Texas Here We Come...
I'll be honest, I was a little nervous taking a troupe full of California circus freaks deep into Texas and then even further Southeast. In many ways, I feel the cultural divisions within the US can run just as wide as the cultural differences we experienced during our tours in India or Peru. And while I knew many rural Indians would write off our odd style and behaviors as "foreign", I wasn't sure our differences would be so easily dismissed in the South.
And while our diverse bus full of colored hair, anti-racist, feminist, queer friendly, gun bashing circus liberals from California might draw unwanted attention (and potentially aggression), I also figured we would probably meet some of the nicest folks in the country as well. There's something to be said about "Southern Hospitality" after all, and I encountered a lot more genuine, good-hearted, curiosity at Texan gas stations and truck stops than animosity. One of the first Texans I encountered was a truck driver at a gas station. He was a big guy with a weathered face and an oil stained baseball cap. He was gazing at the odd assortment of people going in and out of the Sprinter and stopped me to ask, "what's going on here?"
I smiled and said, "we're a circus troupe from California on a tour where we offer free shows and circus workshops everywhere we go. We're on our way to Richards for our next event."
He smiled back, put out his hand and said, "well good for you, now isn't that something!" I shook his hand and he wished us a safe journey.
After a long drive from Albuquerque to the tiny town of Richards, Texas, we finally arrived at our destination - The Mexican Hill Ranch. Once again, our accommodation was fabulous. This was a picture perfect Texas ranch with beds in cabins for everyone and a swimming pool to cool off in the sweltering heat.
After the drive, I was ready to drink a beer, take a dip in the pool, and hit the proverbial hay. However, stories from our host about the racial segregation in the town and some of the white folks dropping their commitments to the circus event once they realized there would likely be a lot of African Americans in attendance caught a couple members of the troupe off guard. This lead us into long, somewhat heated, group discussions about our mission and whether or not it made sense to come to a place like Richards. This pushed well beyond 3am, and I think around 4am I finally submerged myself in the pool and then went to bed.
I fully expected to encounter serious racism in the deep south and I saw our event in Richards as an opportunity to bring a diversity of people together. And, without question, that is exactly what our event in Richards did. The lead coordinator of the event, Joelle, was Bobbi's (one of our performers and tour participants) mother. She recruited about a dozen different organizations to participate in the event that represented and/or served a wide range of communities in the area. Our audience was about as diverse as any show I can remember and everyone sat together, ate together, and enjoyed the event together. Those who didn't want to contribute to the event stayed home and that left a space for more open minded folks to gather and enjoy the circus together. After all, it ain't everyday that a circus comes to Richards. In fact, the circus never goes to Richards, well, except for the Dreamtime Circus.
New Orleans or Bust!
Once I started to really map out driving times and circus show schedules for this tour, I began to think that New Orleans was too far of a destination for a two week tour. I feared we would go mad driving such long distances between events and tried to persuade the troupe to scale back the geographic scope of the project. I sent out an email entitled "New Orleans or Bust???" questioning if it made sense for us to travel that far and suggesting alternatives. The response from the troupe - NEW ORLEANS!
Aside from the trailer mishaps on the first day, our jumps from location to location had been slow but fairly smooth. Until the jump to New Orleans that is. We hit a massive rainstorm, which was a little hectic to drive through, but not a big deal until it started raining inside the vehicle! Water came pouring into the Sprinter from A/C and ventilation system on the roof of the vehicle. I scrambled to read the owner's manual, thinking that perhaps we were supposed to close a vent or something, but couldn't find anything. So we pulled into a gas station to take cover from the water while I called the rental company. As the rental company explained that we had a leak and would need to take it to Baton Rouge to get it fixed, Alex interrupted me to let me know that our only key to the trailer just broke off in the lock and we were now locked out of the trailer and all of our food.
After stopping in the next town to buy water mitigation supplies like tarps, towels, a bucket, and duct tape and making a futile attempt to find a locksmith after 5pm, we got back on the interstate to find relatively clear skies ahead. But those clear skies were only ahead of us. Behind us was a brutal storm with 60 mph winds and golf ball sized hail that apparently was heading our way. So we raced the storm half way across Louisiana and fortunately stayed ahead of it.
We arrived in New Orleans to find out that the half a dozen 24 hour locksmiths I found online all use the same guy and he was out of town on a family emergency. So, locked out of our food supply, we ordered pizza for everyone that we ate in the front yard of our New Orleans accommodation. The Busker's Bunkhouse was a free place for us to crash in an expensive town. In fact, it's free for any artist or performer visiting New Orleans and a great place to know about. It didn't quite have the comfort or amenities we had grown accustomed to after staying at places like Gateway Ranch, the Albuquerque Bed & Breakfast, and the Mexican Hill Ranch. In fact, it didn't really even have a front door, more of a light sheet that sort of kept the bugs out. It was, more or less, a squat. And we weren't given much direction other than that we could pretty much sleep wherever we found space.
The cockroaches and risk of bedbugs sent some of the troupe off to stay with friends and a couple people slept in the Sprinter that night. Given the stresses of the tour, I might have preferred a more comfortable space, but I really loved the concept of providing a no frills crash space for traveling artists, thought the place had a certain charm, and didn't mind sleeping there for a night or two.
I got up early the next morning and called about twenty locksmiths before I finally found someone that would come out and try to fix the trailer. Unfortunately, he got stuck in traffic so I had to send everyone to a cafe for breakfast. The troupe finished breakfast just as the locksmith finished his work, so they swooped by and picked me up with just enough time to get to our first of two shows that day.
This first show was at a Harry Potter themed "Hogwarts Camp" where they teach kids about magic, anti-oppression, and all sorts of other interesting things. They had enough of a budget to pay us a small performance stipend and feed us lunch. Though when we sat down to the closing "feast", all they served were weird little mini-pizza things, an even stranger multi-colored dessert, and butterscotch flavored water. Just when I started stressing out about getting everyone a more substantial meal before our second show, one of the "kitchen witches" told me she had lentil soup and sandwiches upstairs if we were still hungry. We took her up on that offer and made our way to the second event with our bellies full.
We set up our next show in an empty lot across the street from RUBARB Bike Shop in the 9th Ward. RUBARB (Rusted up beyond all recognition bikes) salvaged bikes after Hurricane Katrina, fixed them up and started a bike shop that is clearly a positive presence for the youth in this community.
Our circus event there, complete with our full theatrical show, circus workshops with the kids, and a closing fire show just after sunset, was pure New Orleans magic. The whole community came out for this rare event. The kids, neighbors, bike shop staff, and others that had heard about the show were all ecstatic afterward and continuously thanked us for coming and bringing such a wonderful event to the 9th Ward.
And one person wanted to thank us with an impromptu gift - a place to stay for the night. He happened to own an empty vacation rental a few blocks outside of the French Quarter with enough room for all of us. So we spent the night in luxury once again, indulged in a bit of late night New Orleans revery, and pushed back our departure time to noon. I'll admit it now, it was indeed worth the extra travel to make it to all the way to New Orleans.
Circus of Hope ~ Austin, Texas
I was in the midst of sorting out our not-so-great accommodation options in Austin when I got an email from Kenny, one of our hosts and a founder of Circus of Hope - a like minded social circus organization. He told me he could take four of us at his place and J Bird could take another four. I knew the rest of us could stay at an old high school friend of Savannah and La Mer's place, so I wouldn't have to book an overpriced hotel far from anything interesting in town.
Kenny and J Bird simply couldn't have been nicer. They opened their homes to us and they put a ton of work into setting up this event at The Stunt Ranch just outside of Austin. The event was a fundraiser for both circus programs and autism awareness and they did a lot of outreach to families with autistic children. We had a huge audience and really enjoyed working with another social oriented circus group. And they seem determined to bring us out to Austin again one way or another.
That would have been our last event of the tour, but we took Ben - the old high school friend of Savannah and La Mer - up on his offer to perform at his beer and sausage joint called Bangers in exchange for a free meal. He did us one better and added "two beers of our choice" in addition to a gourmet sausage and a bunch of delicious appetizers. And when there's 104 beers on tap, that's a nice little perk that made just about everyone in the troupe quite happy.
Cole and I hung out on the street calling people in for a "free circus show at Banger's" and a slow Sunday night grew into a sizable crowd. We put on a thrown together, freestyle, circus cabaret and fire show and had a blast doing it. It was like the pressure valve had been released. No more stress of setting up aerial rigs, remembering lines or choreography, or keeping our actions appropriate for children. This was just a raw, anything goes, circus show and it was so much fun. And this was the end of the tour, the end of months of preparation and fundraising, and two intense weeks of executing it. The show at Banger's was the perfect way to close out the tour. All of us together, drinking fancy beers, eating gourmet sausages, and lighting stuff on fire for the amusement of whoever happened to stroll into the place on a Sunday night. We are a circus after all. We do good work, we reach out to places that would otherwise never get to see a circus, and we work to empower youth through circus arts. But there's a rowdy side to us as well, and it felt good to let that side shine in the closing moments.
I'm not sure what's next for the Dreamtime Circus. I know our nonprofit organization, Living Dream Arts, will continue to provide arts programs and circus shows in the Bay Area. But future tours or excursions beyond California are a question mark, largely dependent on funding. I know I'm personally excited to see groups like Circus of Hope popping up around the country and I'm feeling very motivated to support them in various ways. We're looking into expanding our fiscal sponsorship program for these types of organizations/troupes and possibly offering more services like administrative support, consulting, and insurance.
Dreamtime Circus, in my mind, has always been more of a concept than a circus troupe. In fact, we've had hundreds of different performers and volunteers come and go over the years with just a small core of folks that have been involved since the beginning. To me, inspiring or supporting some other troupe to go overseas and spread hope and joy and empower kids is no different than us doing it ourselves. I'd like to see more and more people travel this way, and more and more performers think about the impact they can have on different communities, including their own.
Thank you for reading this. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for dreaming your life and living your dream...
Chris Dunn
Co-founder
Dreamtime Circus
Videos from the tour here!
