January equals school holidays which in turn equals a month of activities at EBMF's refuge in Taukhel.
Sapana have been teaching circus to the younger kids - organised chaos, with an eager bunch of pyramid builders, tumblers, dancers, puppeteers and jugglers! Great to see members of Sapana take the lead and share their skills...us volunteers were amazed at the cacophony of noise that resulted in relative order and beaming smiles of accomplishment.
Last fortnight saw the return of Ivan from his antipodean adventuring - aptly he'll be juggling teaching in Kathmandu with Sapana training until May (unless we can convince him to stay longer of course).
We also had and a visit from the hilarious Smile Project - http://thesmileproject.ie/ travelling from Ireland to share their endearing antics with children throughout the Kathmandu Valley. A wholehearted thank you for our morning of laughter! The kids are still mimicking tricks from the day and calling "Jadu!" (magic) to each other in delight.
With the impending IMPORTANT final school exams looming over much of our troupe we've relocated two of our three training sessions per week to the refuge - cutting down on travel to/from the gym we usually train in - freeing up more time to hit those books hard.
Our tiny space here in Taukhel makes the gym appear palatial! There's no swinging to be had from these rafters - so our focus has had to shift away from aerial work. Monday's have lent themselves well to juggling and manipulation sessions - everyone's making great headway - next week will see a group show and tell, then we'll move into choreographing short sequences together.
We dipped our toes and swayed the rest of our rhythm section into a traditional French dance workshop with Blanche and Nicolas - performers visiting Kathmandu who generously give their time to Sapana. Some winning moves were mastered that could lend themselves ever-so-nicely to transitional choreography between circus acts...watch this space for upcoming show info.
