End-of-Year Presentation: Circus!!

The big top was raised at Ecole Montriond last Monday by dads and a couple of circus professionals who proceeded to run a circus camp one of the last weeks of the school year.

 

Replacing the end of year "spectacle" (show), kids rehearsed Mon-Thurs, learning various routines, a song (written by a teacher), handmade signs and programs, delivering two magnificent performances Friday evening. Words cannot describe the energy and quality of the show - truly excellent. 

But the Swiss share an unusual love and tradition for street performance - the tradition dates to medieval times with reigning circus families and clowns, such as Demitri, as national heritage figures. One of Jack's teachers, Messiur Decoudres, announces the evening.

They know how to do circus.

Michael's assistant teacher made crepes, while parent volunteers handled ticket booths, costuming, monitoring, etc. 

 

Generally speaking, curriculum is less driven by commercial or media fads; we are impressed by the emphasis on craft, not the latest consumer technology driving academic priorities; kids seem, as a result, both more innocent and industrious.

 

The opening

The gymnasts

Jack was a "ladder-ist"

Michael a clown

Americans in house were thinking, "Did those kids sign a waiver?" Yes, that's a bed of nails. There were flame-eaters, as well.

Granted, the circus was exceptional as a project - will be shown on local Swiss TV - we were amazed the level of cultural trust and focus that allowed them to pull this off.

origami, recital

Suzanne from Tacoma visited, engaging the boys in paper planes and origami animals,

which were positioned in the garden at the Palace of Justice.

fox & rabbits

in non-menacing pairs

 

The Euro cup is in full-swing, car horns blaring around 11pm each night as loyalists - Spain, Portugal, Germany - announce their victories.  Place de Palud had a huge Swiss flag draped in front of the Hotel de Ville.

 

Fans gather at outdoor screens for good, rowdy fun.

Jack posing alphabet shapes for Michael,after his violin recital at the Rudolf Steiner school, a very lovely rural, yet funky alternative setting north of Lausanne. A renovated old villa & beautiful grounds have been converted into offices & restaurant and a pre-K to 12 campus, reminding of something you'd find in Ithaca: utopic, experimental, quasi-spiritual vision. Steiner was a late 19th century Austrian whose school, headquartered in Switzerland, pursues anthroposophy, a kind of German Idealist higher vision of human potential into all disciplines, including "biodynamic" farming, greatly influencing organic farming in Europe. 

 "China Jack Time" - appropriately named piece &
"La Pelle Fromage"

Parting shot with Aunt Suzanne on the cathedral grounds, overlooking the lake.

Santa Margherita

Elle - Lausanne alum 2008 - came for a visit, before starting intensive Latin in Ireland. We visited Santa Margherita, Italy, taking advantage of warmer temps - finally! - and sunshine.

 

4.5 hours away, through the St Bernard tunnel, you hit a Mediterranean climate, reminding of So Cal, in terms of foliage, cactus growing wild near the sea.

Spotting for jellyfish

in a protected cove.

 

 

A NYT write-up has increased American visitors, despite the terrible exchange, but generally still a destination for Italians, while the world frequents more famous Portofino - rich & famous port east - and the Cinque Terre villages perched on craggy stone cliffs to the west.

Loads of pasta. Michael has become adventurous, cracking pepper on dishes and eating seafood spaghetti.

  We spent a few hours in Portofino to gawk, then boated back - beautiful highlight.

Portofino.

 

Table linen stands with magnificent Italian embroidary no longer seen, replaced by t-shirt vendors. As in Lausanne, the remaining tearooms & china/linen shops signify another era's repose - like the grand department stores of my SoCal youth and postwar affluence whose unprecedented wealth only now coming unglued.

 
Seafood was everywhere, but porcini mushrooms were in season, served

on fresh pasta

while pesto was Jack's standby. Nearby Genoa is credited with inventing pesto ("pasta Genovese"), but mixed with potato and green beans (interesting what doesn't make it across the Atlantic). Usually ground in a mortar and pestle on the spot, the resulting sauce is bright green.

Pastry desserts took a backseat to gelato every evening. I sadly noticed a trend to use generic cylinder tubs, rather than the traditional oblong pans of colorful creams, brightly adorned with appropriate fruit or chocolate or nuts, showcasing various flavors.

This church celebrated its 500th birthday with a parade and impressive fireworks display, albeit in midday.

 More recent history would include Regiment 442, the celebrated Japanese-American combat troop which liberated Carrara, opening roads to La Spezia & Genoa near the end of WWII.  Our own touristy love of this sea coast made possible by that other achievement which, though largely lost to us, is visible in the flavors and vacation pattern that surfaces in our lives, our tastes.

Finale Natation (Swim Meet)

Last Friday was the Lausanne all-city swim meet at the Mon-Repos pool.

Michael represented his class, competing against 11 other boys from Lausanne schools and placed third!The line-up.

Roman (aka Red Rackham from the TinTin party) stretches a hand of congratulations.

The class was proud, as were we. These kids have a city identity, helped created by events like these, but also a sense of school and class; a sense of place not easy to come by in America anymore, I think.