It all started with a dream to become a trapeze artist. “Well, that didn’t go well. Every time I would come out, people would laugh and I would never be able to get on the trapeze,” says Gaby Munoz (@chulatheclown), who lives in Mexico City. “At first, it was frustrating, but then I understood the great feeling I had by making others laugh. It was contagious. My teachers told me that if I was a clown I could do whatever I wanted.” Gaby feels she has now found her true calling as a professional clown. To her, clowns are actually very much like trapeze artists: “They will throw themselves to the abyss without wings, hoping to build them on the way down! They’ll tell you about whom you are, exploring the depth of human emotions. They create an invisible mirror where one can look at the clown and see their own reflection.” Gaby’s profession is no surprise to her family. As a kid, she recalls, “I had my own interior universe of fantasy. I remember playing with mud, pretending to make little cakes and trying to sell them to kids in school, as well as inside trash cans, pretending they were supermarkets.” Her parents did have some words of wisdom as she embarked on her professional path, encouraging her to be what they deemed “a serious clown.” Gaby took her parents’ advice to heart and is now involved with social clowning, giving workshops all over the world, from refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan to theater schools and indigenous communities in Mexico, Colombia, Sweden, the US, Brazil, Tbilisi, India, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Photo by @chulatheclown