Robin Lara
robinlaracircus@gmail.com
robinlaracircus@gmail.com
I've always been a clown. It's hard to find a picture of me as a kid without a goofy face and outfit. When I was 10, I started going to circus camp in Connecticut and fell in love with it. I begged my parents for a unicycle and at Christmas, it finally came. But my mom hid it in the closet knowing I would sneak a peek in the middle of the night. I woke up devastated that there was no large package under the tree until she directed me to a long string that had a note: "Follow Me."
I was obsessed. I spent hours after school every day practicing new tricks. At 12, I was wearing stilts while riding a special tall unicycle I called a "stilt-o-cycle." I was asked to join a youth traveling circus at age 13 and toured around New York and New England. At 17, I traveled with a non-youth circus for a year. I spent another year volunteering with AmeriCorps in Albuquerque, NM, teaching circus skills to kids and working with an arts program for kids with autism. I helped start a children's summer circus camp there that's still running today.
After that, I left for San Francisco, where I graduated from a year-long program at Circus Center's Clown Conservatory under the direction of Cirque du Soleil performer Jeff Raz, Ringling Brothers Clown Paoli Lacy, and Chinese Acrobatics Coach Xiao Hong Weng. Since graduating I've taken workshops and intensives with many teachers, including James Donlon, Ron Campbell, Deanna Fleysher, Peter Sweet, Dan Griffiths, and Chad Damiani.
I've performed in many states across the US, Puerto Rico, Zimbabwe, Australia, Colombia, Mexico and Canada with:
Bay Area Children's Theater
Children's Fairyland
Adelaide Fringe Festival, Australia
SF MOMA
Velocity Circus
Circus Maximus
Wooden Nickel Circus
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
The Battery
Oddfellows Playhouse Traveling Circus
ArtFarm Traveling Circus
Clowns Without Borders
Mystic Midway
Lagunitas Beer Circus
Cow Palace
Symbiosis Festival
SF Supperclub
Pedalfest
Oregon Country Fair
Patch Adams’ Clown Town Healing Fest
Social circus
I strongly believe in humanitarian clowning as a powerful tool to heal and bring us together. It provokes laughter and joy, while reducing stress when times are otherwise difficult. Since 2015 I’ve performed around the world with many different humanitarian circus organizations for folks in all kinds of situations. Click below to check out some of my thoughts on various blog posts I’ve written!
https://clownswithoutborders.org/projects/zimbabwe-2019/
https://clownswithoutborders.org/projects/colombia-2018-cauca/
https://clownswithoutborders.org/projects/haiti-2020-10-year-anniversary/