Doloréze and the Clown Class

I've been telling people lately that I'm beginning to realize that if one stays put in San Pancho for a while with an open mind, an open heart, and a little patience, everything comes to you.

If you're a fairly regular reader of this column, you already know that one of San Pancho's residents is Gilles Ste-Croix. A co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, Gilles--with his wife Monique Voyer and entreamigos, our remarkable educational community center--created Circo de los Niños, the children's circus which will present their 2015 show on March 19, 20, and 21.

Over the years, Gilles has brought to San Pancho costumers, make-up artists, trainers and Cirque du Soleil alumni who have worked with the children to make the annual circuses as spectacular as they are.

This year, along with Circo de los Niños coordinator Glades Castro Perreras, Gilles introduced circus classes for adults. Craig signed up immediately for what the students called "Clown Class". Here he is, all shiny for the first day of school, with Gilles in the background.

In the Circo de los Niños' new facility, remodeled from one of the old warehouses from San Pancho's past (as is the entreamigos facility next door), the circus students convened three mornings a week for a month.

Led by Pepe, their teacher, they learned to stretch and move and perform safely on the equipment. They practiced juggling and trampoline, they tried the tightrope and the silk trapeze, they bent and hung and flipped and swung.

Amid much hilarity, they also bonded and pretty much tuckered themselves out.

Then (drum roll, please...) Doloréze Leonard arrived in town.

In the early 1980's, Doloréze was one of the small troupe who, along with Gilles, built stilts and performed in the street theater that, in 1984, would become the world-famous Cirque du Soleil. Her presence in town made possible one of the small miracles that seem to happen in San Pancho: the adult circus students had the opportunity to be taught by a woman who has been a professional clown and respected performer for thirty-five years.

Besides co-founding and touring with Cirque du Soleil, Doloréze was one of the first female ringmasters ever, in Paris. She has taught buffoon workshops in Canada, the United States, and all over Europe. She was a director and one of the chief performers in Teatro ZinZanni in San Francisco and in Seattle, where, as it turns out, I had seen her as Madame ZinZanni in the late 90's. In Seattle, she was Head Coach for the ZinZanni Institute for Circus Arts.

Doloreze Leonard publicity photo from the opening of Teatro ZinZanni, 1998

Each Friday for four weeks, right here in our podunk little Mexican village, Doloréze taught the class character development and improvisation.

In between Clown Classes, Doloréze was working with Ariel Sainz, co-founder of Bodega Teatro, our new theater space housed in another of the reconditioned warehouses nearby. They were developing a cabaret show in which Doloréze would perform three of her wonderful characters with Ariel as the confused and love-struck Monsieur Tartatin.

I had several encounters with the indomitable Mademoiselle Linda, who, believe me, were unforgettable. But you're going to have to wait to hear about that until my next post, coming up in a few days.

Meanwhile, be a clown!