ONE recent Saturday afternoon three performers, dressed in clownish finery, clambered out of a rusty 1950s pickup truck in a suburb of Havana and spent the next hour cavorting, breakdancing and sashaying for the amusement of a dozen children. One of the troupe, Ángel Kike Díaz, a cartoon-voice star and stage puppeteer, is a Cuban celebrity. As a clown employed by the state, he makes a salary worth $30 a month. A single children’s birthday party will pay him nearly that much.
With inducements like that, clowning is a growth industry in Cuba. A timid economic liberalisation has created a small entrepreneurial class and attracted foreigners with money to spend on private displays of pranks and pratfalls. It has also opened up the clowning profession. “Clowns”, “party entertainers”, and “party-service providers” are among the 181 jobs that may now be done by self-employed workers. At least 200 clowns romp around Havana at such events as quinceañeras (15th-birthday celebrations for girls), weddings and feasts honouring the saints of Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion.
Clowning is a Cuban vocation, brought by...Continue reading
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