Diego de Los Andes 1/8/2020
As the stress of the day crescendos during the afternoon drive home, the spell is broken when a clown steps through Los Angeles traffic demanding that drivers wake up and return to the present moment.
Diego de Los Andes is an artist, poet, radio host and clown from Chile with a unique perspective on street performance. “This is a way for me to use art to recycle and cleanse energies created from capitalism,” De Los Andes said in his native Chilean dialect; although his Spanish has absorbed some L.A. slang. “Street performance is a tool completely outside of the capitalist, imperialist system to make money. When I’m out here, I am taking a political stance, or else I couldn’t do it.”
Besides his ideological approach, there is a very physical human action and reaction involved in De Los Andes’ performance. “Nowadays, people are tense; extremely tense. There’s a lot going on socially that’s affecting all of us. You can tell. You can see it in their muscles,” De Los Andes says, as he pretends to be hunched over gripping a steering wheel tightly with both hands.
Horns blare at a red light on Washington Boulevard and Normandie Avenue during the performance. Some horns are regular road rage, some are people smiling and showing support for the juggling clown.
“It’s a repurposing of energy. I finish my show and look around for people’s reactions. It happens sometimes where I’ll see someone in a completely other mood; I’ll signal for them to smile with my hands,” De Los Andes says, as he pretends to pick up the edges of his mouth to form a smile. “And they do. They smile.”
“To me, that’s the most important change: when we can acknowledge and say ‘Look, everythings fucked,’ but we can choose to fight it with a smile and not sadness. Not with rage. We don’t get anything out of that,” De Los Andes said.
De Los Andes can be seen in the heart of Los Angeles traffic. “When I was conceiving this idea, it was primarily to bring joy to Los Angeles’ minority communities: Black, afro-descendant and Latino communities.
Street performing clowns are somewhat of a new thing to Los Angeles, maybe because it’s been more closely associated with poverty. Living in the world’s wealthiest empire, it’s a lot less common. But De Los Andes says it’s much needed. “You don’t see it much here, the juggling street clown - specifically at red lights. I know about 6 here in Los Angeles. It’s a way to disconnect people from what’s going on in the world. It’s a way to use the movement of the human body to spread a little bit of happiness. That’s what motivates me and keeps me going.”
Being an L.A. street clown is an experiment that De Los Andes is still figuring out. “My clown character is still in a state of becoming. I feel like I‘m still finding my inner clown. I’m a poet and theater director, but this is a new story” De Los Andes said.
“How did I get started in el mundo del payaso?” he said. “I was in a theater group and I met a friend that would twirl devil sticks.’” Devil sticks are the pair of batons De Los Andes can be seen spinning and tossing into the sky at red lights throughout South Central L.A.
“When I saw my friend with the devils sticks, it brought up a memory of playing with some as a young kid. That’s when I began to reincorporate them into my way of life. That’s when I discovered life as a performer in public spaces,” De Los Andes said. For immigrants, playing and performing with something as simple as devil sticks is a bit cultural.
“There’s a certain nostalgia. For many people it makes them remember their home; Driving through streets in their country,” De Los Andes said. In Latin America, performers and vendors at busy intersections is a common experience. “For immigrants, that memory lingers, because in this country, common people don’t really have access to culture. Art is for the rich.”
Along with the nostalgia, being a clown comes with a long tradition. “Historically, the clown was the only one who could laugh at the king. He was the only vato that could do that. He was the only person who had that special key and mystery to be able to laugh and make anyone laugh,” De Los Andes said. While he’s now part of the long-standing history of clowns, it’s just one part of Diego’s cultural movement,
“You can find me on 90.7 KPFK” De Los Andes said. “I’ve been working on a program called “Nuestra Voz” for a while. I’m the producer of the cultural segment. To start the year, we’re looking to speak with people working in cultural fields. People who are making an impact through any medium of art of culture.”
The email to contact “Nuestra Voz” is [email protected]. The Instagram hanle for the show is @nuestravozkpfk. To get plugged in with Diego, his instagram handle is @fromandes.
“I’m a clown without makeup,” De Los Andes said. “I believe you can be a clown of the body, and you can make people’s spirits do a somersault. It’s a tool for change. In the grand scheme of things, I feel like I’m just clowning on imperialism. I’m in the fight against capitalism through my work out here on the street.”
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