The boys from Muhamdiyah Welfare home came in for a few sessions and played around with the various circus equipment we had at school. We also tried to assist them in learning new skills, developing their skills and in general get to know them. This was a bit hard due to language barriers, but I think I am slowly getting used to “communicate” through our interactions and activities, rather than to try and talk to them, we simply just did activities with them which was another way of interacting and bonding.

Just before the December break, my service had to perform a circus show for the infant schools. We were only given a very minimal time to plan, and I was initially going to do unicycling but i knew my skill was not sufficient enough to  put on a few minutes worth of a show so i decided to turn towards stilts (which I am very comfortable with since G5)

I paired up with my friend who was also on stilts to be the ringmaster: to be dramatic, speak in front of a large group of people, be loud, exaggerative, and dramatic for the infant kids. Oh boy were all those things the opposite of me, being a shy and more reserved person. But just because I wasn’t good at it didn’t mean I didn’t like it. I enjoy entertaining others, which made this process a bit more easier. The hardest part of it was to actually be confident when talking (and loud), and also to exaggerate these everything. For the act, my friend and I did risky things such as doing a trust fall on stilts, where my friend was supposed to catch me, and it was important that we both trusted each other and were focused because it could end up very badly. It was easier to work with my stilt partner because we were pretty good friends which meant I was more comfortable making mistakes, and we also gave each other honest feedback about our performance, reminding each other to be louder, use bigger arm movements etc. Apart from him, we decided to collaborate with several other performers on diablos, and we planned a quick act of involving them and interacting with them. We wanted to make it more inclusive and interactive with different acts, rather than just between the two of us ringmasters. We all made sure we know what we were doing, and what was actually going to happen. To be more prepared, my ringmaster partner also wrote up a small script to ensure the show runs smoothly because we would be talking and introducing the acts during intervals.

When it was time to perform, I wasn’t as nervous when i got up there because I enjoyed myself (and i had someone else to be the ringmasters with) They were also little kids so it wasn’t as hard to perform in front of them, and even if we made mistakes, they would still have a good time. During the show, most of what my friend and I had gone to plan, except the end when we were both coming up what to say on the spot due to some delays. There was nothing much to do to overcome this challenge, so we both improvised and attempted to continue the conversation. In a real situation, we would have a backup “skit” which we could use just in case there was a delay during intermission.

Overall it was an enjoyable experience. I knew I was most afraid of judgement, so infant school was the a good start to increase my confident and exit my comfort zone. By collaborating with my friends, it also made this process easier in terms of working together to execute this activity, and at the same time I learnt to be more confident in presenting, and