of education and human resilience, in a way that deeply connected with me as both a teacher and a person.

At the heart of this exploration is the idea of crossing boundaries — between art forms, languages, and human experiences. This idea is also embodied in the Blue Rider movement, founded by Kandinsky and other artists, which sought to transcend traditional artistic forms and create art that connected deeply with spiritual and emotional truths. The painting I’ve chosen to accompany this post, Kandinsky’s abstract depiction of a rainbow and dove, is part of an exhibition currently at the Tate Modern. I was lucky enough to visit it last week on an impromptu trip, thanks to a very dear friend. The exhibition and Kandinsky’s work exemplify the Blue Rider movement's belief in art as a universal language, speaking beyond words. The dove, a symbol of peace, and the rainbow, a bridge between worlds, resonate with the themes of flexibility and connection that run through this reflection on language, circus, and art.

Much like the artists of the Blue Rider, who believed that art could inspire greater understanding and unite people on a spiritual level, I see the work of artists like Natalie Reckert, Mark Morreau, Ben Hopper, and even language itself as a way to move between perspectives. Whether through circus, film, or conversation, these are all performances that invite us to look beyond the surface, much like Kandinsky's abstract works, and find deeper meaning in our shared humanity. May they transform how we connect and understand one another. 

¡Ojalá!

Links: Natlie Inside Out, Mark Morreau at www.morreaux.co.uk, for one night only, tonight, Friday, 11th October, at
 www.jacksonslane.org.uk/whats-on/all-performances/  therealbenhopper.com

Exhibition at the Tate Modern: Expressionists Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider (until 20th October)

Postscript 14/10/24: Interestingly, it has just been discovered that Christopher Columbus’s DNA indicates he was of Jewish ancestry. Like many others, he likely hid his faith to avoid persecution as the era of convivencia came to an end with Ferdinand and Isabella’s 1492 decree forcing Jews and Muslims to convert or be expelled. The timing of this revelation, coinciding with Día de la Hispanidad (formerly Día de la Raza), adds another layer of irony, as Columbus is increasingly viewed as a symbol of the brutal legacy of colonialism. Once celebrated for his voyages, he is now often seen as a figure responsible for terrorizing indigenous populations. This complex legacy — a man crossing oceans and cultures while hiding his own identity — serves as a reminder that history, like language and art, requires us to constantly navigate between different perspectives to fully understand its impact.