photo – Lucille Ball in The Big Street (1942)
Teaching Clown – An Enormous Problem – Illumination & Solution –
For The Love of Clown
This is a “long and winding road”. It is a rave and rant. A romp. It is provocative. And fun. Good luck.
Let’s begin:
I LOVE all sorts of clowns. Like you, I enjoy some clown performances more than other ones.
If there is a problem in clown teaching, is the problem different than the teaching of any other subject?
The difference in the field of clown is that anyone can teach it and can teach it any way that they wish.
In the learning of Clown, like learning in Life, no matter what happens and no matter who teaches one can learn something.
Indeed – EVEN IF – one has/had/will have an utterly horrible, mean, arrogant clown ‘teacher’ – one can still become a clown or not.
EVEN IF – one has/had/will have a very, very, very nice, kind, caring, generous, gentle clown teacher – one can still become a clown or not.
EVEN IF – on has/had/will have a VERY experienced teacher of clown who is also VERY knowledgable about clown and a selection of related matters – one can still become a clown or not.
In a field of such paradoxes what is one to do? As Shakespeare has ‘Hamlet’ say in no less important a speech than the “To be, or, not to be…” speech he also says pointedly “aye there’s the rub”. That is the quest. What is one to do, or, not to do – to – become a clown or not? That is the question.
Generally as a person I don’t believe many things in life have a finality. It may appear that way. It may appear that way for a long time. But eveen the finality of death if nothing else means the body depending on the method of burial may decompose to become organic matter in a new way. Death may be a doorway?
Doorways and Death are part of the psyche’s tricks of the trade. As is Rebirth. Acts 1, 2, 3 – in one of my experimental theatre shows – The Battler – provided 3 ways for the clown to die and rebirth – live on stage.
So, in this little romp of an enormous ‘blog’ there is no finality. There is no singular ‘conclusion’. Though there is a series of conclusions along the way.
People usually do not actually want to become a clown. People want to experience clowning. It is fun and interesting. Like the field of “Improvisation” which like the teaching of clown – it is a thriving business albeit a ‘business’ of low-carb, low-protein, low-expectations, low-income even while it is thriving. Naturally like any business and clown and teaching clown ARE businesses. So when you pay, as you should, you are not just a student. An occasional vile “university” – or several hundreds – has/have flipped for decades to become a HIGHLY lucrative corporate business albeit one in which the student is literally called a “Customer”. And treated as a customer more than a student or learner or future colleague.
There is nothing wrong with business as an art form which proactively contributes its share to Community. It is businesses which support the Arts. The arts councils ARE businesses. The flock of administrators make a LOT more income on a MUCH MORE secure basis than do ‘98%; or so, of the artistes. Artistes whom they, the administrators, SELECTIVELY, select often via the council/administrators’ own agendas, within an embedded inbred set of biases.
As in the musical “Cabaret” including the film version with two GREAT clowns in the lead roles singing: “Money Makes the World Go Round”. Of course the musical “Carnival” had the song “Love Makes the World Go Round”. Seems both philosophies are concurrent. Neither is wrong.
The question i.e. yes, another one is: What is the ‘contractual’ agreement when one does or gives (if amply paid) a workshop or ‘training’ in clown? Does anybody agree to a guarentee that said course, long or short, WILL make each, or any, participant/student a clown? A good clown? A professional clown? A paid clown?
Yet, I want to emphasise that if a person acting as a clown performs and entertains and makes their particular type of audience happy, whether they laugh or not, that is a GOOD THING. To make or help people make themselves happy via entertaining as a clown is a GOOD THING.
In a sense the ENORMOUS PROBLEM is that a LOT of ‘teachers’ of clown ADD to the confusion and cognitive disonnance that MANY customers i.e. learners come in with.
The point of this non-Introduction preamble’s ambling rambling is: Clown is a field that is complex yet is assumed to be simple, and, that causes AN ENORMOUS PROBLEM within the field’s many outputs of public manifestations.
So in a way, the result from at least 5 or 6 decades of ‘formal’ courses titled – clown, or how to clown, or become a clown, or make believe you are a clown courses is simply this: MANY past customers/participants even of ‘trainings’ have been misled, illinformed, propagandized, and in MANY cases ‘initiated into a cult’ albeit a benevolent or somewhat harmless ‘cult’.
To the point. Or two points, professionally speaking
a) trying out clowning or ANY art form is a GOOD THING!!!!!!!!!
b) so many so-called ‘trained’ clowns know STUFF but they do not appear to know their ‘Body in Space and Time’ as a creative artist. THAT is what I consider an ENORMOUS PROBLEM that interferes with those very performers or individuals who ‘did a course’ having the chance to really find a ‘truth’ such as knowing your body in space and time artistically.
That is, I am talking about ‘knowing’ in a more altuistic sense as illustrated and illuminated by 100s of our Elders of Clown that I refer to as The Matriarchal/Patriarchal Lineage of Clown. That is in the public domain. That is not controlled by any teacher of clown except in the sense that most teachers do not seem to acknowledge and guide their customers to join the big party of The Great Gaggle of Clowndom i.e. The Matriarchal/Patriarchal Lineage of Clown, which is in the public domain.
One of the things that I think Humanity is desparately in need of is Elders in the purest sense as the Indigenous Cultures express and experience it. Elders in a sense of a lineage. i.e. one that did not begin with an individual.
In my books and blogs I only occasionally reveal that I think there is such a thing as “Clown Culture”. As an idea. Not as an ideal. Not as a cult. “Clown Culture” is an idea and is different than the existing clown ‘cult’.
Although the whole Introductory Template to my method is merely a ‘warmup’. Literally. That template The Four Articulations provides a base of how and what and why to ‘warmup’. The Four Articulations is complex in a good way. Among its benefits it is an introduction practically speaking to Clown Culture. Clown Culture has a base of Inner and Outer. Outer is The Matriarchal/Patriarchal Lineage of Clown. The inner is one’s own unique connection to Clown, and, to Culture in the broadest sense. Only a few exercises are specific to that idea or ideal or fantasy.
My method in a formal and grand sense is “Quantum Theatre: Slapstick to Shakespeare“. As said, The Four Articulations is simply the practical introduction to the grand method.
The method and its practical introduction are as much about creativity and acting and theatre and art as they are about clown. The Greeks already enlightened us, but we’ve turned off the electricity. They gave us the PAIR of masks Comedy/Tragedy. They already gave us philosophical clowning by placing God or gods next to eroticism. “the whole kit and kaboodle”. They gave us the most tragic of tragic clowns, Oedipus. Nothing funny about him except that he was pathetic. The Greeks gave us “pathos”. That is one of the lost elements of clowning. I have a few exercises which encourage one to discover ‘pathos’. Most specifically is “The Josephine Baker Exercise“. It also ‘teaches’ by allowing the spectator in the studio to discover their own heart as they witness the current actor ‘on the hot spot’ trying a rendition of “The Josephine Baker Exercise“.
BACKGROUND
photo – Ira was requested to perform in a workshop showing. The FAB clowness “Mrs. Wibblewobble” aka Scarlet Wallingford brought two bags of costume bits to that workshop. I said that for the showing I will make a character out of whatever remained in the costume bits after everyone had taken what they wanted. What I am wearing is the absolute dregs i.e. the very last remaing bits.
In the first instance though what are the expectations of the Learner and of the Teacher?
In all honesty, it is, at least to me, quite obvious that there has been a problem with the teaching of clown at least since the early 1970’s.
In the first instance though what are the expectations of the Learner and of the Teacher?
Is it to become a professional clown? If so, what type of clown? Performing in what sorts of environments? Street; Circus; TV; Private Events for Corporations or for Families; Hospitals for children or for adults or for seniors. Or to add ‘clowning’ as a skill for a professional actor, or performer of any genre?
Or is the intention to use ‘clown’ for enjoyment; self-exploration; or as a social activity?
All of those reasons and more are fine.
But when there is a clown workshop or ‘training’ it is quite common that there are quite varying expectations even when there is an outwardly agreed objective.
In terms of the so-called professional ‘training’, that is rarely a reality i.e. rare that there is actual professional level training. Certainly in cases like the clowns who work in hospitals and nursing homes, they are professional within their work domain. That’s good.
It is problematic when the clown domains get mixed and especially problematic when the theatre and circus or burlesque or cabaret sometimes too often do not know enough stage craft, or how to utilize their whole body artistically in space and time. That’s not good.
I have long provided an illumination and solution to such problems. However, like every teacher… an old adage is appropriate – “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”.
Some aspects of the ‘enormous problem’ is the responsibility of the teacher and some aspects are the learner’s responsibility.
Now, I will discuss a variety of ideas related to problems as well as illumination and solutions which my method offers for actors, learners, teachers, directors, as well as veteran and novice clowns. Although the method i.e. the practical introduction is very clear in structure and information – it is extremely simple and therefore endlessly adaptable. Plus it, The Four Articulations, can work with and even enhance any other performance method.
LEVEL 1. THE SIMPLE PROBLEM IS THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG.
The tip of the iceberg, the simple problem hints at The Enormous Problem in The Teaching of Clown
a) The problem generally is simple and visible within seconds of a performance.
b) The problem generally is generally visible – Whether that is a live performance or videoed recording of a live performance or a performance made and constructed for filming as in a video film or a televised performance or a film made for cinemas and/or television.
That first alert though is just the tip of the iceberg.
c) What appears, often within seconds is that the performer, or group or cast or director does not have control physically in the whole body. The whole body if solo. The whole bodies of a group or cast.
TEACHING CLOWN IS A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE. AS IS TEACHING GENERALLY.
And for anyone trying out a bit of clown; or a workshop in clown; or clowning it is often interesting; or fun or challenging; or even ‘life changing’ for individuals. Camping or hiking or visiting another country or taking a course in knitting and any human activity are potentially ‘interesting, fun, challenging, or even life changing for individuals’.
Teaching clown or clowning is often complex simply because individuals gathered for a short or long workshop or even for a longer ‘training’, likely, have differing views on the type of clown or clowning that they like or gravitate towards.
photo: Henry Bergman and Charles Chaplin in The Circus (1928)
Charles Chaplin’s film The Circus has Charlie as a tramp learning to be a clown. The older clown doing the teaching is Henry Bergman who in fact was a type of ‘teacher’ – a gag master for Chaplin, Bergman as an associate also performed in 30 of Chaplin’s movies. Before a careet in films, Bergman had been an actor and singer in a theatre troupe. One of their shows played on Broadway.
As not much is known about him, Bergman is somewhat obscure. He sat in on all of Chaplin’s production meetings as a confidante whose opinion Chaplin frequently called upon. When Bergman decided he was getting too old for comedy movies he opened a restaurant, Henry’s, at 6315 Hollywood Boulevard. Chaplin was the backer for the restaurant. Henry’s soon became the preferred after hours spot for the cinema crowd of actors and others. ‘Henry Bergman’ was one of the characters in my play that had a large cast but featured 3 clowns. That was Artiste in Exile… requiem for Strindberg. The clowns wanted to be writers. The 3 clowns were named: August Strindberg; Ingmar Bergman; Henryk Ibsen.
In clown teaching it is not unusual that the teacher and any or some of the participants have quite different views and expectations from each other. The scene’s between Bergman and Chaplin in The Circus illustrate that. As do the scenes between the circus owner and The Tramp i.e. Chaplin. The circus owner was played by Al Ernest Garcia.
TEACHING IS LEARNING
Naturally, normally, teachers and participants try to harmonize in the tasks, exercises and ideas during a class or rehearsal. The desire to ‘get along’ and to ‘let’s just agree’ can in fact be agregious to the learning. That is not to encourage disagreeing or arguing. But, playing simply by the teacher’s rules is unlikely to accomodate everyone’s individual unfolding as a clown or actor or performer. In fact I have long said and written that really too often it appears that survivors of clown ‘teaching’ are learning socialization to “please the teacher” as much or perhaps more than learning to clown.
HOW DOES ONE LEARN TO CLOWN?
In the past one either ‘just jumped in and found a way to clown’; or, one found an experienced clown and learned directly from that clown on the job; or, one immitated other clowns and began to cobble together any bits that one could to make a short act. Then one sought any places to try out the act to get the act good enough to get paid sometimes. That IS how most of my generation of clowns, many of whom are very well known, began. (see my blog. /essay “Jerry Lewis School of Clown?“)
We’d also use or acquire and practice any possible related skill including mime, juggling, magic, singing, dancing, some prattfalls and a few acrobatic tricks. And one might pursue any of those or all of those and would put even the most minimal skill into an act as soon as possible. Then one would create a few more acts and repeat the processes just mentioned.
A PROBLEM STARTED WHEN CLOWN STARTED TO BE ‘TAUGHT’ BY A TEACHER IN COURSES AND NOT IN ‘REAL TIME’ i.e. NOT IN A ‘REAL’ SITUATION.
In many fields for several decades, one can be certified without being qualified. ‘Qualified’ can mean ‘certified’ in the sense that one passed. But passing is a minimal that does not always mean qualified.
Soon people were ‘trained’ in Clown, sometimes even in clown courses, but they were not clowns. They were people either testing the waters or who wanted a ‘creditial’ or ‘certificate’ but clowning requires getting in front of as many DIFFERENT audiences as possible, as soon as possible, as often as possible. Even with a super short act, even if your confidence was shaky and the act was simple, it seems to me that of those in my generation who became clowns each forced themselves to ‘leap into the abyss’.
JUST A FEW NOTES OR ANECDOTES FROM TEACHING CLOWN AND THEATRE. JUST A FEW NOTES.
On that note, ever since I was a very young theatre teacher, I was known for being quite disciplined. Yet that ‘discipline’ in part began simply because I started my classes exactly on time. I would literally watch the clock’s second hand. Then on the hour, on time, I would say “Okay, thank you. Let’s start.”
On the other hand I never locked the door, never locked students out, never scolded them for being late, always welcomed late comers with a warm open friendly greeting.
But while they entered I did not stop teaching. I simply added “Welcome, when you are ready join in”. If we were well into the physical warmup or performing physically demanding exercises I may then ask the person to join in after they have warmed up a bit.
I was also considered ‘disciplined’ because I gave crystal clear instructions. The instructions for all of my exercises are explicit, simple, and with a clear procedural structure.
I said what I meant.
Decades later it was brought to my attention that I teach and even watch with my own pecular intensity.
I have no idea what an actor may do with an exercise, or improvisation, or concept, or with their own creativity unfolding.
I love watching the actors, the individual’s encounter of working on a task. I find that fascinating. I love also being able to assist anyone going astray to ‘come back’ or to clarify a small point that allows the person to dig into the task or dig into whatever they are discovering.
LIKE MANY TEACHERS I SOUGHT MY OWN WAY TO ADDRESS THE GENERATION GAP i.e. of CLOWN GENERATIONS.
What did the ‘old’ clowns know? First and foremost they knew: their body; their ‘act’; how to perform that is how to connect with an audience; they knew their colleagues whom they relied on for tips, pointers, advice, suggestions, help, knowhow, personal wisdom. They were of The Circus and of Vaudeville. Both seriously arduous and competitive and collaborative working circumstances. Both away from the normal life of a stabile home or well known local community. Their community was on the road on tour. Usually at minimum of ten years or so on the road touring.
One of my conscious thoughts about an ‘old’ clowns was, in my imagination, that a clown had to be their own director.
They had to make decisions.
Practical, Artistic, Business decisions. Albeit in my case small decisions.
I thought a clown needed to have some skills. Any skills that one could perform. I was young and fairly physically fit. I went to a bookstore to see if I could find a book for self training physically.
I immediately found a book that said ‘fitness in 20 minutes a day’. I took that. It was a book on Tai Chi. I did not know what Tai Chi was. There are likely thousands of books on Tai Chi? The “20 minutes” was for me:). Then I saw another book that claimed ‘fitness in 4 minutes daily’. That was even MORE for me. I took both books, paid, went home, and started training.
In the process of training I began to have very interesting experiences. In my mind, one might say consciousness. And in my body, one might say awareness.
I had already been having more than a year of such experiences of mind and body; of, consciousness and awareness. My part time job as a university (college) student was as a professional art model. I found I could and would go into a deep trance while naked. Yet my private experience within my mind and within my body was seperate from those I appeared before. However, in each posture I was also living creatively. In fact, that began as soon as I took my first standing pose the very first day.
In that instant, my life changed.
I discovered my inner world, that I was creative. My imagination was immediately attuned physically.
In that moment is the seed of this essay/blog. The seed of my Clown and my way of clowning. The seed of my teaching. The seed of my method tested on myself and applied and adapted as a gift for anyone that opens the present.
That was part of my success as a model. I was excedinly present. Within myself. Yet, that radiated the room. I was creatively alive even while standing still.
LEVEL 2 – THE BODY MOVING OR STILL IN SPACE AND IN TIME
photo – Josephine Baker in Paris at the Folies Bergere cabaret-theatre
When I stood or sat still as an art model, I was experimenting with reality.
I found a secret.
I wasn’t looking for one.
I stumbled upon it while I was standing still.
While I stood still my inner world came alive. It was ignited.
A clown needs to be active and still at the same time. In my method are a whole variety of placed “Pauses“. A pause is not a stop. A pause is a preparation to spring into action. Like a cat, glassy eyed while stalking a mouse until it is time to pause on its paws electrified to spring. To accurately spring.
We always had one or another cat at home when I was a child. I’d watch and play with them endlessly.
Arlequin, Harlequin, Arlecchino may be cat-like?
(see my show on youtube “Harlequin Dreams” – the whole show).
When I came to Clown I began to tap, conjour, and experiment with my private findings in mind & body; in consciousness and awareness.
That is central to my lifetime in the performing arts. And specifically in the context of this essay/blog I felt called to teach as much as to Clown or to be a Clown.
A Clown can use any type of training. Even yoga, tai chi, martial arts, sport, ballet, moutaineering, anything. Or nothing. What counts is using the body, physicality. What the audience can see. Additionally in a strange or direct way many people start off in life with particular life circumstances and related experience. Then they usually either get work or get training in some field from plumbing to administration to emergency services, etc. Of course Life continues and flows through changes of all sorts. Sometimes a person for a variety of possible reasons is drawn to clowning. Then, in time one will find that any life experiences can enhance or benefit one’s journey into Clown. Really, in Life everything is interrelated. So it seems, and to some, it doesn’t seem so.
But, no matter what experiences or attributes or knowledges one may posess, in Clown things need to be made visible on stage i.e. in performance.
The Four Articulations for Performance is works with Universal Principles; and real, usable, adaptable, flexible ideas that become Techniques. For example “FRAMING“, as a Universal Principle, is taught inside of “The Buster Keaton Exercise“. The actor learns how to enhance “What the audience can see”. “The Nothing Exercise” illuminates what many clowns and likely ‘some’ clown ‘teachers’ can not see. It makes as Marcel Marceau said of his work, “It makes the invisible, visible”.
Those two exercises, for example remind a performer that they have and outer and an inner world. They both use an essential Universal Principle used throughout all of The Four Articulations. That is the physical can directly affect the inner world of a clown or person. Likewise the inner feeling can affect the outer physical manifestation. In any performer such a duality is a permanent ‘yin/yang’ i.e. harmony in opposites.
Such a duality can be tested via one’s own processes all the way through The Four Articulations template and chronological structure of physical and creative exercises.
Both The Keaton and The Nothing are SO SIMPLE! Yet they ILLUMINATE what a LOT of clowns and teachers gloss over, ignore, negate, or possibly just don’t take the time to allow a learner to to see and feel and test i.e. to process their own learning – on the studio floor in real time.
One of the secrets of The Four Articulations is its simplicity and simplicity’s illuminating attribute as a direct benefit to a performer, teacher, director, or choreographer.
The whole template of The Four Articulations is provided with step-by-step instructions and explanation in chapter 2 of the book CLOWN SECRET. Additionally one can have direct support to learn any or all of those exercises via I.S.A.A.C. CREATIVE MENTORSHIP. Teachers, Directors, Choreographers, Actors, People who are Veteran perfomers or novices are welcome to do that mentorship program. See my website for information www.iraseid.com
The clown doesn’t need to do anything except ‘stuff’ that the audience likes seeing.
A clown does not need to be ‘good’.
A clown only needs to do stuff that an audience likes to see.
However, there are some very successful clowns but when I watch them from the first seconds I see or realize oh, they are just doing stuff. They are good at doing stuff. They know enough tricks to fool the audience to imagine that the clown is ‘good’. That is all that counts.
I saw a new clown quite recently, in mid-2025. My friend was in a show. My friend is a great clown. My friend wanted me to also see this new clown to see what I thought. When the show started in seconds….. I saw the new clown was absolutely FANTASTIC. I had been told he had some dance training. I saw every split second of what he did. We were introduced soon after the show. As always I want to know about every performers background and ‘story’. This dancer was hired because the previous clown was an experienced dancer who created the role in this show. The replacement had 4 days to learn the acts. The choreography and his part in the several acts. When I saw him he had been performing about one week. I asked how is does it feel. He told me ‘all about clowning’. He got it ALL. Mind, Body. Consciousness, Awareness. FEELING the audience and working WITH them.
But I have seen evidence for 50 years that the biggest problem in Clown is the teaching of clown.
Rather than drawing the learner into the Realm of our Clown Elders, what I refer to as “The Matriarchal/Patriarchal Clown Lineage” – instead it seems that the result which is what I see is that the learner has somehow been led astray from our mutually inherited dual clown lineage. Or possibly they have been led to believe that ‘clown lineage’ starts with any particular ‘teacher’ or ‘school’ of clown. Whereas I am quite certain that the wealth of clowns is from our Clown Elders, en masse.
There is a gap OFTEN between the teacher’s solidified decisions about what a clown is or isn’t and that of any Learner. Whereas the learner often has their own solidified beliefs, musings, or imagined dogma that they have already heard. Sometimes the problem is the gap between the teacher and many of the learners. Sometimes the problem is that the teacher and learner agree on what a clown is or isn’t or on what a ‘good’ clown is or isn’t. In clown, sometimes agreeing is agregious.
LEVEL 3 – THE BODY OF THE ACTOR IN THE SPACE OF THE THEATRE
Early in my first steps into Clown – It seemed to me that there was a big gap between the 100’s of clowns that I saw on television as child during the 1950’s and 1960’s versus the clowns I started seening live in the mid-1970s. I did see some wonderful Clowns already in the mid-1970’s.
In 1969 I enlisted in the US Navy and essentially stopped watching television for the next 40 years. In fact I rarely watch television now. However, I have watched a lot of items on youtube, 1000’s of video clips and likely watched a few hundred films all via youtube or other caches.
Often I have been sent videos clips of ‘contemporary’ clowns. I only look openly and simply to see whatever appears.
None the less, nearly invaribly I happen to notice, within a few seconds that the clown or clowns do know – or do not know – ‘what they are doing’ physically in their body in space and in time.
In fact all of my Theatre works which were all experimental and under rehearsed… and, I can see some moments when I could ‘pay more attention’ to some part of the action. Whereas most of the time even if I was improvising, I knew what I was doing physically in my body, in space, and in time.
As just mentioned, my own works i.e. the few that have some recording were invariably experimental. I was literally researching and testing out theoretical and practical ideas. Some of those are on youtube.
One such show has the last 15 minutes i.e. what I call the finale recorded and on youtube. That show is a quintet in which I come in at in that finale. As you can see it has a rather interesting composition and choreography. Within that show, one of my tests was to experiment with 5 clowns somewhat from 5 different worlds. Their worlds are not extremely different. I play the last clown to enter i.e. “he who gets slapped“. The bottom of the pecking order. That show was “Chaplin’s Eye“. Put into youtube search: chaplin’s eye finale ira seidenstein and it video should appear.
Long ago, I had trained and sensitized myself to pretend that I was working like those phenomenal great clowns of all sorts that I watched as a child. One of my very favourites was Red Skelton. His TV show was on once a week. For 20 years. I think the programming meant that TV shows played about 40 or so weeks each year and the remaning 12 weeks being re-runs or “Specials”. In Red Skelton’s case it is likely I may have watched perhaps, or at least, 400 episodes out of his 671 episodes.
Imagine seeing such a great clown so many times. What would a child absorb?
photo – The Honeymooners – Joyce Randolph; Audrey Meadows; Art Carney; Jackie Gleason
The ‘whole’ nation loved watching Red, Lucy, Jackie Gleason and his The Honeymooners (the inspiration for The Sopranos), Carol Burnett, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and the wide array of others. Including the great ‘country’ (rural, and Southern) clown show “Hee-Haw”. It was directly inspired by Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. “Hee-Haw” aired on TV from 1969 to 1993.
Of course I can not and do not speak for all of my generation of clowns i.e. those who grew up in the USA. I am however often inferring us/them only because in the USA, TV was easily accessible and very popular and importantly had an extreme and unusually vast array of clowns many of which for some period had their own TV shows. Such shows were more Variety shows and not sitcoms. As Variety shows the host clowns always had guest clowns and/or guest entertainers. Additionally, many TV shows hosted by well-known singers often had Variety artistes, novelty acts, and clowns as guests. Besides those clowns already mentioned in the previous paragraph some other clowns who had their own TV shows were: Milton Berle; Ed Wynn: Buster Keaton; Pinky Lee; Soupy Sales; Sharri Lewis; Danny Kaye; Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin.
I’m mentioning them not just as anecdotes… but as hints to the wise… i.e. to those reading this who may be teachers of clown or clowns or aspiring clowns or people interesting in clown, etc. Many of the clowns I’ve just mentioned have heaps of footage available via youtube. Those you can access, enjoy, or study whether you like the material or not. There is a lot to learn as many of those people grew up touring in actual Vaudeville i.e. doing 3 to 8 performances a day for years. Traveling by train, city to city. Staying in small hotels and boarding houses that catered to traveling entertainers.
A wonderful anecdote is that for one year, the Marx Brothers were on one Vaudeville circuit and Chaplin in The Karno Troupe was on another circuit. A circuit was based on the producer or owner of a large set/circuit of Vaudeville theatres. Such as Loews, . In a particular year, around 1913 i.e. before Chaplin was tested in film for the first time.
Groucho and Chaplin’s circuits overlapped for most of that year. That was in Canada. And for such Vaudeville performers the place to hang out at nights after the day’s performance was at a local bordello in each city. The bordello had free food, free or cheap alcohol, free music and a ‘friendly’ atmosphere. As Groucho told it, neither he nor Chaplin were interested in the ‘paid entertainment’ nor did they drink alcohol. That was how and where they became friends and had an ongoing conversation during their year in Canada – city to city.
It is quite possible that some of my generation grew up in families that chose not to have TV. In fact in my own case I lived nearly 2 years with relatives in a rural setting and we did not watch TV. Some families even in the USA made sure that the children were doing plenty of homework every evening instead of watching clowns on tv.
I would say, in a sense, my homework was watching clowns. I practiced what I watched.
AUTHENTICITY, INTERPRETATION, ORGANIC, ‘INDIGENOUS’
photo – Monty Pythons clowning around for the photographer 1976 NYC
“City Center Theater, New York 14 April – 2 May 1976 With Python’s tremendous success in the United States following the release of “Holy Grail” and the broadcast on PBS of the first three series of “Flying Circus,” it wasn’t long before they brought their stage show to America.
New York audiences, luminaries and press warmly welcomed the Pythons during their sold-out four-week engagement (as did New York thieves: John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Neil Innes, Carol Cleveland, and members of the crew were each victims of muggers, pickpockets or burglars during their stay).
“We were the toast of the town in New York, we were it,” Terry Gilliam said of the parties surrounding the show’s opening in “Monty Python Live!” (the book about the Python’s live shows to 1980). “Andy Warhol was there. I was in a daze, all these famous people smiling at you, I don’t know what to do I’m in a daze.”
Like many of my generation of clowns and actors and like children everywhere – we were natural mimics.
Mimicry leads or CAN lead organically to interpretation which leads to authenticity which leads to one’s ‘indigenous’ nature of clowning. All cultures have clowning if not outright clowns. Many cultures had clown woven into some of their folk dances and folk songs.
Music, dance, song,… and clowning stem from observation and intuition. That is way those art forms and others arose in virtually all Cultures. The observation was of nature, seasons, people, and especially animals who play, prey, hunt and love.
I had a repetoire of clowns and entertainers who I could imitate from an early age. In some cases, such as Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor both of which were ‘clowns’ I actually imitated the impersonators imitating Jolson and Cantor. It is quite possible that I saw Cantor on TV but Jolson died before I was born.
Jolson, Cantor, Skelton and so many other clowns worked on or had their own radio shows before TV arrived. Many such as Jolson and Cantor and the Marx Brothers etc. began their performance careers as singers and/or musicians. Usually as children.
One of the problems in the teaching of clown is that teachers have and do tell aspiring clowns ‘do not imitate’. In fact, it is quite possible, as in likely, that if those of my generation who teach do not actually say ‘do not imitate’ yet, if they do not encourage the learner to imitate then it is the same as saying ‘don’t’.
In the clown genre known as Commedia dell’Arte of 1545 to 1750 that Arlecchino or Columbina would have at times imitated Pantalone and Il Dottore. My interpretation of Arlecchino is the last 15 minutes of “Harlequin Dreams” whole show on youtube. Including Harlequin imitating his boss, and several animals, and Columbina.
In other words one of the most natural, organic, ‘indigenous’ ways of learning to be a clown is to imitate great clowns. Imitate is different from copy. When you imitate as is natural then you are learning to ‘step into the shoes and skin’ of the great clowns. You learn how they ARE physically in their body and you learn how those great clowns were ‘intimate’ and sensitive to their surroundings in space and time and colleagues. Whereas to copy may mean you are not establishing your own sensibilities.
One of the most famous and greatest of Vaudeville clown routines is Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First” routine. Each of them was so deeply authentic that it is virtually impossible to copy them. There are at least two videoed attempts for excellent actors to attempt to copy the routine. They ‘correctly’ say every line. There are perhaps 5 different occasions filmed of Abbott and Costello doing the routine. Each time is different.
One of the greatest impersonations of a great clown imitating another great clown is Jim Carrey imitating Jerry Lewis. Also see Jerry Lewis on SNL!! Those items are on youtube.
To want to clown without processing imitating some of the great clowns is to cut out a primary instinct in clowning.
Although I also imitated Charlie Chaplin when I was a child, you can see my “interpretation” of Chaplin on youtube in “Chaplin’s Eye“. I called that character “The Ghost of Chaplin“. We were five clowns in that show.
INTERPRETATION
“INTERPRETATION” is VITAL to my method of teaching and directing. The person or actor doing an exercise or rehearsing via my directions needs to be “AUTHENTIC” by “interpreting” my suggestion or instruction or direction. If I really want them to do something ‘my way’ I will make that explicitly clear.
A clown has to be “authentic” and to “interpret” whatever comes their way.
My single quartet exercise before we get to the formal “Clown” exercises is “The Whisper Exercise” (see a few examples on youtube). Some refer to that exercise as “The Listening Exercise” which it is too. It is both whispering and listening. But it is the whisper and whisperer who initiates the creative play. The sum of those some who called it “The Listening Exercise” is a dear longterm colleague Dr. Flloyd Kennedy. She is always right. But in my books two rights don’t make a wrong.
Already by the early 1970’s when I began to be involved in performance, acting, theatre and clown; there was already a key problem in clown and that often stemmed directly from either the way clown was taught or from the very teachers who claimed to be expert in clown and the teaching of clown.
I noticed a central issue or problem in performance after performance whether in theatre as in a play or in other formats including clown and what is referred to as ‘physical theatre’.
Clearly, some performers appear to know exactly what they are doing on stage and others even in the same production seem to simply not know what they are doing. I’m referring specifically to a performer knowing what they are doing physically in their own body, in space, in time, and in relation to the other actors.
Therefore, it seemed to me even then as a novice in theatre that one must first know exactly what one is doing physically, during the whole duration of a performance. I could see, observe clearly that not all trained performers were so enabled.
That seeming discovery led directly to the foundation of my method for teaching clown and related subjects such as acting, theatre, slapstick, and Shakespeare as a few examples.
I noted specifically that some performers did not really use their hands well or their feet or their legs or their face or their eyes. Whereas the excellent actor was always working harmoniously throughout their whole body at any given moment throughout the whole performance. Additionally such actors could pay attention to the other actors and could also be truly receptive to the other actors.
At the same time, many skilled ‘physical’ actors can be physical but not generous and not receptive to other actors. Such generosity and receptivity I term as “Intimacy”.
More about INTIMACY in a few moments.
LEVEL 4 – THOTS ABOUT CLOWN TEACHING WITHOUT ‘ugh’ IS THOTS.
Clown is a wonderful thing, field, and sometimes as an art form. Clown as a performance field can be in many guises, for example: a) Birthday Party Clowns for Kids to Burlesque even when the Burlesque performance or show may be raunchy, erotic, or more; b) Acrobatic Clowning of the Most Physical Variety to Verbal Clowning Using the Greatest Wit and Script without the performer ever breaking into a sweat.
I do not adhere to a singular definition of what a clown is or isn’t.
The obsessions of many teachers’ making a definition of clown is a part of the problem.
A lack of definition may add to the problem.
Usually I avoid definely ‘Clown’ or “What a clown is”. Once Joshua Y who had attended several of my workshops followed on after I said I don’t define ‘clown’. He then asked “Well, if you were to define ‘clown’ what would that be”? Nice. Joshua is always interesting and a friend. I said “Ok, you got me. A clown is someone who does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, as long as he wants”.
And OF COURSE he can be she!!!!!!!!!!!!
In my work my method with its template of exercises each of those is explicit in clarity of instructions.
Yet many of those exercises are open ended in a specific ‘secret’ way that allows any actor/person to persue clown and clowning in any given exercise via any viewpoint that suits that individual at that moment.
On that note, to assist the actor/person I joke: You can do it however you want, but my way comes first. That is a) if you follow the very simple and clear structure of any of The Four Articulations creative exercises THEN you can do it however you want; and, b) additionally, once you really know an exercise with clarity the structure is not always necessary c) the purpose of the structure is to reveal to you the hidden Universal Principles which each of the greatest of Clowns knew – usually subconsciously.
I know several EXCELLENT artistes who trained with me in The Four Articulations and they can not offhand remember any of the exercises specifically yet they use my method i.e. the ideas and universal principles every day whether they are warming up, training, teaching, creating, rehearsing, performing or directing.
The point or objective of my work is your work. For you to use my work to continually develope and enhance your work and works of art/entertainment.
Two exceptional clowns in one of my early The Four Articulations intensives told me that they had a conversation and felt that the “Clown” part of I.S.A.A.C. was much more than ‘clown’. I asked what would they suggest instead and they said ‘really what your teaching is “Creativity”. Thus I.S.A.A.C.‘s last word ‘C’ for ‘clown’ changed to ‘creativity’. Nothing in the method changed except the title’s last word to International School for Acting And Creativity.
We three also acknowldedged that it is even more. Creativity in the sense that I mean it and teach is ‘the great unknown’. Creativity is the very essence of being. Even in a most basic sense that a tree, for example, eventually dies, falls, begins to decompose, becomes a host/home for all sorts of creatures, and finally melds into becoming at one with the very soil from which perhaps another tree, plants, creatures will arise.
Clown as I offer it throughout The Four Articulations is a personal encounter private to each individual. I hardly ever mention that while working. I don’t get lost down a philosophical rabbit hole. Not usually. Not usually while working.
Even in the 1970’s when I began to live an artistic life with one focus being in clown, I saw that many teachers were simply teaching “theatre or acting games”. Such games are all wonderful. But, having seen many of the world’s greatest clowns on television during my childhood and youth I viewed clowns as a combination of that special brand of comedy that could use something as subtle as a single blink and the next instance could be a broad as a kick in the backside. In a sense a clown is capable of doing anything. Any object, person, moment, skill, idea, emotion, opportunity, or setback. The emphasis on games was and is a perversion or diversion of clown. That emphasis led to an obsessional belief and dogma that clowns primarily improvise. Whereas, ALL of the greatest of clowns ‘back in the day’ or now… are HIGHLY skilled. And they REHEARSE. And they PRACTICE. And they HONE. And they EDIT. And they CHOREOGRAPH. And… they can all improvise when necessary or when the opportunity arises.
Whereas, I would say that the REAL technique of ‘improvisation’ for clowns is to be SPONTANEOUS.
I was asked to teach clown very early when I was just beginning in theatre. I had already been developing my method and ideas about training and performing. The first thing I created was a set of 10 movements each of the 10 lasted about 1 minute. At any rate the whole took and takes 10 minutes. It is called Core Mechanics. For the most part anyone will recognize most of those movements as they are mechanical movements. Each movement has a clear beginning, middle, and end. Each movement has specific counts. Each set of counts is different for each movement. There are a few hundred counts throughout the 10 minutes. There are 4 foot or standing positions. The first 7 movements are down while standing whereas the last 3 movements are done down on the floor. The starting position of Core is the finishing position of Core. The 6th movement is one of my 2 Vitruvian Excercises. That pair of exercises are incredibly potent for performance.
Core Mechanics is now the 2nd series within The Four Articulations for Performance. The 2nd Vitruvian Exercise is the beginning of the 4th series within The Four Articulations for Performance.
In The Four Articulations the first 3 series are physical/mechanical. The last 3 series are the actual creative and clown exercises. They are for the individual to share publicly their private universe in any way they choose to work with the structure of each exercise.
Again, although all theatre or acting games are ‘fine’, as most clown teachers seemed early on to me, to rely heavily on games I then chose to leave the games to them. As an actor, early on, although I LOVED playing and acting or theatre game I did not believe such games could supplate significant and pointed real training. Games are fine. Games a fine auxilliary skill for any actor or performer. Games are fine. But games without very real technical training whether for an actor or a clown become a delusional crutch and even weaken an individual’s self-empowerment professionally speaking. Games are also an excuse for a teacher or director who just doesn’t know what else to do to start a class or rehearsal. But, games are fine. I’m here hinting at the problem with games. I’m not saying games are bad. Games are fine. How and when and why they are used is often a problem that misdirects actors/clowns from acquiring significant technical skills.
I prefer to offer my own exercises. Exercises implies work. Another ‘secret’ of my clown teaching is for the person/actor to REALIZE that a CLOWN needs to Make Work Into Play and Play Into Work. Games, which are fine, can actually be a total distraction away from seeking actual skills for clowning.
My favorite book amongst several wonderful books on theatre games and improvisations is the masterwork by Viola Spolin of Improvisation For The Theater. Spolin’s lenghty Introduction to her book is totally insprirational. Spolin’s approach to Theatre, Acting, Drama is directly valuable to Clown.
None the less, I have created a direct conduit to assist any actor or person to discover and align with our Clown Elders which I refer to as The Matriarchal/Patriarchal Lineage of Clown.
Here then is a CENTRAL SOLUTION TO THE ENORMOUS PROBLEM WITHIN THE ‘TEACHING’ OF CLOWN.
The key problem is that even with all the clown ‘teachers’… it is still clear that far too many professional and experienced clowns do not fully ‘know what they are doing on stage (or screen)’ particularly in terms of creating or working in Space and Time.
That was a).
Here is b). Far too many professional and experienced clowns especially those who LOVE to say they ‘trained as a clown’ or ‘I’m trained in clowning’ – far too many do not know what they are doing in their body in a complete performative way.
c) therefore with a) Space and Time; and b) in their body in a complete performative way – kept in mind c) combines an awareness and usage of a) Space and Time; WITH, b) their body in a complete performative way; WITH c) a daily warmup and training journey through the 4 Articulations which are: Body; Space; Time; Space-Time Continuum.
The Space-Time Continuum offers the actor/person exercises which allow and encourage one to learn/teach themselves with support: “How To Think As A Clown”. That means think in a conscious, controlled, spontaneous, and creative EMBODIED way while WORKING on the floor IN A CREATIVE STRUCTURED EXERCISE as a TOOL for any situation.
Bear in mind that the template of The Four Articulations exercises is a web of varying challenges to challenge one’s ‘sense of clown’. We the viewer in the studio (or the public in a performance) get to bear witness to the actor/person’s ‘clown soul’ or ‘creative soul’ in real time, visually, physically moment to moment as it – the performance of an exercise – unfolds and the person deals with what the cards of Time and Space have dealt.
Can I be more specific about Clown Teaching’s enormous problem? Can I give an example? Can I provide a metaphor? Can I give away ‘the secret’ to resolving the enormous problem? Is there a logic to the work of those Clowns who found or created a way to transcend the enormous problem? Is the enormous problem a singular thing or is it complex or on multiple levels?
WHAT IS A CLOWN?
What is a clown? No matter what a clown can be – it can also the opposite. For example if clown implies someone who is funny a clown can also be someone who is sad, morose, agressive, violent, unexpressive, laconic, etc.
Who is a clown? Is a clown a guise, a performance genre, or a person? Can’t it be any of those and much more?
Already decades ago it was clear that most people who graduated from very fine Acting courses that were either 3 or 4 years and the equivalent or actual university B.A. degree. – most graduates would leave the profession within 5 years after graduation.
In clown ‘training’ it is unlikely that most people will become a clown. Those who finish a course, short or long, and become a clown invariable have one of several specific personal attributes. Some of those possible or probable attributes may be: a B.A. or equivelent in Classical Acting, or in Theatre. Or like the Monty Python’s a clown may have a university degree in ANYTHING. Or as with most of the early Vaudeville and Circus clowns – many or most did not graduate from High School. A clown may come from a city or from a rural area.
One year in Sweden I taught a group of 26 actors. Early on I was staying in an apartment that had a television. On a Sunday afternoon I turned on the TV. Immediately there was a clown in a movie and he was speaking Swedish. He was exceptional. But it was the last minutes of a movie. On Monday I asked my Producers who might that clown have been. Finally it seemed it likely was Nils Poppe who I was told had been Sweden’s most famous clown. I said I’d like to see if he could come and be a guest teacher for us. The producers each thought he was dead. Or if he wasn’t dead he was too old. I asked them to please call telephone “Information”. They got the number!! I phoned. Mrs Poppe answered. I apologised that I did not speak Swedish. She spoke English. I asked is this the home of Nils Poppe? Yes. I explained briefly that I was a clown and theatre teacher in Goteborg. She said Nils is here, would you like to speak with him? I spoke to Nils. He invited me to come visit. He then put his wife back on to discuss when etc. I took the train on the following Saturday. His wife and daughter went to the bakery and came back and made us coffee and left Nils and I alone to talk. Both wife and daughter were actresses. But most of the 3 hrs was just Nils and I. It was an astonishing experience. He was about 89 years old. He was magical. I brought a vhs video of some of my work in case he wanted to see something which he did. He and I sat on the sofa watching one of my little experimental theatre shows. The whole time Nils was imitating me on the video i.e. particularly my face and basic body language. I watched Nils Poppe imitate me the whole time of the video.
On Monday the actors were waiting to hear my report and if I could bring Nils. Nils was very old and happy at home. I only asked indirectly but it seemed that such a trip was unlikely. I told the students that i learned something by having time with Nils. I said “If you can tell me where a wildflower comes from, then I can tell you where a clown comes from”. In other words, a clown is like a wildflower. It emerges where and when the environment and season is right.
Like most teachers of clown, I try to create the right environment from which a clown or clowns may emerge. The Four Articulations is the environment and a passage through ‘seasons’. Four Seasons: Body, Space, Time, Space-Time Continum. The last ‘season’ Space-Time Continuum uses everything that has gone before i.e. all of the Universal Principles revealed in Body, Space, Time. Space-Time Continuum is also the season or time and place to try to learn “How To Think Like A Clown“. Organically, naturally, and with one’s own instincts including teasing, meanness, ploying, playing, cunning, pretending anything that a dog or cat might do when they play and practice hunting or being hunted.
Around that season I often remind the actors “I’m not the clown, you are”.
Very often I ask after an exercise “How was that” and “Anything that you noticed” and especially if for some reason a person had a difficult or ineffective round of an exercise I ask “Did you suffer for your art”?
With all of those I’m only trying to assist the actor to speak, to think, to reflect, to communicate THERE on STAGE i.e ON THE FLOOR.
In my workshops and rehearsals I say “Thank you” OFTEN. It’s my greatest weakness as a teacher and director. Plus, I say “thank you” and I mean it. Every time. It’s my greatest weakness as a teacher.
INTIMACY
I am a fan of Cirque du Soleil. I like some CDS shows that I’ve seen more than others. The following video I have chosen because it is a CDS show that I have not seen live. Most of CDS’s shows I have not seen. Importantly, I am not ‘criticising’ these two clowns, nor these two characters, nor the act, nor the show. However, I am observing a number of ‘issues’ and will only mention a few here to give us focus.
Have a look at the video. It is only 3:37 minutes. Then see what I have written below.
I am not asking you – did you like it or not. If you liked it, Good! If you didn’t – well none of us ‘like’ everything.
First, my basic question in workshops that I teach or in rehearsals often or even always is:
What did you notice? Anything new, different, or interesting? Anything at all that stood out to you?
You can take a minute to consider your own findings and your own thoughts. If you want, write them down so you can refer to them later if you like.
Note: I am not and do not tend to ask – did you like it; what did you think about it; ‘I didn’t find it funny, did you’; what did you think of the costumes; I really liked the costumes, how about you; etc. i.e. the generic frequently spouted blurbs which MANY professionals begin their sarcastic ‘poo-poo-ing’ with. Or, just as bad as the Poo-Poo-Ing Committee is The Generic Nicities Committee.
I watched it once. In a moment I may watch it again. When I watch a performance I simply watch and let the performance effect any way that naturally occurs. I am usually simply more curious to see what something is rather than expecting to be made happy or to laugh or to have any specific response. Generally speaking I’m a very good audience member. Even if I really do not like a performance say from the start… I am open enough that I can be very appreciative of the parts that I like or that excite me or that make me laugh or that effect me in any way.
What I remember from seeing this video several weeks ago is: although certainly the two performers are professional and able bodied, I had the feeling they are not “authentically” connected. They may be. But it doesn’t appear that way – to me. They may be very close friends and colleagues off stage. But what I see is that the performance is not what I would call “intimate”. Not “really” authentically connected to each other. It is possible that the director did not want them to be ‘intimate’. It is possible that one or the other of the two actors is new to the act and show so maybe they haven’t yet had a chance to find ‘intimacy’.
Personally for better or for worse I seek to “really” connect with my partner from the first attempt even in the studio.
Interestingly in 2011 I taught 20 workshops for Cirque du Soleil show i.e. for one of their touring shows. Most of those worshops were a maximum of one hour. I taught a few each day. The first workshop was for the whole performance troupe or those who were able to attend. Likely there were about 40 people in that workshop just to introduce us and for me to give them all some of my exercises that could be done simaulaneously and individually but within a large group.
Then the tour director selected scenes for me to adjust. Or the performers who wanted a workshop could ask the tour director. The tour directors’ offical title in CDS is Artistic Director, which is not the Creative Director who worked for months developing any CDS show. To be Artistic Director for a CDS is a ‘more than’ full time job!!!
In one of the 20 workshops the Artistic Director asked me to work with the two main clowns. I did one of my physical exercises first. I did one of my two “Vitruvian Exercises“. Introducing such an exercise allows actors to hear my voice and attune to me and for me to observe how they work and for me to attune to any actor as quickly as possible.
The ‘warmup’ with a Vitruvian Exercise, (those are: The Twist Choreography; and, The Creative Twist) was then followed with one of my actual “clown exercises” i.e. one without use of a clown nose. Most of my clown exercises do not use a clown nose, or a red nose or any nose. Generally speaking I have 4 excercises which use clown nose or any nose.
The exercise I chose has 4 VERY short lines of text. The text though short is specific. From the 4 lines actors can continue using improvised dialogue, or sounds, or silence, or alternate between those possibilities.
The two Clowns/actors/people did the exercise once and I gave some supportive ‘feedback’ or ‘coaching’ or words of encouragement allowing them to do the exercise again.
Even in the first attempt several things were apparent to me. Including as mentioned above what I would call a lack of ‘intimacy’. These were two EXCELLENT clowns and people!!!!! Still there was room for improvement. We ALL have room for improvement or for development.
For the next 45 minutes or so we only did that one exercise a structured improvisation. Yet each time I would either ask a ‘what do you notice’ type question or something equally simple. Or I would make a comment or provide a direction to challenge or encourage the two artistes.
However after just a few minutes I turned to the Artistic Director who was seated at least 5 metres away. I asked quietly “Is this okay”? Because we are all working. She’s the boss and the Artistic Director so I wanted to know ‘okay’ as in is this the direction you want us to move in? She had her mouth wide open and only silently slowly nodded her head in disbelief that ‘intimacy’ could be achieved so quickly.
The 2 had already been working together here, professionally, and in CDS!! For clowns one of THE top companies. One of. They and the A.D. clearly enjoyed the workshop. I was to see the whole show again that night and see some of the Cast and A.D. directly after. Unbelievably to the A.D. and the 2… they “really” had fun on stage together for the first time.
For a number of recent years of continued research into Clown, I have seen about a dozen or so long interviews with Jerry Lewis. I also watched every Martin & Lewis film within a few weeks plus most of Jerry Lewis’s first films without Dean Martin. Martin & Lewis worked with several absolutely excellent Directors!!! Directors who really knew Clown!! And Acting. And Cinema. And some of those Directors were also Writers.
To my surprise I would since say that the single most ‘intimate’ actor that I have ever seen is Jerry Lewis. Now THAT was a surprise for me because he is of course notable for his HUGE action and what some term “over the top acting”. The “intimacy” on stage and screen of Martin & Lewis is legendary. But for me to see film after film, scene after scene with actor after actor… there was Jerry Lewis as “Mr. Responsive” acting in a sensitive, receptive, generous way with every other actor in every scene and every movie.
He IS the Gold Standard for clown timing and intimacy dramatically. See blog/essay regarding Jerry Lewis. Yet, on youtube you can see the one and only time Jerry Lewis worked with the clown Red Skelton. They have about 10 minutes together. Jerry did many things to provoke Red Skelton and Red could deal with anything thrown at him. After that 10 minutes when they stop, Jerry said one of the most extraordinary things in ‘clown history’.
You can bet that Jerry is COMPLICATED!!! So is Red!!!!!! And Martha Raye!!! And Lucy!! etc etc. But at the same time they and their ilk were also extremely generous in many different ways.
Artistes, actors, directors, dancers, clowns, managers, shop keepers, people are complicated.
Further to the fine CDS duet video above. The execution and or direction/staging/choreography has a stilted use of space, timing, and use of directions as in left, righ, up, down, forward, backward. Singularly. As a duet. And in relation to the props and set.
In The Four Articulations one of The Seven Solos is “The Six-Directions Exercise”. A VITAL and POTENT exercise for any performer, theatre teacher, or director of stage or screen. Like every exercise in The Four Articultions each has crystal clear instructions, yet open aesthetics, and simple in formatting, yet benefical and adaptable endlessly. Paradoxically, The Four Articultions is in fact a complex web of Universal Principles and an array of oppurtunities to apply and adapt to one’s own unfolding creativity and applied to any performance genre.
Marge & Gower Champion Aphrodite and The Thief – DANCE – in the video below at 38:18 to 44:40
I have selected the next two video clips to see two examples of two performers who to an extreme ‘know their body in space and in time’. Particularly it is not just the physical prowess that any dancer has. Rather it is the acting or at least the theatricality particularly of the duet Marge & Gower Champion. Note: Gower is also the Choreographer. First clip is at 38:18 to 44:40 i.e. just over 6 minutes. It is dramatic more than comic. Whereas the 2nd clip is just over 1 minute and is more comic than dramatic.
And another short 1 minute dance from Marge and Gower Champion. The character introducing them is the clown Joe E. Brown. Gower would have choreographed the film.
You are welcome to write to me directly at iraseid@gmail.com
Please have a look through my website www.iraseid.com and especially the Pages titled: Creative Mentorship; Associates; and, Patrons.
The I.S.A.A.C Creative Mentorship is open for anyone from Veteran performers, teachers, directors, choreographers or writers to any Novice or person simply curious. The program was created in 2012 to accomodate long distance and part-time. There is a clear structure combined with the unique objectives of an individual, team, company, or course.
Within the I.S.A.A.C Creative Mentorship I teach a The Short Set of 7 Exercises. Once the performer knows that set of seven it can be used as a very short warmup taking about 20 minutses. The Short Set of 7 are exercises taken from The Four Articulations for Performance. If you learn and really know the exercises you are welcome to teach them to others.
Somewhere in the middle of the blog text I mention briefly Consciousness, and, Awareness. All along in my work and research I have been using acting, theatre, and clown to explore Consciousness, and Awareness with Performance Creativity.
Notably The Four Articulations came to me as a ‘download’ so to speak. In the Paris Metro. In a flash of a few seconds. It placed some exercises and structures that I had created long before, now into a template. The flash put those and new ones as part of the flash into a clear structure comprised of “sets”. Such as my first set of 10 exercises called Core Mechanics. And the Two Vitruvian Exercises. I created or formulated those in early 1976. Later I developed the ultra simple “The Nothing Exercise“. It ‘looks’ like ‘nothing’ to most people including professionals. But after only a few mintues it becomes revealed and apparent that “The Nothing Exercise” actually has EVERYTHING. In essence. Everything in essence that an actor or clown or performer needs to become better in the sense of more articulate in their expressions. Better in the sense of more true to themselves, to their own creative unfolding moment to moment. Whether improvised, choreographed, spontaneous or a combination of those.
All of my own clown work, particularly my shows made for small theatres have been Experiments!!!
One theme that I pursued in numerous situations and shows is The Inner World of A Clown. MANY painters tried to capture that inner world. A number of film makers did too. Each of my experimental shows examined a different aspect of ‘inner’. Some parts of a few of those shows are on youtube.
There were also two shows that I Directed and co-created with the performers, which also pursued The Inner World of A Clown. Those shows were “Just Clowning” with Jai Hastrich and John Latham. The other was “The Book of Clown” with Emily Burton and Park Sanghyu.
This blog/essay is still only an excerpt from my ideas about clown, teaching clown, and a number of related themes.
There is a great ‘awakening’ happening in the Field of Consciousness albeit specifically as MANY more scientists are ‘catching on’. As Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan said at a conference of science and spirituality that I attended “When all the scientists climb the mountain of spirituality, we will be up at the peak waiting for you to catch up”. That was 1981. That was at his centre The Omega Institute which I think has largely lost the plot as it has given in 100% to anything trending as politically correct. Pir told a valuable story about his Son. The Son in keeping with the family’s Sufi tradition was given a traditional name. One day he came home from school and said “Dad I want to change my name”. Pir asked “What would you like to change it to”? The Son replied “I want to be called ‘Mike'”. Pir told us “So he became ‘Mike'”. Mike also does have, and uses his given traditional name.
As Gertrude Stein, great Non-Clown Clown writer may have stated it: A clown, is a clown, is a clown.
Don’t be fooled by professional fools.
From one of the sites of scientists attempting to get to Pir’s position at the peak here is a quote from François Jacob (Nobel Prize-winning biologist): “Evolution is a tinkerer, not an engineer. It works with what is already there and takes the path of least resistance. It is not always the most efficient solution, but it is the dumbest solution that works.“. To me that encapsulates the consciousness level of how The Four Articulations and how it came about, and about it’s essential TheTwo Vitruvian Exercises, and The Nothing Exercise.
The quote is via The Essentia Foundation, in an essay contributed by Brian Feng.
For those very few of you who have read this whole blog/essay:
Teaching Clown – An Enormous Problem – Illumination & Solution – For The Love of Clown
… in the words of the clown Bob Hope “Thanks for the memories”.
THANK YOU and Regards, Ira Seidenstein www.iraseid.com – iraseid@gmail.com
please note: my main fb site is a private group – Clown Secret Group fb. If you find that it interests you… INTRODUCE YOURSELF.