Kenya: Italian Clowns Take Theatre to the Streets

By Eric Sande

NAIROBI---A performance  in the streets of Nairobi left the audience in stitches after a team of clowns from Italy called charlatans without borders took it to the streets on Sunday October 10 to showcase what they know best,  referred to as the language of the clowns.

Alex Gabellini and Francesco Tonti of the Society of Charlatans led a team of six performing artistes to Nairobi, Kenya. They visited the marginalized areas like Kibera, one of the largest slums in Africa with aims of bringing smiles and joy to street children and those deprived of their livelihood.

With an estimate of about sixty thousand street children in Kenya, the group believed that they always dont have reasons to smile considering their perturbing situation. As a remedy the Charlatans made their suitcases filled with joy and happiness also packed with witty street theatre performances for their executions since they landed in Africa.

Their first experiences were in the Saharawi refugee camps in Palestine in 2006 and in 2008.

“We are here to share joy and happiness with the people in marginalized areas with the use of the language of the clowns that we believe is universal,” Tonti told NewsfromAfrica in an exclusive interview.

Their itinerary included a ten-day programme during which they staged performances in different parts of Nairobi.  

The Kibera tour was one of its own kind. The team arrived at mid morning at a rescue centre christened Ndugu Mdogo (Kiswahili for small brother). That was the nerve centre of their street art performance. The centre launched its operations in September 2005 with an aim of promoting street interventions and youth empowerment programmes.

First, they introduced themselves to the children under rehabilitation and explained their mission to  the massively populated slum in Africa.

Flagging it off, they filled their visage with facial painting after which they formed a line and in a programmatic style they  crisscrossed the dusty terrains of Kibera blustering  sounds of Vuvuzela and dazzling the audience  as the wooed  them to follow them back to their improvised stage.

A good number of children and adults showed up and the performance began. Juggling and shuffling left and right, the eyes of the beholder glued to the charlatans. Funny voice tags and a bit of stunts brought the scale of climax in their humour. It was with enough enthusiasm that the crowd stole the show by showcasing their lofty standard talents in performing arts.

“My skills are in street theatre and this is what I can do and leave in Africa. The whole project is not funded. We raised our funds from the shows we have done in Italy and from our own pockets to come and visualize the problems marginalized groups in  Kenya and Africa undergo and by street performing  we help them forget their daily problems and see the future as still bright for them,” Said Gabellini.

The challenges that they face are mobilizing the crowd to come have fun since they have to create an atmosphere to bring their attention. Having to learn the native languages of where they go stage their performances is a hard task that they have to live with.

The charlatans aspire to form a theatre group since every member works with different companies in Italy and they come together to perform on the streets because their target groups cannot afford box office charges in theatre halls. They are planning to perform in hospitals and give the patients some sigh of hope and relief from pain.