Serious clown

Tantan is not your typical clown. Like his colleagues, he dresses funny, paints his face and tells jokes. But he is also a missionary for ecology and the harmony among all living creatures.

Liana Alagemovitz

"Hoje tem espetáculo? Tem sim, senhô!" (Is there a show today? Yes, mister.) For generations these have been the words by which the arrival of the circus is announced in big and small towns all over Brazil. Most Brazilian adults will remember all the enchantment conjured by these sentences which talk about clowns, story tellers, magic, dreams and pure joy.

For three years, Guilherme Barcellos, a young clown from Sobradinho, a small satellite city of Brazil's capital Brasília, has been spreading this same magic in Southern California. His call for creating tricks and provoking laughter has started 13 years ago however while still in Brazil.

Different from most Brazilian immigrants who arrive in America with a dream of restarting their lives, in his baggage Barcellos brought also something very special: a clown's soul together with zest for life, and a simple and optimistic way of seeing life through the eyes of Tantan, his alter-ego when dressed in clown's clothes.

For those who do not know Tantan yet, he is a very likable young clown. ("I'm nine years old," he reveals.) In reality Tantan is more than just a character portrayed by the Brazilian actor, he represents a little of the soul of his creator.

Like other clowns Tantan is silly, funny, clumsy, and loves to entertain kids and adults. But, besides that, Tantan -- The Crazy Clown has also his philosophical and ecological side. "Planet Earth is our mother," he always reminds his audience.

Tantan sometimes does his numbers wearing extravagant and colorful clothes and exuberant headdresses. Other times, however, he chooses a softer color -- mainly purple -- for his clothes and has a message more in tune with the New Age philosophy.

"We clowns, animals, plants, and human beings," reminds Tantan, "are all brothers and sisters. We are part of something much bigger. Our diversity is what makes us unique parts of the universe."

For Guilherme, who is always pintando o sete (painting the number seven literally), doing all sorts of tricks, in Portuguese, English and Spanish, Tantan's relevance comes from the fact that he teaches that all folks are equal. "Tantan is innocent and full of love to give. He's been playing with cultural issues, in this case, with the Latino culture," explains Barcellos.

There's plenty of culture and international experience in his bag of tricks. The clown has been to Xingu (an Indian reservation in the Brazilian Amazon) and there he has learned "some of the harmonic and simple way of life of the Kamaiurá people." He has also been to England where he studied at the world's oldest children's theater, London's The Unicorn.

Guilherme has been presenting his show Sister Moon, Brother Sun in schools, shopping centers, libraries, and bookstores all over Southern California. The show uses music, dance, puppets, original masks from the Kamaiurá Indians, a tribe from the Amazon forest, and requires participation from the public. It is the story of how the sun and the moon were created and it is full of the mystical aspects of creation and the relationship among all living creatures.

Barcellos, who is working on his Master's degree in spiritual psychology at the University of Santa Monica, also teaches magic and works as a voice-over actor, dubbing movies and cartoon into Portuguese for the Brazilian TV. He has already dubbed Jerry Seinfeld, Top Cat (Manda-Chuva in the Brazilian version) and many others.

You can contact his world of magic and fun by dialing (818) 549-0383.

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