I have a fascination with circus and performance art. Like dance, performance art gives artists an opportunity to momentarily step out of their normal shoes and transform into an alternative self. While joining a circus might feel dramatic, for a regular performer it’s just another day in costume. Simply wrap an enormous box filled with helium balloons, bring cupcakes and imaginary candles and sing with everyone around. This is how the Birthday Fairy was born.
Jesters date back thousands of years to Egyptian and Norse times using their talents to distract from everyday mediocrity, or bring happiness during wartimes. Portraying metaphors of life through performance art were a method of creating exaggerated impersonations of the human experience. Willard Scott might be the most famous clown, who started as Bozo and Ronald McDonald, later delivering weather reports using alternative personalities. It wasn’t until the 1980s when Steven King’s “It” created a terrifying version of the jolly messengers when people became more fearful of a once joyful personification.
Birthdays are the most common time to see clowns magically appear with tricks or face painting. As far as birthday parties go, I’m always a little surprised to see that even post-covid, we’re still blowing out candles on the cake, spreading all the spit and hot breath over buttercream before sharing a slice with friends and family. Like clowns, the history of candles also dates back to the Egyptian pharaohs who would use candles to represent the light of how many moons have passed.
This is the beauty of birthdays, to have the blessing of life year after year with an annual reminder that we must be doing something right, every wrinkle and grey hair indicating how lucky we are to remain on earth with the people we love. In addition to feeling magnificently grateful on my own birthday, celebrating others on theirs might be one of my favorite hobbies.
The introduction of Care Bears during childhood, appearing for the first time in 1982 (also my birth year) was another special time when birthdays moved to the forefront of celebratory events. Amongst the 10 original Care Bears was the best bear of all time, Birthday Bear. While my brother, Jeff felt partial to Grumpy Bear, I preferred the bear who was always ready to party with his tagline, “He’s an instant celebration, just add you.”
As a performer, I’ve been tasked to transform into all sorts of fanciful characters in ballets and other narrative shows. Since having kids, the most common costumes I wear now are in the form of a child-eating witch on Halloween, who feeds toasted crickets to trick-or-treaters and speaks in my grandmother’s proper tone, affectionately named Madame Genevieve. Additional characters include the Easter Bunny who pantomimes excitement under a giant fluffy head, Alice in Wonderland who less-than-eloquently paints trusting faces with mediocre illustrations, and the illustrious Birthday Fairy.
The Birthday Fairy has appeared about a dozen times over the years, becoming more wild and elaborate with each event. Starting in 2013, the first to be celebrated was a kindergarten teacher on her 1/2 birthday. The fairy strutted into my daughter’s classroom to find one of the most enchanting human beings ecstatic to be sprinkled with love.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much of an ass we make of ourselves if it brings joy to people we care about. I try to remind my kids (and myself) daily that anything less than 5 embarrassing moments per day indicates that we need to leave the house more often. Letting go of our most insecure characteristics allows performers, like the Birthday Fairy to go out and spread love as often as possible, no matter the amount of effort and ridiculousness.
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