Medical Clown Home Delivery—A New Home Service Mission!

At the end of last year (December 2022), we began our first home performance service in Tainan.

We never imagined that Dr. Red Nose services could come to children’s homes. Compared with performing in hospitals, the experience feels much more intimate. We performed in Xiaoyu’s and Yiyi’s respective living rooms. Without the separation created by bed rails, we sat directly on small stools gathered around Xiaoyu’s stroller, and sat directly on the living room floor at Yiyi’s home. There were no healthcare workers hurrying around the wards, nor the beeping of medical equipment. We performed for them in an environment exclusively their own.

Unlike a medical setting, “home” is the private space of children and their parents, and we are complete outsiders. Therefore, helping them feel at ease is very important. The current home service is provided to a group of children with rare diseases. They spend most of their time being cared for at home, do not require immediate medical support, and are less able to go out because of the challenges of caregiving. Both children we serve were born during the pandemic, so they need more time to approach and become familiar with contact with strangers. At the beginning of every performance, we must proceed carefully and slowly, sensing the messages conveyed through the children’s physical movements and subtle facial changes that day, and adjusting every choice we make in our performance. After gradually building a relationship, we then enter the imaginary world we hope to bring them.

With this service schedule of two 30-minute sessions per month, we listen, watch, and feel the development of a picture-book story together, accompanied by the flow of music and play with objects. I don’t know why, but each time it feels like we can barely sense the passage of half an hour; the time we experience during the interaction seems to be only ten minutes…

I love the way Xiaoyu’s eyes crinkle into a smile as soon as she sees us appear at the door…

and the way she listens to stories in her mother’s arms…

Several times, she sat by herself in a chair, and when she heard a part she liked, she would turn around and give her mother, standing on the other side of the living room, her signature squinty-eyed smile…

I also loved a moment when Yiyi and we did nothing at all, simply looking at each other from very close by. The atmosphere of being accepted and seen was truly magical…

Once, we sang an entire passage of gentle music, while Yiyi’s mother said beside us, “Wow! It’s been so long since I’ve really watched a performance!” Perhaps for the primary caregivers who provide long-term companionship, they also truly need moments of quiet and relaxation.

At the hospital, nursing staff open the door for us (some wards have access controls). For home services, we first check in with the community security guard and tell them which floor and unit we are visiting. We do our makeup, change clothes, and warm up in the car, and the performance begins as soon as we get out. A new mission to “deliver” a clown to your home has begun!

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