‘The Juggler’ How children from the Stellenbosch area in South Africa

embody, become aware of and challenge the walls in the landscape through the

practice of social circus

Thesis (addition to the ethnographic film)

Sophie Kalker, 10546626, sophieellenkalker@gmail.com

MA Cultural and Social Anthropology 2018-2019

Visual Anthropology pilot

Supervisors: Mattijs van de Port and Anja Hiddinga

Second readers: Kristine Krause and Lianne Cremers

11-01-2019

10.295 (without abstract, table of contents, references and appendix)

Link film: https://vimeo.com/306370355

Password: sisonke

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Abstract

Link trailer: https://vimeo.com/306398288

This thesis functions as a background paper on my ethnographic film ‘The Juggler’.

The Sisonke social circus wants to stimulate integration by making children move together in circus

practice. They use of different exercises to build trust across community lines. With the film, I try to

show how children from Isi!Xosa, English and Afrikaans communities in the Stellenbosch area

experience the practice of social circus; how social circus tries to help the children to challenge the

barriers and walls that are part of the South African landscape, and therefore of the children. The

film is divided in three parts to illustrate how the children showed their shared experiences with me:

imagining, moving and reflecting.

In this written thesis, I try to elaborate on my theoretical framework, methods and reflection. I focus

mostly on landscape, the body, and the benefits of social circus. I use landscape as a term to try to

show the entanglements of history, political context, culture, nature, body and mind. It encompasses

the way people are being-in-the-world; how they form, and are formed by it, in an unstoppable

movement.

With the film and thesis I try to show how walls are a manifestation of this shared landscape; how

the children embody, become aware of and challenge the walls by moving together.

Keywords: embodiment, landscape, social circus, visual anthropology, walls

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction 5

2. Theory & Methods 7

2.1 Theoretical framework 7

2.1.1 Landscape 7

2.1.2 The Body 12

2.1.3 Benefits of Social Circus 15

2.2 Methodological approach 19

3. Reflection 20

3.1 Development of relationships 20

3.2 Ways of filming 22

3.3 Editing process 23

3.4 Checklist 25

3.5 Ethics 27

4. Self-assessment 28

4.1 Achievements 28

4.2 Lessons for future projects 28

Bibliography 29

Appendix 32

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Deeply

I am a juggler

Deeply

I breathe out into the universe

I have breathed in

Into the universe

Where suns

Juggle planets;

Where galaxies

Juggle

Suns and their systems

Where the masked juggler

Juggles

These ten-to-the-ten of the

Starry ten-to-the-ten

Constantly

Immaculately

Eternally

I, atomic child

Charmed child

Of the universe

Juggle

And, am, juggled

- A poem by Michael Gelp and Tony Buzan, from their book The Art of Juggling,

cited by Lionel Chanarin in his thesis on juggling.

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1. Introduction

We grow into the world, as the world grows in us. (Ingold 2013: 746)

All over the world, children are moving for social change. Cirque du Soleil, one of the most famous

global circuses, started a program, Cirque du Monde, to facilitate circus practice for youth all over

the world: social circus. In their vision, social circus can function as an empowering practice that

crosses boundaries. For my research, I focused on how children from different social, economical

and cultural backgrounds from the Stellenbosch area in South Africa experience moving together in

social circus.

The social circus I’d like to introduce is Sisonke circus. Sisonke is an Isi!Xhosa word 1

meaning “we are together”, which also presents the vision of the circus. In 2011, the circus was

founded by Lionel Chanarin, who studied circus at the social circus Zip Zap in Cape Town himself.

He is a professional trapeze artist, acrobat, juggler and clown, who dedicates most of his time to the

social circus. On their webpage, they state that:

Through circus skills such as acrobatics, dance, juggling, trapeze, drama and much more, the children learn life skills such as communication skills, problem solving, health and safety, life skills as well as many other personal

qualities such as trust, respect for others and equipment, accountability, responsibility, teamwork, leadership, self-confidence, risk management, empathy as well as physical health, strength, agility, flexibility, dexterity and vitality. 2

They call Sisonke a family, where diverse communities come together through the medium of

circus, dance, music and skills. The program is free, no matter the background of the children.

They have a core group of 40 participants, consisting children from the age of 7 to 18 from diverse

ethnic, socio-economic and cultural communities in the Stellenbosch Valley in the Western

Cape. As they argue, the impact goes beyond the core group only:

See short promotion video (not made by me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC6FjJQbV9w1

http://sisonkesocialcircus.org2

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Performances are taken into communities where the diverse audiences share

in the joy which the integrated youth of our rainbow nation brings, inspiring hope, enthusiasm, co-operation and love for one another through our youth.

They want to stimulate integration, connection and the formation of relationships from a young age.

If you can’t stimulate children to focus on the same-ness, to form a community that is not based on

‘ethnicity’ or exclusion, how are the adults - of the present and the future - going to do this? This

seems to be a challenge. Why not start from the beginning: let’s start with the children.

In my film and written thesis, I hope to show how social circus tries to bridge the existing

gaps between different communities through movement. Michael Jackson explains that:

Our relationships with the world of others and the world around are relations of inter-est, that is, they are modes of inter-existence, informed by a struggle

for the wherewithal for life. We are, therefore, not stable or set pieces, with established and im-mutable essences, destinies, or identities; we are constantly changing, formed and reformed, in the course of our relationships with others and our struggle for whatever helps us sustain and find fulfillment in life.

(Jackson 2013: 5)

‘Inter-est’; one can only be(come), when we live and develop together; as constant movement

amongst people. Social circus offers them this. It gives them ‘the chance to express themselves and

be listened to, to realize their own potential and to make their own contribution as citizens of the

world’ (La Fortune 2011: 14 in MacCaffery 2011: 33). In this way, the focus is not on

empowerment by focusing on ethnicity, but empowerment by focusing on crossing societal

boundaries by working together and moving.

For Lionel, the two most important aspects in social circus practice are imagination and

trust. If we can imagine what it might be like for someone somewhere, we can move forward. With

circus, Lionel wants to give the children the opportunity to try to understand how one feels and

thinks, using movement and trust. Imagination, contact and trust fosters friendships and a teaching

that reaches beyond the social circus practice. This is something that normally doesn’t take place

between children from different backgrounds and communities, because they don’t get the

opportunities to do so. Maybe social circus can be a way to move the children ‘to participate in a

world beyond our accustomed roles and to recognize ourselves as members of a community, a

common body’ (Jackson 2013: 67), to start an inclusive movement to challenge current exclusive

distinctions.

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2. Theory & Methods

2.1 Theoretical framework

Before I introduce my research question and theoretical framework, I’d like to write a few words on

research on children in anthropology. Since children can offer interesting perspectives on their

experience of the society they live in, Hardman argues that children have to be heard, even though

they have been muted for a long time. She gives examples of studies by Mead, Goodman, Levi-

Strauss, Spencer, Taylor and Leach, that all miss the point she wants to address. All these authors

see children as ‘passive objects’, subject to the world of adults. Hardman wants to see the children

‘as people to be studied in their own right’ (2001: 504). Even though there have been attempts to

include children in studies, none of the approaches she mentioned in her article ‘revealed the

beginnings of an anthropology of children, concerned with beliefs, values, or interpretation of their

viewpoint, their meaning of the world’ (ibid.: 503). The beginnings of an anthropology of children

should be extended by paying attention to the bio-physical environment, and by developing

analytical notions about the thinking of a child (ibid.: 516). After 2001, there has been an increase in

studies that attempt to do that (Johnson et al. 2012), but still, I couldn’t find much. I wanted to

research children in their own right, as ‘meaning producing beings’ (Johnson et al. 2012), to see

how they experience their world. I hope that I approached the children in this way, to let them

explain how they experience the practice of social circus.

Therefore, my main research question was: How do children experience social circus in

relation to their embodied lifeworld, and it’s challenges, expectations, values, and obstacles? In this

section, I’d like to elaborate on the theoretical framework that guided me throughout the research. I

divided it into three parts: Landscape, The Body and Social Circus.

2.1.1 Landscape

There are many ways to sketch the historical, sociological and cultural context of South Africa. One

is to use terms that refer to the South African landscape.

They kept telling me about the beauty of the South African landscape. Impatiently, I was waiting, when they were going to start about the

social circus. What I didn’t realize, was that they were talking about it all along.

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With this sentence I open the film. The mountains, rivers, waterfalls, fields and oceans of South

Africa are breathtaking. I was mesmerized by the beauty, but this beauty has a shadow as well; the

inequalities between the people that are part of the landscape. The storyline of my film is implicitly

based around the concept of landscape. Landscape encompasses a sense of place, as well as our

past, our present, time, nature, culture and everything that we regard as our world (Ingold 2000,

Jackson 2013, Basso 1996). It is living, breathing and constantly transforming; we and everything

that it consists of form the landscape. Landscape is not just land or place, nor does it mean

environment or nature. Landscape is something that entangles nature and culture, the people and

their surroundings, all the living and non-living things on earth:

Neither is the landscape identical to nature, nor is it on the side of humanity against nature. As the familiar domain of our dwelling, it is with us, not against us, just as we are a part of it. (…) In landscape,

each component enfolds within its essence the totality of its relations with each and every other. (Ingold 2000: 191)

We are the landscape; it is the totality of the relations we have. We are just as much part of it as

anything else around us is. Ingold argues that we cannot separate our (body-)selves, nature, place,

environment and land from the landscape (2000: 193). Landscape is the collection of this formation,

of this whole. It invokes time and place, past and present, nature and culture, in a continues process

and tension (Bender 2006: 304). We can’t isolate landscape into one subject; it is interconnected

with everything of our existence, with a shared history and present.

The anthropologists John and Jean Comaroff, Sindre Bangstad and Thomas Eriksen had a

conversation about the shared history and present of the South African landscape. Bangstad says:

Looking at South Africa in its present phase from the point of view of an external observer, it is fair to say that there has been a process of gradual disbursement of the great illusions many of us had in the transition from

apartheid to democracy in the mid-1990s. Now, if you look at socio-economic indicators, inequalities seem to be rising, if anything. Poverty is still overwhelmingly black, whilst economic power remains overwhelmingly white.

(2012: 128)

The distinctions made on the basis of ‘ethnicity’ are still very present in daily South African life.

Separation based on skin color linked to economical class is reality. Lots of (black) children grow

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up in poverty in the townships that border the rich neighborhoods. The criminality rates are high,

and the perspective on ‘real’ equality low. As Jean Comaroff argues in the same conversation,

[N]otwithstanding the new freedoms and the new constitution, the gap

between rich and poor is greater than before, and it is still strongly correlated with differences of race. (2012: 122)

In the early 1990s, Archbishop Tutu stated that ethnicity wasn’t something that fit in the new

democracy, but by the late 1990s, ‘ethnicity’ was used as a dividing identity marker, a factor that

shapes the experience of everyday life (ibid.: 122). This grew out to be an even bigger problem over

time, separating people on the basis ‘ethnicity’; not so different from the time of Apartheid.

Identity formation on the basis of ethnicity, by excluding others from your ethnic group, is

still very much part of the daily lived reality of many South Africans. John Comaroff concludes the

conversation by arguing that:

The rise of identity politics empowers a proportion of the population that had been previously disempowered, but it excludes many more than those that it includes. This is the ambiguity, the ambivalence inherent in

the phenomenon. Can one make a politics out of that ambivalence? No, one cannot. One has to make a politics that resolves it, that turns its face against forms of empowerment that depend on perpetrating exclusion and

disposability. About this we are not ambivalent. South Africa, like everywhere else, has got to fashion an answer to the problems of rising inequality and inequity, wherever it takes root, in identity politics, or anything else. (ibid: 133)

Comaroff and Comaroff argue in their book Ethnicity, Inc., which they are discussing in this

conversation, that people should be empowered from within the community, across communities;

not by focussing on exclusion, but on inclusion. Not by fighting the socially constructed differences

by identifying on the basis of ethnicity, but by encouraging the same-ness, the being-together, part

of one society. Jess, the co-director of Sisonke, told me a story on the rough youth she had and the

crimes she had to endure; how the people that mugged her were black, how the people that killed

her father were black (she is white). Because of her experiences, she identified the problem as a

class problem. She wants to make people aware that it is a class problem, and that it has nothing to

do with the color of one’s skin. By doing social circus, she wants to focus on this being-together as

part of one society, that we need to build and improve together. !9

Amidst this complex landscape The Shed, the home of Sisonke, is based. The Shed is a

rebuild big farm-hall, on the Spier wine farm; a 200 hectares piece of land, where many different

people work, live and dwell. Lionel and Jess also work, train and teach on the farm. The farm feels

like a small rainbow-haven. Every morning I wake up, and watch over the vast land that I am

temporarily part of. The mountains watch the sunrise while I’m silently observing the sky. A sky

where walls aren’t present, a sky that is ever-moving. The clouds take many shapes, reflect upon

many moods. When I reread my field notes, I noticed that those shapes and moods shaped me as

well. On a misty morning, I woke up and felt pretty sad. My thoughts felt cloudy. I couldn’t do

much, but I did manage to write the following passage:

This excerpt from my field notes touches upon the main topics I address in my film: landscape,

movement and reflection. I experienced and observed how the landscape forms and is formed by the

people that dwell in it, with me as a part of it. The landscape is ever-moving and changing. When I

watched the mountains on those lousy mornings, I observed the unstoppable movement of the

weather. This made me think about the weather as an ever-moving and unrestricted phenomenon,

that influences all beings that are subject to it, like me. The landscape and the weather formed my

mood. It hid the mountains for me. It shaped the way I interpreted the place and the interactions I

had. It might be my naive, white European view, but what I’ve learned from the encounter with the

children from the social circus, is that walls are a big actor in the shaping of (them in) their mental

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21-07-2018 9.00u. Zonder te weten waarom precies, ben ik ontzettend gedemotiveerd sinds gisteravond. Ik ruim niet meer op. Doe de afwas niet meer. Ik ben

alleen maar mijn boek aan het lezen over de relatie tussen een (opgroeiende) man en de bergen. Alle jaren uit mijn jeugd waarin ik heb gestruind door de bergen stromen door mijn gedachten. Uiteindelijk lijken alle bergen op elkaar, zegt de auteur, maar zijn er slechts een aantal betekenisvol. Deze bergen koesteren je herinneringen. Daar heb je van mensen gehouden. De manier waarop de auteur het gevoel beschrijft wat de bergen je

kunnen geven als je er bent, wandelt, slaapt, eet, lief hebt, of wat dan ook, is precies zoals ik het voel. Het maakt me een beetje heimwee-achtig naar mijn bergen. En daarmee naar mijn geliefden. Dan zit ik hier weemoedig op de bank, terwijl het leven aan mij voorbij lijkt te gaan. Ten minste, zo voelt dat nu even. Het is niet heel vervelend, want ik weet dat het wel weer over gaat. Het is alleen zo stil hier. Zo

ontzettend stil. Het enige wat ik hoor in The Shed als ik daar ‘s avonds alleen ben is het krimpen van het dak als de kou intrekt, wat vreemde knallen die me laten schrikken, de wind, en soms wat vliegtuigen die over trekken. In het huisje hoor ik dezelfde geluiden. Plus af en toe het geschuifel van Lionel in de ochtend wanneer hij eerder opstaat dan ik, zijn sloffen aantrekt, en de waterkoker vult voor zijn koffie. Ik hoor de

voordeur open gaan. Dan rookt hij zijn sigaretje met zijn kopje koffie terwijl hij naar de zonsopgang kijkt. Stiekem deel ik dat moment met hem, zonder hem daarin te storen. Ik denk dat dat het moment is dat hij zichzelf even oplaadt, zich klaar maakt voor de dag. Dan wil hij niemand naast zich hebben. Op een of andere manier laadt zijn ritueel mij ook een beetje op. Het koestert een soort tevredenheid, een waardering voor het moment

en de plek. Niet veel later hoor ik het gieren van zijn motor. Dan sta ik op. Soms als hij er nog net is, soms als ik het geluid van zijn motor langzaam hoor afsterven. Dan heb ik het huisje, de ochtend en de bergen voor mij alleen. Dit is zo een moment. Het is ochtend en ik ben alleen in het huisje. Vandaag heb ik alleen geen zin. Het is mistig. Het heeft de bergen

voor mij verstopt, en dan vind ik het op een of andere manier moeilijker. De bergen geven me toch een soort rust, een uitzicht in hoe groot en divers dit land is, en dat ik hier op de boerderij dat allemaal van een veilige afstand mag aanschouwen. Met het vertroebelen van de bergen, vertroebelen ook mijn gedachten. Maar gelukkig weet ik dat op een dag, ook deze bergen mijn herinneringen zullen koesteren.

and physical landscape. In my film, I’ve used walls as a metaphor for the manifestation of the

barriers between people that are still present in the South African society.

In the beginning, I didn’t notice these walls. I was just driving through the landscape in the

little red car that belongs to Lionel. I’d go from within the one gate to the other, and would only get

out of the car when the gate behind me was closed. In many encounters I had, people told me to

only get out of the car if necessary, not to drive on specific roads and definitely not drive into the

townships. If I wanted to observe the ‘lifeworld’, as Jackson calls it, of the children, I had to go

home with them. This is also something that Lionel and Jess encouraged, who actually have many

experiences in the townships. Unlike the others, who advised me based on the fear that leads them.

To fight the still walls that create the separation, we have to keep moving. We, as part of the

landscape that is constantly moving and changing as well. It made me reflect upon my position as a

naive, white European visual anthropologist-in-the-making, the relationship that I’ve built with the

children and the landscape, and how the movements in social circus make the children aware of the

walls that restrain them from moving and interacting.

The inequalities in the current South African landscape is the memory and the result of a

shared history. In this way, the landscape remembers. It speaks to our senses, to the way we embody

our world and make our place in it. Landscape remembers in the way that the past and the present

are presented simultaneously, like our bodies are shaped and formed through time too. ‘Wisdom sits

in places,’ the Western Apache tell us through the words of Basso (1996: 67). The memory of a

shared history is embedded in the landscape, and therefore in the people. I see that the children want

to move, but that they are restricted by walls that represent the (historical) barriers between people

that the children have to challenge. Ingold argues that:

[T]o move, to know, and to describe are not separate operations that follow one another in series, but rather parallel facets of the same process - that of life itself. It is by moving that we know, and it is by moving, too, that we describe. (…) A

being that moves, knows and describes must be observant. Being observant means being alive to the world. (2011: xii)

By moving, we know and describe. By moving, the children share their lifeworld, their being-in-

the-world. They share their different positions in their shared history with each other. By moving,

they become aware of, and able to challenge, the walls that exist in the landscape, which transcends,

in my opinion, the body and mind separation. The walls exist on the in- and outside, in the in- and

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external world, encompassed in the landscape. And even though these walls try to stop this

movement, ‘the creeping entanglements of life will always inevitably triumph over our attempts to

box them in’ (Ingold 2008: 1809). But this isn’t easy. In order to do so, we need to imagine, move

and reflect; the subjects I address in the three different chapters of my film.

Landscape is constituted by numerous memories – either publicly remembered or

deliberately forgotten - and lives that have been part of it. It shows that all our senses, our mind and

our body, the social relations we engage in, the community we are part of, our sense of place, space

and our environment are all interconnected. They shape us as we go, and by doing so we shape the

way. We are like rivers; carving our way through the high mountains, slowly making our pathway.

The path will smoothen over time, it will be clearer, bigger and more prominent along the way we

grow. It asks for a slow and constant pressure, movement, expansion, for others to learn from it

afterwards. We are the landscape: we form it together in one big constant transformation. ‘We’, as

in everything that is the landscape; the rivers, the mountains, the plants, the animals, the people: all

in unity as one big moving picture with a shared memory. If I vanish, the landscape still exists; my

vanishing is part of that existence. We, as fragments, will turn into other parts, as the landscape

keeps transforming, but the memories remain. The landscape remembers. And these memories will

be part of the children of the next generation.

2.1.2 The Body

If I want to think about the embodied socio-cultural history, and about the influence movement in

circus practice can have on that, I have to become familiar with the discourse around the body in

anthropology. I divided this part into three parts: phenomenology, sensory anthropology and

embodiment.

An important approach to start with if we think about the body is phenomenology. A

phenomenological approach helps me to think about how people experience their lifeworld through

the body and senses. Desjarlais and Throop argue that phenomenology ‘helped anthropologists to

reconfigure what it means to be human, to have a body, to suffer and to heal, and to live amongst

others’ (2011: 88). In phenomenology, the line between subjectivity and objectivity is blurred. All

the cultural and historical conditions form the attitude of a social actor towards the world, and all

our thoughts, sensations, perceptions, objects, bodies, etc. influence our objective/subjective

experience of the world. Therefore, the body is seen as ‘a living entity by which, and through

which, we actively experience the world’ (ibid.: 89). For anthropologists, this meant studying

subjectivity, self-experience and personhood from a historical, cultural, variable and relative point !12

of view (ibid.: 92). This called for a more sensory approach in anthropology, an approach focused

on the body and our senses.

Even until now, vision has been ‘seen’ as the most important sense to discuss. Belova tries to

explain the interrelations of the senses from a phenomenological point of view, using Merleau-

Ponty’s perspective: ‘[I]n his understanding, it is the body, not the eye or the mind, that

looks’ (2006: 94). All objects in the world, including humans, intertwine in movement with the

agent in its own center of perception. She argues that:

The body moves in order to interrogate the things and beings around it,

‘its motility is a response to the questions the world raises’ (Dillon, 1997: 146).

Thus the kinesthetic ability expands the receptive, responsive character of body’s involvement with the world and its search to understand others. (ibid.: 102)

So, meaning comes not from ‘isolated perceptions’ (ibid.: 104), but from the interrelatedness of the

senses and the connections one makes in the world, which makes the act of seeing a lived

experience (ibid.: 102). This lived experience is the result of all the movements the perceiver,

object, human, living entity - call it what you want, makes in connection with its surroundings. In

social circus, these connections are transferred as embodied knowledge by the children through

movements and touch. The different lifeworlds of the children give meaning to the movements, and

therefore the movements give meaning to the lifeworlds again. In this way, the focus is not on the

vision, but on touch and what knowledge can be transferred through it.

In anthropology, the place of touch is problematic, even though touch is undeniably part of

our everyday embodied experience (Paterson 2009: 129). Aristotle explains that vision, for

example, is a well discussed and understood sense because it can be connected to the organ that it is

mediated through: the eye. The eye is the organ for vision, the ear for hearing, but the flesh is the

medium for touch, rather than an organ, which makes understanding it difficult. Our sensory

experience of touch, and therefore of the other senses as well, is always mediated (ibid.: 130). ‘For

if touch is by its very nature mediated, it becomes unappealing and irrelevant to try to understand

what touch “is”’ (ibid: 131): communication through the skin (Marinetti in Paterson 2009: 132).

Both authors remind us that the senses are actually not separable, and part of the same embodied

sensory experience. If that is the case, touch is a mediated form of communication to share sensory

embodied experiences. This is also what Classen argues: ‘Touch is not just a private act. It is a

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fundamental medium for the expression, experience and contestation of social values and

hierarchies. The culture of touch involves all of culture’ (2005: 1). Cranny-Francis adds to this that: We know ourselves and the world through the sense of touch, crucially including our ability to touch ourselves and to make sense/meaning of

that touch. At the point of touch, of contact (com- “together” + tangere “to touch”), we know both the self and the other, including the other that is also the self; that can reflect on and position the self. This is a point of connection, at which we perceive connection only through the perception

of difference. (2011: 468)

Though this perception of difference, we can learn from each other. Through touching the other, the

children in the social circus learn to be aware of the fact that they are different; a different body-

self. And in this, they become aware of their position in society, their privileges and disadvantages,

their fears and certainties, the way they differ and are similar. Through touch they learn how it

might be for someone else that grows up in different circumstances, which makes them reflect upon

their own background. They learn to become aware of the embodied walls that prevent them from

touching each other in daily life, and what that means for them.

The sensorial experience of the world in phenomenology inspired anthropologists to develop

a sensory anthropology. Classen argues that sensory perception is cultural, as well as physical. All

our senses are linked with different associations, particular to the person’s lifeworld. Every domain

of society is composed by different sensory meanings and practices particular to culture (1997:

401). She continues: ‘Sensory perception (…) is not simply one aspect of bodily experience, but the

basis for bodily experience. We experience our bodies - and the world - through our senses’ (ibid.:

402). Culhane also argues that we should learn about ‘the interrelationships among embodiment,

affect, imagination, and sensory experience, shot through by the power of history’ to understand the

embodied being (2017: 46). According to her and others, the importance of studying sensory

experience is that we can think of our minds and bodies not as oppositions, but as interacting with

each other and the world (ibid.: 52). The interrelationships among embodiment, affect, imagination,

and sensory experience, shot through the power of history, are exactly the subjects the social circus

has to deal with. Lionel told me that these children all have their own separated experience in a

shared history. The children from the social circus come from such different backgrounds, that it is

hard to imagine that they are part of the same society. They share little but geographical place and

the fact of being human. Language, food, economic situation, education, future prospects, family

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life, holidays, religion, ancestors; everything is different. In circus practice, the children learn to

acknowledge these differences and embrace them, in stead of fear them. They have to embody a

new understanding of the relationships they have with children from different communities through

imaginative thinking and sensory experiences.

This leads me to the anthropological paradigm of embodiment. By moving and interacting

with other body-selves, the children embody new ways of trusting and thinking about each other.

With their Three Bodies (individual, social and body politic), Scheper-Hughes and Lock opt to write

against the Cartesian dualism that the body and mind are separable, which has led to the

anthropological notion that we embody our lifeworld: it becomes part of us through our body.

Therefore, individual, social and political boundaries become blurred (ibid.: 24). Csordas starts to

explain the paradigm with Merleau-Ponty, who situates embodiment in the problematic of

perception, and Bourdieu, who focuses mostly on the practice of it (1990: 7). Until the 1990s,

anthropologists (1) have considered perception strictly as a function for cognition, (2) isolated the

senses, and (3) didn’t link the study of perception to that of social practice (ibid.: 35). That is why,

Csordas argues, it is very important for the paradigm of embodiment to connect the subject and

object, the mind and body, the self and other, cognition and emotion, and objectivity and

subjectivity. If we start from perception, it becomes relevant to see how bodies are formed and

objectified through reflection (ibid.: 36). Embodiment is situated on the level of lived experience;

about our being-in-the-world. In this way, we can see the body-self as formed by a variety of

contexts and relationships (Van Wolputte 2004: 261-262). Both Lionel and Lolona (one of the circus

students) told me a story about how they stood on the shoulders of one of their fellow students one

day in practice. In both of their cases, the base threw the person standing onto the ground, because

his shoulder was hurting. This caused the ones that got thrown off even more pain, which led to a

big discussion in both cases: the children have to learn that they have to take a little pain for

someone else sometimes, in order to be trusted and to protect each other. In this way, social circus

teaches children to break through the established embodiment, by communicating through

movement and touch.

2.1.3 Benefits of Social Circus

The movements in social circus need some explanation. By doing movements that work on trust,

team building and self-confidence, social circus tries to unconsciously teach them, through play, the

same lessons in other aspects of life. For example, one of the first social circus exercises I’ve

witnessed (and done) was falling off the stage into the arms of the children that catch you. All the !15

children will stand in front of the stage, lined in two rows facing each other with their arms up. One

person will stand on the stage with their back facing the group, who will fall backwards off the

stage into their arms. I was filming them doing it, and lost myself slightly in my camera and image.

Lionel dragged me out of my film-concentration; ‘Now you have to do it!’ I didn’t really think

about the fact that I was also able to do it, so I climbed on the stage and dropped myself. It was a lot

more frightening than I expected. Since you aren’t facing the catching children, you don’t really

know what you’re falling into. You just have to trust the fact that there are people standing on the

ground who will catch you. This is a huge step in developing trust for each other. After the catch, I

immediately felt a better connection with the children, I was on their level: I was learning how to

trust them and be trusted by them.

Some authors outside anthropology have written on the psychological benefits of these

exercises. Twardzicki writes that when arts are used in a social community setting, they can increase

community relationships, and improve wellbeing and health. The arts in health care can improve

communication skills, the establishment of relationships with others forms of expression, and self-

esteem (2008: 69). This is something that social circus strives to establish. Maglio and MacKinstry

write about these psychological effects of social circus. They give a short overview on the program

and results of the ‘Circus in Schools’ program they researched from a therapeutical perspective.

They argue that children can develop their artistic expression and group solidarity through social

circus, which offers them to create new ties with society (2008: 287). They stress the methods and

activities used in social circus to teach life skills, personal and social skills, and interdisciplinary

skills (ibid.: 288). They give the following examples (ibid: 289):

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Warm-up games Opportunities for team work, collaboration, verbal and non-verbal communication, increased challenges, and a mix of attainable and challenging tasks.

Acrobatics Core, upper and lower limb strength and flexibility, body awareness, trust, positive risk-taking, giving and receiving physical support.

Acrobalance Team work, body awareness, problem solving, trust, safe and positive physical interaction, gender stereotypes around

strength challenged, and a mix of achievable and challenging tasks promoting self-efficacy.

Manipulation (juggling, hula hooping) Grading of tasks to increase challenge. Opportunities to improve coordination, gross, and fine motor skills.

Promotion of rapid thinking, reaction, persistence and practice. Opportunities for peer education, creativity, and improvisation of combining skills learned.

Balance-based activities Promotes reduced fear of heights and physical limits. Peer-to-peer support and trust of self and others. Taking responsibility for safety of self and others is integrated.

Awareness of self in relation to others and the physical environment is continually addressed.

Performance Promotes creativity, collaboration, breaking down of

inhibitions, exploration of theatrical themes, giving and receiving social support, experience of taking on different roles, development of different characters, brainstorming, problem-solving, and various forms of communication.

The findings, according to the authors, were that social circus practice:

1. Provides a fun, motivating and intrinsically reinforcing experience 2. Increases positive risk taking both physically and emotionally, in a safe and supported environment

3. Promotes physical health and body awareness through activity 4. Enables participants to acquire a broadened skill base relating to circus as well as more generic ‘life skills’ 5. Increases self-confidence and self-efficacy

6. Improves social connectedness, teamwork, and leadership skills within the group 7. Provides opportunities for calming rhythmic activities, increased sensory

feedback, a focus on balance, and coordination 8. Creates a space in which participants feel a sense of belonging (ibid.: 289)

I’ve seen that these qualities are indeed very present in the social circus training. What I want to add

to this literature, is to observe what it is like to place this into the context of the children, to see

further than just the psychological benefits and to add an anthropological view on the matter, mostly

from the perspective of the child and what happened in the interaction between them and me.

Of all the subjects social circus addresses, I found that Sisonke mostly focuses on

developing trust. Especially in a society where fear and separation are very present, poverty of trust

is a very important issue. Cadwell stresses the importance of this by focusing on how social circus

teaches children how to trust each other and themselves (2018: 20). While describing different

circus ‘hard skills’ (the actual acts of doing circus) and ‘soft skills’ (the social acts related to it), he

argues that social circus is not used to teach specific circus techniques as a goal, but to teach how to

do it, to learn how to trust yourself, your peers and teachers, and how to cope with failure (ibid.:

24). He concludes that:

The pedagogical effectiveness of youth and social circus is not limited to the acquisition of basic circus techniques but rather includes the development of an array of personal and social capabilities. Key among these is the ability

for participants to trust themselves and to trust others. (ibid.: 28)

This is something that I’ve experienced as well. Falling off the stage into the arms of many children

improves your trust in others. This development of trust helps them to cross the societal borders

between communities. Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean that they immediately leave their share in the !18

landscape with the embodied socio-cultural history behind. It actually just starts at learning to trust

each other in circus practice; to eventually become aware of the barriers towards trusting each other

in daily life.

2.2 Methodological approach

I wanted to use film as a medium to come closer to an understanding and portrayal of the

experience of the children, since I don’t think that academic writing can communicate the sensorial

experience of embodiment and movement. By learning movement skills in social circus, the

children move between embodied and disembodied states: the body in action becomes the focus of

awareness (Lewis 1995: 228-229). I wanted to see if I could find an academic language with film

that can mediate between the body and mind, movement and embodiment, and subjectivity and

objectivity. Since in film, the separations don’t need to be as clear.

In my original approach, I wanted to shift from ‘embodiment as praxis’ to ‘metaphors as

praxis’ to look for a way to transcend the body/mind dualism. According to Jackson, metaphors can

unite us into one Being again, because metaphors can function as crucial mediators between the

body and the social and natural environments (1983: 137). What I wanted to do, was to focus on

non-verbal metaphors, or bodily metaphors that communicate this physical experience of the world.

Although I still admire Jackson’s approach, and although bodily metaphors are still used in social

circus practice, I had to let this go as a main focus during the research, because I realized that

thinking about landscape was more useful to understand how the children experience movement (or

bodily metaphors) in social circus practice.

I still wanted to find a language to express what I’ve learned from the encounters I had in

South Africa. Even though the bodily metaphors (like a human pyramid, which obviously has a

greater impact on the child than just standing on top of each other) are still used in the practice of

social circus, I found another metaphor to be a more accurate portrayal of the message I want to

transfer. I shifted away from the bodily metaphors as a main focus, and focused more on metaphors

in, or that are part of, the landscape. To convey my interpretation, I focused on walls as a visual

metaphors for the the big barrier that exists between people from different socio-, cultural,

economical groups in my film.

Visual anthropology provides the methods to show how these children embody and become

aware of these walls. We should recognize cinema as something that beholds many possibilities for

creating and sharing knowledge and exploring other lifeworlds. Suhr and Willerslev understand the

invisible as the meaningful worlds observed by anthropologists - worlds that the anthropological !19

ideal of thick description has always sought to highlight. They say that film can show us bodily

details that offer a rich understanding of someone’s experience, that are impossible to write down

(2012: 291). With montage, we can create layers and metaphors that illustrate this experience that is

impossible to communicate in words.

In my montage, I created a story based on a visual metaphor: walls. This is something that

developed in the editing process, and reflects my experiences in South Africa. The metaphor of a

wall is the layer I wanted to add in the montage, next to showing the development of the children

throughout the time that they are part of the circus. I start with the walls and the introduction in the

circus, I continue with imagination, trust and reflection. These are the stages of awareness the

children go through in the process of doing social circus. Firstly, they learn that other children lead

different lives from them; they learn to imagine what it might be like for someone else. Secondly

they learn to trust and be trusted, to finally become aware of and challenge the walls that exist in the

mental and physical landscape. With these chapters and metaphors, I hope I showed the importance

of social circus in the lives of these children and the effect it has on them and their families. I’ve

also been through these stages; I’ve tried to imagine what it might be like for them, to grow up in

South Africa. I won their trust and learned to trust them as well. Finally I became aware of the

mental and physical walls, something I didn’t realize in the beginning. This is also what Suhr and

Willerslev argue; although we should keep the right balance between realism and constructivism,

simplicity and complexity, resonance and dissonance, ‘montage of ethnographic films provides us

with a complementary and resourceful means of making us imagine other people’s worlds’ (2012:

294, 293). Not by showing ‘how it is’, but how we, as anthropologists, imagine it to be. Then, as a

last remark, could this portrayal of imagination form anthropological theory? Anthropological

theory should not ‘attempt to draw the findings of various studies together into an overarching

explanatory framework. There is no attempt to hunt for causes: the aim is rather to trace effect’ (Mol

2010: 261). This is what I tried to do: to trace effect. The effect of movement in social circus on the

children’s experience of their embodied lifeworld and the effect of visual methods in

anthropological research.

3. Reflection

3.1 Development of relationships

I found the Sisonke social circus by chance. At first, I was going to one in Morocco, which didn’t

happen in the end, because it was summer; practice would not continue during the summer months. !20

This left me empty handed. I looked on the map of Cirque du Monde, and searched for social

circuses in countries where it was winter and I spoke at least one of the languages. I clicked on

Sisonke, did some background research and emailed them. Within ten minutes, I was going to South

Africa. I had to reframe the context of my research and my living situation. Luckily, Lionel offered

me a room in his cottage on the farm. Jess, Theo and him (the circus people) live in these cottages

next to each other, which made it very easy for me to emerge in their world.

Once I arrived at the airport, I spotted the only colorful person, even with a broken leg. I

thought, ‘that must be him’, and it was. He broke his leg because he fell off a ladder while rigging

something. Surprisingly, since he does so many dangerous things in his life where it is more likely

to break a leg. I arrived late in the evening, so I didn’t know where we were going. We got into his

little old red car, which he calls ‘the old lady’, and drove far out of the city, onto a big farm. Only

the next morning, I realized the magnitude and beauty of the land I would be living in and on for the

next three months. From that moment on, our relationship developed quickly. We became dear

friends. Lionel, Jess and Theo took me in as part of their circus family, and showed me everything

they wanted to share. I couldn’t have wished for a more warm welcome into the field. Because I

spent so much time with them and in The Shed (the practice hall), I had all the opportunity to film

whatever I wanted, and even take time to edit along the way.

The building of relationship with the children didn’t go as smooth as with Lionel, Jess and

Theo. Since the circus only practices once a week, it was difficult for me to build in-depth

relationships with the children at the start. In the end, I managed to visit some of their homes, which

was key for my research and film. Originally I wanted to visit the poorest and the richest house, but

neither was possible. The richest house wasn’t available because they were too busy, and the

poorest house I couldn’t visit. After asking him many times, Nande eventually told me:

Nande: ’I’m sorry Sophie, but it really isn’t safe for you to come to my place. I live really deep down in Kayamandi and it is not a

good place to be for you. I hear gunshots in the night.’ Me: ‘But is it safe for you then?’ Nande: ‘Yeah, for me it is safe. Not in the night of course, but then

no one is safe.’

He joined us at Lolona’s house, one of the houses I could visit because it is in a better neighborhood

of Kayamandi. In the end, it didn’t matter I couldn’t visit the houses I had in mind, because it still

gave me the opportunity to really spend some time with some of them and ask them questions. Of

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course, it isn’t comparable with living with people. I’ve noticed how important that is, because I

have the feeling I didn’t really became part of the children’s life outside of Sisonke. Over the

weeks, I noticed that my role as an anthropologist was not clear for the children. Therefore I

decided to teach a photography course to the children I had the best connection with, to function as

a teacher as well (next to Lionel, Jess and Theo), and for them to show me more of their lives

through images. I had never taught before. I realized that I really enjoyed it (as well as the kids).

Their pictures have been very important in my understanding of how important the social circus is

to them. In the end, we organized an exhibition of the photographs they chose which expressed their

circus experience the best. 3

The thing I’d like to think about better next time, is that only later, I realized that none of

them had the feeling the film was ‘about them’, because there were so many children I wanted to

speak with. They, including the instructors, had the feeling the film was about the social circus only.

They distanced themselves from the circus a little, even though they are the circus to me. On the

one hand, this was beneficial because they probably wouldn’t have been as comfortable with me

and my camera if they had the idea that they were in the spotlight, but on the other hand I had the

feeling it made them less engaged with the film.

3.2 Ways of filming

The camera that I brought to the field is a Nikon D610 with a Rode Videomic Go. I chose this

camera because I’ve been photographing with it for a while, so I know it well. While filming, I

controlled all the settings manually to create the atmosphere I wanted to capture. In a way, this gave

me the feeling I ‘made’ the images myself. The disadvantage is that I had to divide my focus

between my subjects and the technicalities. This sometimes distracted me from listening and

responding carefully, although I have the feeling it didn’t influence my camera conversations too

much. What disturbed me more, is that in a lot of footage I changed the settings to produce a better

image, without realizing that my settings wheel makes a horrible sound on the recording. Next to

that, by changing light settings, the whole clip becomes difficult to use because the color grading

changes. At that time, I didn’t know what I was or wasn’t going to use, so I just free-styled in

playing with the settings. Also, the manual focus was very difficult to control. If you want to keep

your subjects in focus all the time, you can’t leave your camera screen. This is something I couldn’t

do. Because of this, a lot of my footage is partly out of focus. I don’t mind it that much, because it

I added the photographs to the appendix.3

!22

actually reflects the out of focus mindset I had when arriving in the field. Nonetheless, it is a little

distracting for the viewer.

The lens I used is a 50mm/1.4 lens. I also brought a 35-70mm and a 70-300mm lens, but I

didn’t use them. What I like about my 50mm lens is the image-quality it produces, the colors are

beautiful and soft. I didn’t want to have color and light differences in my footage, therefore I stuck

with this lens. Another reason was that with a set focal point (50mm in this case), I really have to

use myself to compose the image. I can’t zoom in or out, so if I want to get closer to someone, I’d

have to approach him or her. Ethically, I think this is a more honest way of capturing closeness,

because you as the researcher really have to get close in a physical sense. This changes the

interaction and the moment of intensity the camera captures. Since I had to move up close, the

subjects had more agency to decide what they want to show so close-by. This makes the camera a

very physical object to me.

Even though I brought a tripod all the way there, I didn’t really use it. Whenever I took it

out, people reacted to the camera differently. The camera and the mic are already very present in the

room and the interaction, so the presence of a tripod seemed too overwhelming sometimes. The

camera is a pretty fluid object, because it moves with my movement. A tripod is more static, which

made the interaction more static as well. Sometimes I regret it, because my footage is more shaky

than I would have liked, although I’m also happy I kept the movements fluid and going, since that

correlates with my research focus.

3.3 Editing process

The process of making the film is a pretty intense one. In regular documentary filmmaking, most

scenes are previously thought of and filmed according to plan. In anthropological filmmaking, this

is not the case. I came back from the field with 90 days of footage. Fortunately I already structured

a lot during fieldwork by editing weekly updates, otherwise I wouldn’t have known where I

should’ve started after those three months. Almost every week, I made a clip of 10 minutes with all

the footage that struck me and that reflected upon the process of thinking at the time. These updates

helped me a lot to structure my thinking and refine my plans for further filming.

Even though these updates shaped the way I filmed, the filming was still pretty much

unstructured. The only thing I knew for sure is that I wanted to get to the children’s homes and film

them during practice. Once I came back from the field, I realized that I didn’t specifically film the

most important metaphor of my film: walls. I plowed through my footage and found walls in all

kinds of shots; scenery under random conversations, filming while driving the car, filming the !23

environment when I had nothing to do, et cetera. I was lucky to find many of them (since they are

quite present in the landscape), but I can imagine that this type of unstructured filmmaking can lead

to a lot of superfluous and/or lacking footage. As anthropologists we go into the field with a semi-

structure in mind, with a specific focus and gaze. I think that in filmmaking, this is not enough.

When we write, we can write about moments in history that we didn’t think would be important at

the time, and use them to make our argument in retrospect. With film, you can’t work with these

memories, because you maybe didn’t film them. This tension between the open mind you need to

start anthropological fieldwork and the structure you need to start filming is something to reflect

upon within visual anthropology.

During the editing process I had some setbacks due to unnecessary updates I did amidst the

editing process. This is something I’ll never do again. It took me more than a week to rewrite my

project-file into a file that worked with my older version, since my computer wasn’t capable of

handling the new version. Even though this was horrible, I learned a lot about computer

specifications, soft- and hardware.

The biggest challenge for me was to create a coherent storyline where all the different

characters I had to introduce were not distracting the viewer from the main argument. To make a

storyline that has a clear argument and story with unspecified footage, is very difficult and differs a

lot from writing (as I’ve mentioned earlier). I’ve filmed all my images in a time that I wasn’t aware

of the things that I know now, which makes it feel like I’m reading back my field notes; as if I’m

editing in and shuffling with history. I can’t change the images anymore into something that suits

my story better. In writing, you use your field notes as an in-depth example to enrich your

argument. In film I found this to be more difficult because the images lead their own lives:

everything is presented at the same time, whereas in writing, you can pick the details you want to

present. The challenge I faced was to stop shuffling “field notes”, and edit them in a way that my

analytical point and my position as a researcher comes across. This is one of the biggest challenges

in editing for visual anthropologists, in my opinion.

Of course, we have to acknowledge and realize that visual anthropology is camera based

research, and not research to make a film. This is also something that is powerful about visual

anthropology, because the films that come out of the camera based research are very honest,

reflective and almost innocent in a way. We can’t hide our flaws or reshoot them; we have to work

with our intuitively shot footage. The analyses mostly happens in montage, more than in a pre-

planned documentary. Visual anthropological research shows a process and what happens in the

interaction between the researcher and the informants. !24

3.4 Checklist

To make an anthropological film, I had to take the following criteria in account. The first one is

‘layerdness’. With the use of visual layers, an anthropological film tries to make a thick description

with edited images and sounds. The montage seeks to create a structure to make the images

meaningful for the argument. In anthropological filmmaking, visual metaphors are used to express

the things you want to show on different sensorial levels. In my film, I wanted to do this by using

fluid (circus) and static (walls) images. I’ve observed that children are fluid beings. They live in the

feeling world, which is a very fluid and dynamic world. They want to connect, move, touch and

explore. To learn through play. The separations and barriers that the children have to face in society

restrain them from this freedom of movement. Circus offers them this freedom of movement in a

fluid way. In the open space on the almost gate-less farm, the children that normally only play with

each other through the fence, can now play freely. Through movements they learn how to trust each

other, and it makes them aware of the barriers that they still have towards each other. I hope to make

this clear by showing layers that mostly consist of gates, walls and fences, contrasting fluid circus

movements, trusted home environments and vast landscapes.

The second criterium for an anthropological film is ‘media-awareness’. Since we use the

camera as a tool for research, we should not pretend that it does not exist, nor that it doesn’t

influence the situation and relationship with your informants. The camera has been a big presence in

my research. I was even introduced for the first time to the children like this:

‘Hello everyone, we have a few new Sisonke family members. One of

them is Sophie, she came all the way from Amsterdam to be here with us for three months. She likes to look at the world through her camera, so you’d better get used to that.’ - Lionel, during the first practice I attended

My camera was introduced very shortly after me. They didn’t even meet me without it; an integral

part of their experience of me. This gave me access in many ways. Because they were used to me

looking at the world through my camera, it wasn’t weird at all that I just hung around and did

nothing but film most of the time. Without a camera, behavior as such would have probably raised

more questions. I talked with the children and adults about the presence of my camera and what it

meant for them. I edited three of these moments into a short video. 4

Link video: https://vimeo.com/302432955 | Password: sisonke4

!25

I divided the clip in three parts. Here, I will give a little background information. Part 1: The

pretentious camera. This happened in my first week in South Africa. I was in the car with Lionel,

the circus director. Late at night, we stranded in the middle of the road due to lack of gas. While

waiting for a friend to bring us gas, we had a conversation about the presence of my camera. Part 2:

The awkward camera. This was during training with Bridgette, a social circus student, and Karen, a

circus performer and teacher. Many evenings we spent training together. We were listening to

possible songs for Bridgette to perform her silk act to. I think this clip shows the vulnerable

awkwardness the camera provokes in all three of us. Part 3: The intrusive camera. In this particular

moment, Jess, the co-director of the circus, and me were visiting a venue in Kayamandi, the

township next to Stellenbosch, to discuss the possibility of creating a training space for the children

from Kayamandi that are part of Sisonke. The farm is quite far away, so we had to bring them back

and forth every time they would want to train by themselves (which we couldn’t do). By that time,

all the circus people (and me) were already used to the camera. I didn’t realize that the venue owner

wasn’t, and was just filming like he was. He deals with me in a very direct but friendly way. It made

me realize once again that the camera cannot be silently present.

Even if I wanted to, I think I couldn’t have ignored the fact that it is me looking at the world

through the camera. I have the feeling that all my images portray my experience, the way I related

to the world I encountered. This brings me to the third part of the checklist: ‘intersubjectivity’, or

the reflection upon the encounters I had with the people I met. It is in these encounters that the

magic happens, the merging, meeting and clashing of two worlds of experience and understanding.

They brought me my information. The moment that was most striking for me was the moment

where Maya, one of the circus children, shows me a picture of some children that she was playing

hide and seek with through the fence (in the beginning of the film). If it wasn’t for me, that remark

would have just disappeared in the void of all the spoken words that day. But because I was the one

who was listening, and because it clashed with my experience of playing hide and seek with my

neighbors from another socio-/cultural background when I was young, I filmed it, picked it out, and

made it a central point in my understanding of their world. These encounters form the basis of my

experience, and therefore of my film.

The last criteria is ‘experimentation’. This is the hardest one for me to think about. How am

I challenging the standard ways of making a film? By discussing the last three criteria already, I

hope that my film will come across different from a ‘fiction-non-fiction’-film. I hope that by being

critical towards my own position as a white, female, European researcher, my own theoretically

inspired way of understanding the world I encountered, my feelings, development and relationships, !26

I can challenge the idea that the film is the truth as it presents itself to the viewer. I hope that the

metaphor of walls can function as a way to realize that these mental and physical barriers the

children have to deal with are very complex, and that circus might be a way to make them aware of

the barriers in order to challenge them. Circus won’t ‘solve’ the problem, it rather functions as a

method of (self-)reflection. This is, in my opinion, the first step towards change.

3.5 Ethics

Working with children raises a lot of questions around ethics. During the fieldwork, I had the idea

that the children didn’t mind my camera. The way the camera and me were introduced (as I’ve

explained above), apparently gave them enough information to accept my presence. I functioned

mostly as someone that was part of the circus for a while, rather than a cameraperson. Nonetheless,

the camera had an effect on them. I think it made them aware that they were being viewed, and

therefore aware of what they were telling and showing me.

Lionel said that the camera functioned as a way to reflect on what they are doing and

thinking, which I noticed as well. For example, Nande told me one day in the car how useful our

camera conversation was for him:

Nande: ’Every week, I pick my favorite day of the week. This week, it was

definitely Wednesday, when you visited.’ Me: ‘Really? Why?’ Nande: ‘It is really good to talk about these things, it helps a lot. Normally we don’t get the time to talk about it. Sometimes Mama Aida [a social worker]

comes to Sisonke, and I really enjoy talking to her. It helps me think.’

Nande expressed how he needs to stop and reflect for a moment, but that the rhythm of daily life

doesn’t always allow it. In the beginning, I asked Lionel if I should have made the children and

their parents sign a film agreement form, but he found that to be unnecessary. Before I started

filming, I asked the parents if I could film their children, and if I could maybe come and visit. They

added me to their WhatsApp group to explain my project and my role in the circus.

Even though I got positive responses, I still have to be careful with the representation of

children on camera. While filming, the children have power over what they show and tell, but what

I show through editing is out of their control. Even more than with adults, the possibility that the

children didn’t fully understand what I wanted to achieve with the film at the time, is even bigger.

So, the framing of their words and worlds can come as a surprise. Before I show my film to people

!27

outside my personal and university circles, I asked Lionel to show the last version to the main

children and their parents. Before I finalize the film, I want to hear their feedback. Luckily Lionel

was very positive (which means a lot to me), so I can only hope the children and parents will feel

the same.

4. Self-assessment

4.1 Achievements

Even though I have a lot of remarks on my approach, outcomes, choices, et cetera, I have the

feeling that I have done everything I could to make the most out of this project. Since, I constantly

got confronted with the things I wanted to have done differently, it was an exciting experience to

take a whole year to develop, research and finalize something that is very close to my heart. I see

this film as a learning process, and am happy to have learned the things I have. I’m already looking

forward to start something new with these experiences in mind and body.

4.2 Lessons for future projects

I’ve learned many lessons I want to take into future projects. I want to elaborate on the two main

ones here. Firstly, I want to be more active and confident in choosing and directing my shots. I

would have liked to ask Bridgette if she could turn off the music while we were having a camera

conversation. I would have liked to ask Rune and Lolona if we could have taken some more time to

film their house and surroundings. In general, I would have liked to spend more time with them. I

was afraid to ask these things, because I didn’t want to break the fragile relationship they, I and the

camera were building. In the future, I want to be more confident in asking these things as a

‘filmmaker’, who also happened to be an anthropologist. Also, I would’ve liked to take more time

to really curate my camera-settings precisely, to make my light, sound and focus less messy. If I

would have done these things, which comes down to taking more time, I would have more silent

moments, silent shots of life that can set an atmosphere for the viewer, something that my footage

lacked. Secondly, I wish I made it more clear that the film was about them. Not about the social

circus as a concept, but about them as part of a social circus. I think that they would have

understood my motivations better, and would have given me more time to be silently present in

their lives at home as well.

!28

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Appendix

These were the photographs the children have taken, titled and curated into an exhibition in The

Shed. They were taken during a photography course I gave to come closer to the children and for

them to show me their lifeworld through pictures. With these photos, they try to show their circus

experience through pictures.

‘Field of Dreams’ by Mila

!32

‘Laqalaza’ (‘Being Confused’) by Melissa

‘Defying the Odds’ by Hannah

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‘It’s a Vibe’ by Sifisto

‘Playing Hide and Seek’ by Maya

!34

’Trying to Fit in’ by Kuhle

‘The Dramatic Boy’ by Lolona

!35

‘My Playmate’ by Imane

‘Leap of Faith’ by Nande

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