XXIX. Tantrum - What's that?!

I have decided to dedicate two blog posts to the tantrum. And there will also be a video in the not too distant future. So finally here it is: What the heck is this tantrum? What do you do there? In general, for everyone - more about my own festival experience later. Because no one can understand it if they don't know what this damn tantrum is all about.

The full name of the festival is: 'Festival internacional de Arte callejero, el Berrinche Ambiental'

You can't translate it exactly, but there are three important elements in the name: internationality, street art (Arte callejero), and nature (Ambiental). The festival has been around for eight years now and it always takes place in the week of the first full moon of the year.

This year, about 150 artists from various disciplines visited the circus school. A large part of the group definitely consisted of clowns, jugglers, acrobats, circus fanatics, but there were also many musicians, graffiti artists, and other similar or dissimilar artists.

This whole bunch lived in tents on the grounds, and we experienced a week full of program from January 16th to 22nd. Where do I start? At the beginning.

Sunday, January 15th

Throughout the day, the first artists, performers, guests, in short, the Berrincheros arrived. Each with bags full of balls, unicycles, clubs, torches, costumes, guitars, etc. Many of them have known each other for years and often only see each other at the tantrum, so the mood was joyful and sentimental. Toni right in the middle, with the feeling 'This is going to be amazing.' (SPOILER: She's right.)

Monday, January 16th

It's starting. Everyone has breakfast together, then a small group of people (including me) goes to Lake Nicaragua to prepare for the morning. There are many games planned to get everyone in the mood and get to know each other better. It was already incredibly fun, but the highlight for me was when everyone jumped into the lake together to have water fights, build human pyramids (how could we not, with so many talented circus people?), and take funny photos.

Afterwards, completely soaked, back to the circus school for lunch and preparation for the afternoon. On the agenda is a big parade through the city, ending in the center where the very first presentation will take place. So grab your costume and camera and let's go!

A lot of fun! Everyone plays an instrument, juggles, or fools around with the residents of Granada in one way or another.

Finally, we arrived at the square, which would be our stage for the next few days, and the spectacle could begin.

Quite a lot of people, pretty cool shows, lots of photos and videos, incredible applause. That's how you could sum up the afternoon. As a conclusion, everyone stayed a little longer to juggle, take photos, and above all, enjoy the great atmosphere.

(Jan, if you're reading this post, this photo is just for you ;))

Afterwards, everyone went back to the circus school together on the party bus - the word 'party bus' got a whole new meaning - to have dinner and prepare for the evening performance in the palapa (circus tent).

This performance was also amazing! The entire palapa was filled with people, Berrincheros, and it felt like the entire neighborhood. The atmosphere was charged and great.

January 17th-19th

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday can be summed up quite well because the program was very similar. Everyone had breakfast at eight in the morning, then a group of people left to offer workshops and small shows for the children of the neighborhoods in one of Granada's parks.

There were also workshops for the children of the neighborhood at the circus school, but exclusive workshops for Berrincheros were also offered. For example, I participated in several clown workshops, learned how to draw caricatures, etc. The main idea was to share what we already know and learn what we don't know yet.

Here you can see me with my favorite discovery of the festival: a fabric that you spin and toss around in the air - a bit like pizza dough.

After the shared lunch, there was free time, which means everyone was practicing different circus disciplines again, chatting, there was always a tattoo machine running somewhere, and there was the Berrinche Radio, where announcements and music were played - all those kinds of things.

Every day at 4pm, there were presentations in the city center, and of course, I never missed them with my camera. After dinner, the second show of the day took place in the palapa.

Friday, January 20th

On Friday, the officially second-to-last day of the festival, the daily schedule was similar to before, with one big extra. On Saturday, there was a big final performance in the center and it had to be prepared! The rough idea was already there, now it was about finding a director for each of the four scenes and dividing up all the artists.

As we all sat in a circle and it was clear that we still needed one more director, it was made clear to me, without mentioning my name, but with clarity and persistence, that it would be a job for me - after all, that would be exactly what I wanted to do in the future!

So, in the end, I sat surrounded by clowns (full professionals) and other circus people in a circle and had to try to bring order to the chaos of our scenes. It was pretty, pretty cool, and I'm incredibly proud of the result! In the afternoon, all the directors discussed their plans together and coordinated the individual scenes. Then back to the city center and in the evening in the palapa. Even in this night, I didn't really manage to go to bed early, afterwards, I couldn't say how I managed to handle this workload with an average of four hours of sleep ;)

Saturday, January 21st

On Saturday morning, we prepared and rehearsed for the final presentation. The story of the little piece is as follows:

In the first scene, you see Mother Nature dancing across the stage with many happy people, but she is captured and a machine consisting of different circus elements is built. In the second scene, the 'perfect' 0815 person is produced inside this machine. But in the meantime, the machine also malfunctions occasionally and a defective product comes out, a clown. After a small group of clowns has formed, some of us also sat in the audience and joined in, they try to fight the machine. This happens in the third scene, which I directed. First, the clowns try to tickle the machine with feather quills to attack it. But that doesn't work. Then they find out that every time one of them laughs, a torch lights up. So everyone starts laughing and encourages the audience to join in, to launch a second attack with the help of the fire jugglers. But this attack is also thwarted by the factory, which grabs two of the clowns and takes away all their props and clown noses (!!!). As a result, the clowns fall into incredible sadness and it seems hopeless. But when two clowns embrace, Mother Nature in her cage suddenly stirs, and the clowns understand that the solution to the problem is love. Each of them takes a person from the audience and together they throw a blossom to Mother Nature. The result is a confetti explosion and the machine falls apart. The fourth and final scene is then the big celebration of the end of the factory, together with the audience, breakdancers, and acrobats.

The performance was a great success and we celebrated joyfully before returning to the circus school for the very last presentation. After that, the big party started, for which I probably didn't have any energy left. Nevertheless, I stayed on the dance floor until the last song and was one of the last to go to bed.

Sunday, January 22nd

A farewell atmosphere at the circus school. Some artists set off early to go home, but many of them went on to another tradition of the festival: spending the night at Laguna de Apoyo. As you probably know by now, my favorite place in Nicaragua. Most of them in their tents, me in the hammock with mosquito net. In the evening, I had a very long conversation, then there was a fire show, and finally, I went to sleep.

The night was wonderful. Firstly, because I could sleep a few more hours for the first time in a long time, and secondly, because I woke up perfectly at sunrise, watched this natural spectacle for half an hour without having to move a bit from my hammock, and fell back asleep. For breakfast, I had cereal in the lagoon. After a beautiful day, it was finally time to say goodbye to all the lovely people I had met, and I drove back to Granada. I would have loved to stay longer, but the next day I was moving to León!

What a long blog post! Hats off to everyone who made it this far. In the next blog post, I will go into the most important aspects of the tantrum for me, and then it's off to León.

Hasta luego!