13ª Convención Argentina de Circo, Payasos y Espectáculos Callejeros

Last Wednesday, Jill and I headed to Argentina's 13th annual Circus, Clown, and Street Performer Convention. Before we left Capital Federal (the city of Buenos Aires), we rented camping equipment, and took the most terrifying cab ride of our lives--the lane lines here mean pretty much nothing. Then we waited on on Avenida 9 de Julio, the widest boulevard in the world, and caught a shuttle to Monte Grande (a suburb located within the greater Buenos Aires area). Monte Grande looked exactly like the way American movies stereotypically depict South America. I had thought Capital Federal felt pretty run down in some places, but Monte Grande was much more dismal. There was trash everywhere, it was dusty, there was no grass to be seen, the cars were all old and dented, and every now and then a local would ride by in horse drawn cart. In the middle of all of that, were the campgrounds where the festival took place. Things inside the gated campgrounds felt pristine and stood in stark contrast to the rest of Monte Grande.

We arrived just in time to set up our tent before sunset. Most of the convention was really fun. The circus shows were really good and I was pretty amazed at the quality of the performances for the little amount of money we paid to get in. The shows were emceed by clowns, but they weren't really like the typical clown you see in the U.S. They were more like hippie-clowns, and they all had both circus and music skills. One of the shows included an improv competition between three teams. Everyone in the audience received a ball they could throw at anytime when they disapproved of anything that happened during the show. Experiencing the audience was almost as interesting as watching the performers. People drank and smoked inside the circus tent, clapped in time and sang with the music, and booed if a performer was out of line.

Being at the convention really made me feel lonely for the first time here. It was really frustrating to feel like I couldn't really communicate with anyone at the convention. Thankfully, I learned fairly quickly how to ask in Spanish if other jugglers wanted to pass clubs. When I attended any workshops, I missed quite a bit of what went on since I didn't understand what anyone was saying, but because juggling is so physical, it was pretty easy to just try to do what other people were doing. One of the instructors knew I didn't understand Spanish, but he came up to me later to try to show me some things individually, which was incredibly nice and made me feel more welcome. I think Jill got a little bored at the convention, but it was very sweet of her to attend with me. She ended up learning how to juggle 3 clubs very quickly and got 26 catches on her second day of trying! She also participated in a workshop where a everyone danced with one juggling club.

We tried to go to sleep early on our last night at the convention so we could get up early to go to back to the city for pride, but a group of people camping near us began singing loudly and making lots of noise. Right now, Jill is really the only one who can communicate with Argentines. After getting up enough courage, she went out to ask them if they would please be a little quieter. Rather than doing that, Jill accidentally asked them to make more noise! They laughed a little bit but were kind and moved their festivities outside of the camping area so we could get some rest. I'm not sure how the Argentines do it--the official convention activities didn't end until 4 or 5 in the morning that day and people would be up by 9am! Anyway, we left the convention early on Saturday (it ran until Sunday afternoon) so we could make it to pride.