On their first day in Puerto Rico for the Revolution for Harmony tour, the students of Circus Harmony and of the National Circus School of Puerto Rico met for the first time. The National Circus School’s practice space is a large circus tent in the backyard of a house in Dorado, just outside the capital city of San Juan.
“The tent only got electricity back in January,” said Glorimar Sierra, one of the coaches, on the way to the circus house in Dorado. The house is owned by the Irizarry family, and was originally used by Leslynette Ramos Irizarry as a therapy and psychiatry center. Then, her brother Japhet graduated from Brazil’s prestigious National Circus School.
“When he came back, he didn’t have a place to keep doing circus,” Leslynette Ramos said. “Upstairs, there is a therapy center and psychologist. He asked for a place to do circus for himself, so he started doing things over there [in the backyard]. And we saw him from the window, and thought, ‘Oh my God, what he is doing is something we could use in therapy!”
Now, they run circus camps for the same students with cognitive disabilities that Leslynette sees in therapy, among other things, in their big backyard circus tent. And that tent is where their elite students met the St. Louis Arches of Circus Harmony for the first time.
Most of the Puerto Rican circus kids do not speak much English, and only a few of the St. Louis students can speak any Spanish. But, as coach Jessica Hentoff explained, “Circus is a universal language.”
“There are ways to communicate both verbally and nonverbally, but the common language is circus, and you have a common goal, which is to exchange skills, and today it will be to create a show,” Hentoff continued. “When you’re on that path, the details like the exact words don’t matter that much, you just get your point across any way you can. Circus is so broad a language, and it’s so easy to say, ‘like this’? You know, just by doing it. I mean, look at human babies. That’s how they learn.”
By the end of their first day, the students were laughing together, independently constructing a contortion act, and even dancing together.
“My favorite part was when we went in for lunch, and they were all dancing together,” Hentoff said. “Like, really dancing salsa. It’s like, we’re here! Total connection, right away.”
On their second day together, the two circus groups took that connection and turned it into a 19-person acrobatics act. It took them about a day to create, alongside other acts like a unicycling duo.
Ari Maayan, an 18-year-old St. Louis Arches performer who has been unicycling for “about 4 or 5 years,” hoped he could use his unicycling skills to overcome language barriers.
“Hopefully, I will get to unicycle with the other kids,” he said. “It’s my little way of bonding with them. I can connect with people who unicycle much better than I can otherwise. I can teach them tricks, and they can teach me tricks.” When he got to the circus tent in Dorado, he found that he could–partnering with a young Puerto Rican performer named Ilka who could do tricks he had never attempted before, like jumping rope backwards on a unicycle.
Next week, the students hope to use their combined talents to bring some hope to the rural communities that are still suffering most from the hurricane almost a year ago. They will be traveling to the towns of Vieques, Comerío, and Yabucoa, alongside San Juan and Dorado, on a tour next week. In some of the towns, they will have volunteer doctors accompanying them, to provide first aid while the kids provide circus.
“Our goal is to bring happiness and new things to the communities that are still going through difficult times because of Hurricane Maria,” said Coralys Vasquez, 17, of the National Circus School of Puerto Rico. “And to help them forget their problems for a moment [by] enjoying our show.”
