Interview with Laughing for Life
Andrea & Khan
By kSea flux

This isn’t your typical magazine article, I understand and admit – but this isn’t your typical magazine, either. It was created by a person who wants to do whatever he can to change the world, and as a result has created a vehicle for it that just might reach further than a blog. I most certainly wish to entertain and to make it interesting, as it needs to be in order to survive – but sometimes – sometimes, other people’s needs far transcend my own, and yours as well. THis interview, even though I screwd it up, has transformed itself into pisssobly one of the most imporant things I could have ever have imagined. While editing it I received a forwarded message from Andrea saying that one of the orphanages Laughing for Life visited was in dire need of support. Here is an excerpt from that email:

Because of relying on donated money from generious people, we are facing hard time for money expenses in the shelter when there is not enough donation. Last month, we did not get enough donated money for food so we didn't have budget for food for 1 week. We had to find the shell in canal , wild vegetable in farm around the shelter, vegetable in our farm that is not enough, and fish in canal for food to pass hard time. We passed such hard time.

Our staff don't get paid for 2 month <May and June>. It is hard time for us and the kids in the shelter.

And now we have money for food just 1 week and after a week we are not sure we will face that situation or not.

So we would like to let our friends and one knowing us know the situation and ask for help if possible.

So here we go – these are real people, making as much of a difference as they can. Raising money to keep children alive, bringing smiles to give them hope. In one of their efforts, the King’s sister had just died, (no, this is not a fairy-tale) which passed a regulation across the country that there was to be no celebration of any kind. “and has a formal mourning period, in which no singing or dancing or parties or shows are permitted. they even cancelled childrens day. So, our fundraiser I have spent months working on, and about 700 dollars, is cancelled. And now who knows where the funds for the kids will come from? I am sad, and frustrated, it is like a peice of art that never got made, a sculpture blown up while still in the kiln...” that was taken from Andrea’s blog. This year, 2008, in January. Once again, this is real. Very, very real.

An orphanage they visited in Mae Sai now needs help. Many of these photos are from that place. Once again, as you drink your morning coffee or tea, this is happening, and they need us – today. I admit that I, too, am so far removed from the reality of the rest of the world that this is difficult to comprehend – but then again, I haven’t been there, and I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have as little as I do… Please read on.

kSea:  Hello, this is kSea flux, talking with Laughing for Life.  So, here we go.  Please tell me your names, first of all.

Andrea:  My name is Andrea, and this is my friend Khan.

Khan:  Hello.

kSea:  Khan?

Khan:  Khan.

kSea:  Khan.

Khan:  Yeah.

kSea:  How do you spell that?

Khan: Like, K-H-A-N. Like in ‘Chaka’ or ‘Ghengis.’

[everyone laughs]

Andrea:  I like that ‘Chaka’ goes first, before ‘Ghengis.’

kSea:  Okay, what we’re here for is one of the most important things, a direction that I want this magazine to take, and something you’re doing -  which is bringing laughter and smiles to people who normally wouldn’t have that – and what you’re doing is something of a grassroot circus and workshops in Bangkok, Thailand.  Tell me how that came about and how you first thought of it.  Tell me of the inception.

Andrea:  Okay, well, the idea – actually, it’s from my friend Glenna.  She was living in Thailand and had a house near the beach and all these wonderful circus-y fire spinning people would keep coming through all the time and eventually somebody said, ‘Damn, we ought to do a show! We’ve got everything we need to do a show.’ Glenna had seen the poverty of some of the kids up in the north and knew what was going on up there, so she said, ‘Yeah, let’s go.  Let’s bring everybody up and do a show for a couple of days, bring some joy to these kids that are illegal migrant kids, and they’re refugees, and some of them are orphans.  So, she started doing that three or four years ago, just small, almost spontaneous, just small groups of people going up and doing it, and then it just kind of grew.  She took a year this year and wanted to go away, and I came on holiday in Thailand.  She said, ‘Hey, want to rent my house for a year and run my circus?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, okay!’ So, that is pretty much how that happened.  I just knew a lot of the same performers so I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to get a bunch of people over there, and that’s how we started. I’ve been doing different kinds of relief work with kids off and on for a couple of years.  My passion is poi spinning, so it was great to roll all that together and take it up. 

kSea:  Performing for these children, for these people – What is the most rewarding thing that you’ve found through it?

Andrea:  For me, circus skills and performing skills and that whole lifestyle has always been what really gave me a sense of self.  It was where I found my challenge, and I’d find my inspiration and I’d find my flow, my real sense of being present. It’s my meditation, it’s how I really understand the bigger picture, and so to be able to offer that to somebody else – It’s about play, but it’s a lot more than play.  It really transforms lives and it really gives an idea and opens things up. That was what I was hoping to bring to the kids, as well as a bunch of toys.  We donated a bunch of toys.

kSea:  Yeah?

Andrea:  Massive amount of toys.

kSea:    Right on.  What kind of toys?

Andrea:  Juggling toys. Poi, staffs, hula hoops. We had everything.

Khan:  Devil sticks.

Andrea:  Devil sticks.  I mean, it was mad.  We had donations from Home of Poi, Flowtoys, Nick at Play Poi helped us out, and Ut from Juggle Works in Bangkok.  We had a bunch of donations and we raised a bunch of money and we bought toys.  We did the performances for the whole communities and taught workshops for the kids, so the biggest reward was just seeing that chain carry on – the positive changes it made in my life, watching that kind of flow on down the path to somebody else.  For me, that was it.

kSea: So essentially it was more than just “toys”, in the classic sense – they were toys that could be used as tools to learn skills…

Khan:  I wanted to take part in the project for similar reasons.  I knew that, when I got into the stuff, it was really more to just have fun.

kSea:  The stuff, the stuff? Explain ‘the stuff.’

[everyone laughs]

Khan:  Spinny, object-manipulation circus skills.

kSea:  Okay, what do you do?

Khan:  I contact juggle and spin poi, and hoop. Poi is how I started, but I’m really – the hoop’s kind of taken over my life at this point.

kSea:  Really?  That’s a strange reach from CJ to hoop.

Khan:  I’m trying to figure out a way, as an aside to what I’m doing with hoop, to combine hoop dance that we see a lot -- Burning Man stuff -- with the more juggly manipulation stuff. So I got into this stuff mostly just for play, and just because I wanted to play with fire, stuff like that, but then it really became kind of an almost spiritual, meditative practice.  I knew that part of it would probably not convey to the kids, especially because I couldn’t really speak any of the languages [everybody laughs], so there wasn’t a way to talk about that.

Andrea:  I think they feel it when they do it.  Some of them, not all of them.

Khan:  I think some of them do feel that, but mostly it really activated my imagination and got my physical and so I wanted to bring some of that, and just a sense of play.

kSea:  So, performing for these children brought a lot more out in you?

Khan:  Oh, it did. For sure. I’ve done shows pure, and I’ve performed at Burning Man. I used to be part of a fire troupe, we did a lot of corporate gigs and private parties.  I’ve done floor shows in clubs.  After a while, it just started to feel empty.  It was just, ‘Look at me, look what I can do.’

Andrea:  Yeah.

Khan:  So then, doing it for the kids, and in particular, for these disenfranchised populations brought a little bit more meaning to it.

Andrea:  It’s almost opposite.  When you perform in North America, there’s a lot of ego involvement.  It really is.  ‘Look at me, look at how sexy I am. Look at how hot I am, I’m on fire.’  And then you’re in Thailand, and it’s almost the opposite.  You’re saying to yourself, ‘What can I give to them? What can I share with them?’  It’s absolutely not about being sexy because it doesn’t fly in their culture.  That’s not going to carry any weight.  It’s about engaging them and involving them and getting them inspired through movement and through color and light and silliness.  It’s a real fun way to flip those things around. I think it comes back to the truth of performance.

kSea:  I haven’t been there yet – ‘yet’ with a big exclamation point, as I’ve been invited by both you and Jerry Snell to come and teach, and perform – but I would imagine that their lives are entirely different from ours in North America.  They don’t have what we have - we are entirely blessed with many things and sometimes we don’t realize how far away the rest of the world is from that. Or, at least, parts of the rest of the world.

Andrea:  Yes, it really makes you appreciate what you have so much more but also have really full-on respect for the fact that the joy and the silliness exists with these kids and these families.  They don’t have all the crap that we have.  They don’t have TVs, they don’t have more than a change of clothes, sometimes no shoes, and very simple meals every day.  Yet, they’re still full-on able to access silliness, merriment, joy, wonder.

kSea:  They still know where to find their hearts.

Andrea:  Yes, absolutely.  They’re the most connected audience I’ve ever had in my life.  You can perform here, and everybody is separate from you.  They’re watching you like you’re on TV or something.  They *might* applaud at the end, if they’re really motivated.  But these guys are calling out – at everything you do, they’re commenting and screaming and talking to you while you’re performing.  There’s no separation between audience and performer, so it’s really connected.  Towards the ends of the performances we’d shake everybody’s hands in the audience after.  They want to touch you, they want to be connected to you.

Khan:  And say thank you.  They want to look you in the face and say, ‘Thank you.’

kSea: Wait, just a second – I left my hat inside… how do I pause this thing?...

The interview continued beautifully, but I either pressed the wrong button or just completely forgot to un-pause the recording device. Thankfully, a few months ago Andrea wrote an amazing blog entry about Laughing for Life, so I’ve been able to include some of the key points here, much much shorter – it is pages long, and incredibly beautiful, incredibly inspiring. Though in whole it is much more telling, Andrea has understandably asked that I don’t include a link to it as there are far too many idiots on the web, but for info on how to contact her or donate to the school, that can be found at the end of this article. She has also expressed that she is not the founder, that is a person named Glenna Crawley, and in Andrea’s words, she has “just took care of the project for the year, and developed it some.” It will continue next year, and needs your support, so please help…

Andrea’s Blog -
We wrapped the Laughing for Life circus project a few days ago, and I have been in Bangkok hanging out with some of the team and other friends, recuperating....

It was an amazing experience, and will take some time to process enough to write about. For me, I think of all these clichés, things like" it was the best of times, it was the worst of times... " Dont even know where they come from but somehow, they are true.

First off, I want to just comment on LOVE. The kind of love that brings ideas into action, takes thoughts and makes them manifest, the kind of love that puts aside ego and makes dreams come true. The kind that is fuel the kind that is fire, the kind that heals wounds, the kind that changes the world- or changes your life. We had so much of this, and sharing it with such astounding inspiring people just made it grow in an exponential fashion, until everything felt possible... My team, thank you guys- was the best I could have ever imagined, they were what I imagined in fact. Scary even, how close the reality was to my vision. Some days, walking with them, working with them, I felt like laughing inside, going man, how did I manage that. How was I so blessed to be able to gather such a talented, smart, fun compassionate group of people, and get them to come and work their asses off with me under such hard conditions? Laughing, cause I saw my hopes realized, often in such unexpected ways. Friends brought in friends, all the pieces falling into place, and despite a few shaky moments, everything ultimately demonstrating the profound interconnectedness of the world.

More on Laughing for Life! >>>