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| photos by Craig Ferguson - www.craigfergusonimages.com |
The Dubai show has been postponed until next year. It was a hard decision, made by our backers in Dubai, and supported by the Sapana team here and in the UK. The decision was so hard in fact that it was only finally decided two weeks before the scheduled performance. We got the news, at first it was just impossible to believe. The previous week, I'd had to tell two of the performers that we had tried everything and we simply couldn't get their passports in time. Telling those two girls that they were not coming with us to Dubai was one of the hardest things I've had to do. Strangely, telling the whole group, that none of them were coming to Dubai, was much easier.
"We will be going to Dubai next year, and when we do, we will not leave anyone behind" It sounded great, went down well. Is it true? I sincerely bloody hope so.
This Dubai show was mentioned in the original job ad which led me to this project. It was part of that funny phone interview I had whilst walking through a train station in Brisbane, dreaming of mountains. Having no idea about geography in general, I had supposed that the whole of Nepal was situated on the sides of mountains, and was wondering to myself whether it would be better to walk downhill to work in the mornings and uphill to get home, or vice versa. Just like those mountains, the Dubai Show became a part of our landscape, a speck on the horizon, but one that was growing larger daily. Everything beyond it was small and blurry. And then, before it ever actually happened, it was gone.
There was no time to commiserate. We seized the opportunity to make the classes fun, new, exciting, to try new things. We had a spate of new volunteers, Jo Zealand, our clown and performance specialist, and Marawa, a.k.a. "Marawa the Amazing", the hula-hoop extraordinaire. The hoop trio were incredibly excited to learn some new skills from Marawa, as well as that all-important pizazz, and they have been creating a new hoop routine which will blow away audiences at the Summit Hotel and the Alliance Francaise next week. With four profesisonal circus trainers, our wonderful dance teacher Libby and the occasional help from our extras, we gave the training sessions a much needed energy boost. Outside of the training sessions, we planned for the future: A new business model and training plan, to take Sapana to the next level. We were joined for a week by Mark and Robyn from Floorless Productions, the group who were responsible for the initiation of the Sapana project back in August 2010. That week was a blur of meetings, photo shoots, training sessions, drinks and discussions, all set to the soundtrack of Jazzmandu, a week-long festival with indoor and outdoor music events, bringing excellent musicians from around the globe.
Now we have new direction and purpose, and a lot of work ahead. There are three shows confirmed and possibly a fourth, before the year is out. The Sapana crew have been learning some great new pyramids and branching out on some new skills. This morning fellow circus volunteer and old friend Shaun Plumtree left for Bhairahawa, to begin working on his first permaculture project, and in less than two weeks I must leave Nepal for visa reasons. Camille, a Swiss circus performer, came to training this week and will be adding her hand-to-hand expertise to the mix, and there are two more volunteer trainers on the way: Emma from Scotland and Regine from France. And in January I will return to Kathmandu and Sapana.
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| Photos by Craig Ferguson - www.craigfergusonimages.com |
