Circus clowns delight audiences with physical feats and comedic performances.

Our guest today, Omune Kosuke, is one of Japan's leading clowns.

But there's another side to his persona.

He's also a hospital clown.

He goes around visiting hospitals and disaster-stricken areas to entertain people

- and in particular, children - struggling to cope with difficult situations.

His activities have taken him overseas, including to shelters housing displaced Ukrainians.

In recognition of his work over the years,

the World Clown Association honored him with the prestigious "Legacy of Laughter" award in 2022.

We ask Omune about his clown antics,

and his passion for bringing laughter to children around the world.

Our job is to entertain the children.

To allow them to forget, even for a moment,

that they're in a hospital, or that they're sick.

Come rain or shine,

whether you're tired or feeling down, it doesn't matter.

You've promised the kids a show, so you go and perform.

Omune is based in the city of Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture.

He runs a clown organization that dispatches performers and organizes events.

They have a roster of 20 clowns who, upon request, are able to travel anywhere in Japan to perform.

Clowns are supporting players in the circus.

You go on stage in between big acts to help change the scene,

or maybe something unexpected happens and you go out to distract the audience.

It's not just about a series of heart-stopping tricks.

It's about giving the crowd a chance to breathe and laugh.

Your role is to help control the mood.

When you're there in front of the crowd,

you're playing without a net, and you have to give it your all.

So...

you gotta swing for the fences with your performance.

It's not just about making people laugh.

That's the challenge.

What's the crowd feeling right now, what state are they in?

You have to constantly be tuning into that.

You develop the ability to feel the room and adjust your performance accordingly.

That's the most important thing for a clown.

Omune's work as a clown extends outside of the circus ring.

He travels to hospitals as well as emergency shelters in disaster-stricken areas

to perform for children and adults in need of relief.

There, perfect!

Just perfect!

There are times when you'll be at a hospital performing but a kid won't laugh.

And it's because their mother by their side isn't laughing.

The kid sees their mother's expression and it reminds them that they're sick,

that they have a serious illness.

So we make it a point to entertain the mom first.

If we bring a smile to their face, their kid will also smile.

You also don't want a nurse to come in and say you're being too loud.

So you entertain them first, too.

If you can make them smile, it's contagious —

it goes around and brightens up the whole hospital.

In a sense you don't even have to perform for the kids.

The excitement lingers for longer when everyone's involved.

You try to lift the spirits not of individual kids, but of the hospital as a whole.

Let the laughter spread.

That's the approach we take.

Omune has also taken his hospital clown activities overseas.

He's visited five countries so far.

Ukraine is one of them.

Since 2008 he's been traveling there regularly to perform at a children's hospital

in an area affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

There was this Japanese woman who'd been providing humanitarian aid in Ukraine for 20 years.

She happened to see me on the news.

She asked me to come entertain the hospitalized children who'd gotten sick

due to radiation from the nuclear power plant accident.

I incorporated the fact that I didn't know the language into my performance.

I'd deliberately make mistakes.

In Ukrainian, they call bears "mishka," ...and dogs "sobachka."

Kids would say "mishka, mishka!" and I'd make a balloon dog.

And if they said "sobachka," I'd make a bear - I'd mix them up on purpose.

Afterward I was having one last meal with the coordinator, and they go,

"We'd love for you to come back again next year."

Obviously, I couldn't refuse.

I told them "Yes, I'll be back!"

Omune was born to parents who were civil servants.

He says that growing up, he was extremely shy,

and hated being the center of attention more than anything.

After graduating from university, he joined a railway company.

He worked as a station attendant, managing passenger safety and manning the ticket window.

I used to have an inferiority complex about not being able to entertain others.

I was a very self-conscious person.

Then in university most of my friends were from the Kansai region.

It was my first time interacting with people from Kansai, and they were just so funny.

Being around them made my complex worse.

When I entered the work force, I wanted to resolve those feelings.

So the idea wasn't to become a clown.

Rather, it was to try the thing I was least suited for in order to change my character.

One day in town, Omune happened to come across an ad for a clown training course and enrolled on a whim.

Naturally athletic, he quickly developed his clowning skills.

He found that when he dressed up as a clown,

he was comfortable being in front of people.

He became obsessed with making others laugh.

At 29, he left his job at the railway company and turned to clowning full time.

He started performing at hospitals at 34.

It started with an experience he had in the U.S.,

where the idea of hospital clowns was first developed.

There's this thing called the World Clown Association Convention held in Jacksonville, Florida.

I became the first person from Japan to participate.

I performed in a competition and ended up winning silver.

My first international competition.

One of the activities they did involved going to a nearby hospital.

Someone said, "Come with us, K!"

So I went.

But I was unable to perform.

The atmosphere at the hospital was heavy,

and the sick patients were naturally feeling down.

I couldn't enter their rooms.

I thought I'd gotten pretty good at clowning, but at the hospital I couldn't perform.

But I was able to see that for the hospital, for the kids, for the sick patients,

it was an important activity.

So I started it in Japan.

Omune's experience in the U.S. inspired him to start working as a hospital clown in Japan.

He began preparations immediately after returning.

Hospital clowning didn't exist in Japan.

Of course, performing as a hospital clown requires knowledge.

You need to study up about hygiene, disinfection, gowns, protocol.

You also need to know about children's developmental disabilities.

About particular diseases, not so much.

And, of course, clowning skills.

If you need 10 minutes to make something out of a balloon, the kid's gonna lose interest.

Also, hospitals have limited space.

So what can you do? Magic.

But what kind of magic?

How can you make it all flow together?

This patient is X years old, so I'll do this trick.

For this patient I'll make this balloon animal.

You need skills.

Many of the hospitals we visit are for kids in need of long-term care.

One or two years, maybe even five or ten.

They're there a long time.

And you end with "See you again." Intentionally.

You don't want the hospital to be a negative space.

And they're not there because they did something wrong.

So you say "Let's meet again."

Maybe next time you'll meet them at a kindergarten, or an elementary school, or at an amusement park.

Or if you see them again at the hospital, there's nothing wrong with that.

You're just fulfilling a promise.

In 2011, eight years after Omune started his hospital clown activities,

northeastern Japan was devastated by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Determined to use his experiences to make a difference, he began visiting the affected areas.

To date he's given over 700 performances in the region.

In recognition of his efforts, the World Clown Association named him "Clown of the Year" in 2021.

In 2022, they honored him with the prestigious "Legacy of Laughter" award.

In 2023 Omune performed for the first time in a conflict zone - namely, Ukraine.

He visited a number of children's hospitals that he'd been to before.

I have a special attachment to Ukraine,

so when I heard it was being invaded, my heart skipped a beat.

I felt sadness as well as worry...

because I know so many people there.

All the airports were closed, so we traveled over land from Poland.

We performed at a hospital about 100 kilometers west of Kyiv.

Then we went north to a place about 20 kilometers from Belarus.

In total we performed at five locations.

They have air raid sirens.

At one children's hospital, all 300 kids had just spent three hours in the basement shelter the day before we arrived.

But to make a difference, we had to show up.

And I think that we showed up at a crucial time.

The local coordinator said to me

that we were the first Japanese people to come to them since the conflict started.

That we were the first humanitarian relief, the first bit of fun.

They were very happy to have us.

And the children were also very happy to see us perform.

As were the hospital staff.

They told us it was the first real day of fun they'd had since the conflict started.

They were quite delighted.

One member of the staff said to me that it made them so happy

that someone from the faraway country of Japan had been thinking about them,

had been concerned about them all this time.

"Do you have any words to live by?"

"Live in the present moment."

This is how I feel...

it's something I'm always conscious of.

There's this saying -

"Worries and anxieties can't keep up with someone running at full speed."

I love that.

So don't get caught up in the past.

It's important to be aware of it and reflect on it...

But for me, cherishing the present moment...

is the best way to live.

And as you do that, intuit the most important thing there is in this moment...

and act upon it.

There'll be hard times, setbacks, and sadness.

But you have this present moment.

So build on it, and keep building on it.