CRAZY CLOWN CLASS!!!!!
What’s important about Clown to me? I have spent almost half of my life working and experimenting in the performance of it, so to say that it is quite significant to me would be putting it lightly. I have given up so much personally to continue my path as a clown and now as a clown pedagogue. I love the openness that clown can create in both the clown and person watching the clown. The clown, unlike people, are very transparent in their motives and desires. There is a joy and simplicity in what the clown wants, what you see is what you get. They live in a state of “now”, “I need this thing…...right now!!” Which can present a challenge to the student to deal with “what is happening right now”, to forget about what you think you know or have planned out, and just be in “the discovery”. Watching a good clown is a cathartic experience, you feel like all of your life questions are answered just in seeing a clown trip and fall.
A major discussion in clown pedagogy is why does the clown exist? Is it make us laugh? Some folks will argue to be funny is the goal. Laughter can certainly be a result of clown work. But it is not the only result…there is also wonder, there is also joy, there is also a profound understanding of the human condition as reflected through the clown. Simply to be generous is a way into the world of the clown. Laughter is often and can be the result of the clown being in this state of generosity, but it is not the end of the journey. Clown class is a practice of expanding ones-self. The mask of the clown nose is an amplifier of the actor who wears it and can either amplify the student’s generosity or can amplify the students lack thereof. The nose makes the students insecurities come straight to the surface and then the student can choose either to try to hide their flaws from us or to live in the generosity of sharing all of themselves. The sharing of the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of one’s self is what the clown is good at and if the student simply allows it to happen that’s all we can ask for. That’s the gift that clown can give to the actor, it can help them to live in their own failure and to learn to accept themselves for who they are.
A major discussion in clown pedagogy is why does the clown exist? Is it make us laugh? Some folks will argue to be funny is the goal. Laughter can certainly be a result of clown work. But it is not the only result…there is also wonder, there is also joy, there is also a profound understanding of the human condition as reflected through the clown. Simply to be generous is a way into the world of the clown. Laughter is often and can be the result of the clown being in this state of generosity, but it is not the end of the journey. Clown class is a practice of expanding ones-self. The mask of the clown nose is an amplifier of the actor who wears it and can either amplify the student’s generosity or can amplify the students lack thereof. The nose makes the students insecurities come straight to the surface and then the student can choose either to try to hide their flaws from us or to live in the generosity of sharing all of themselves. The sharing of the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of one’s self is what the clown is good at and if the student simply allows it to happen that’s all we can ask for. That’s the gift that clown can give to the actor, it can help them to live in their own failure and to learn to accept themselves for who they are.