American Circus Educators Magazine Fall 2017 (Issue 2, Volume 10) | Page 6

INTERVIEW #1
Full CircEsteem Ahead:
An Interview with Dan Roberts
WITH KIM CAMPBELL
Kim/
Dan/
Tell me a little bit about yourself. How long have you been a
director?
I started in social circus when I was at Roosevelt University and
worked at CircEsteem as an instructor for about 4 years. I worked
my way up to Associate Director. I was in charge of the events, staff training,
and a number of other things. After I decided to leave CircEsteem, I was
in Circus Smirkus. I taught at their summer camp for a couple summers,
as well as working with Cirque du Monde in NYC for a couple weeks. I grew
up in Indonesia and went back in 2008 as a part of Clown Without Borders
expedition and got hooked. That’s when I started Red Nose Foundation.
K/
D/
So tell us a little more about that.
I started with just a suitcase and about a thousand dollars, bouncing
around to different city slums and rural villages outside of Jakarta. I
would drop my suitcase and do a clown show, and afterwards I’d ask some
of the kids “Who wants to learn how to juggle?” We were in a community
where the average income might be about $50 a month—six times less than
the national minimum wage—and they would be looking up at a high-rise
where the residents make $500,000 a year. One day when it was 100 degrees
outside, one of the moms invited us into a house, saying “You guys look
hot out there.” It was maybe a 4ft. by 10ft. space where 15 kids and I could
juggle. As time went on, we bounced around from house to house, and in
2009, a friend of mine joined us. I taught circus while he taught English and
eventually we were able to rent a little spot in North Jakarta and built a 30
square meter facility that we used for five years. By the time I left the circus
had 22 full time staff and a $300,000 budget! My last official business at Red
Nose was the ribbon cutting of our new 425 square meter facility. That was
bittersweet.
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