Laughing Matters

Newsletter Signup

Main Menu

As a therapeutic clown working in hospitals and clinics, Fif Fernandes knows that laughter really is the best medicine.

By Gail Fredrickson

Jumpa the clown, Fif Manoeuvring the busy hallways at Alberta Children’s Hospital with Fif Fernandes, BFA’84, is a little like tagging along with a movie star on a city street. People point and wave and smile, often calling out to her. She stops and chats with everyone—all the children, parents, doctors, nurses and hospital staff.

To the astonishment of her young friends, she pulls tiny lights from behind her ears while amusing noises emanate, seemingly, from inside of her. At the same time, her custom-made, baggy pant legs move up and down on strings, her colourful vest exposes little treasures tucked into “secret” pockets, and the pretty red star fixed to her nose is sparkling.

Fernandes is a therapeutic clown as well as a certified laughter yoga teacher. In her work at the Children’s Hospital, she is recognized and adored as Jumpa the clown. She is also a familiar presence at the Peter Lougheed Centre in the pediatric and neonatal units. As Jumpa, she also visits hospitals, emotional wellness clinics and outpatient clinics throughout the city.

“I love improvisation and physical humour—using both to communicate, to make people laugh and hopefully to bring some colour, relief and joy to a clinical atmosphere thus relieving the stress of a traumatic experience. I adored Red Skelton, the Three Stooges, Lucille Ball . . .” says Fernandes.

“I’m not a birthday party or face-painting clown,” she clarifies. “In fact, clowning doesn’t necessarily mean costumes, props and red nose—clowning comes from within. In my case, there were elements of clowning in my BFA which formalized my love for using drama and clowning as a form of therapy.”

Fernandes says she always knew she wanted to be with children. “My mother was an English and drama teacher; my dad—a joker—loved to take me into places to visit people who needed cheering up. My aunt was a physician who died from pancreatic cancer—I did one of my first hospital clowning gigs for her at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in 1989. These were important influences in my life. There are also several medical people in my family, so I’ve always been comfortable with hospitals and healing.”

Fernandes is delighted to be part of the Children’s Hospital. “I’m working with amazing teams—doctors, nurses, social workers, child life specialists, a variety of respiratory therapists, administrators, housekeepers, porters and protection services—all of whose purpose is to bring comfort, compassion, relief and joy to kids and their families.”

In her days at U of C, Fernandes was a student of Dr. Bernie Warren, a former drama professor who is a world-renowned researcher on the work of clown-doctors and drama therapy. Warren, now at the University of Windsor and founder of Fools for Health, remains one of Fernandes’ personal mentors; she also includes internationally recognized U of C professors emeriti Keith Johnstone and Joyce Doolittle as inspirational teachers and mentors.

Asked about donning a nose for work, Fernandes admits that her parents were concerned when she chose theatre as her field; they worried she wouldn’t make a living. “Especially given that I am an actor of colour,” she adds. “In 1986, only four percent of all performers on TV and in film were people of colour. My parents wanted me to take theatre as a hobby, not as a career.”

Fernandes has worked diligently over the years to ensure that such barriers continue to be broken, having served on the board of ACTRA for diversity since 1986. Besides building her career as an actor, she’s won more than a dozen national and international awards for performing, directing and producing for stage and television.

Her rewards as Jumpa are many, she says. “I learn so much from my colleagues, the kids and their families. We have the best heart-to-heart connections and I get to be the goofy one, the nincompoop. Together, we play and create laughter to heal our physical bodies, our emotional selves and our spirits.”

Comments

Add New