photo – Zsa Zsa Gabor and Buster Keaton in Paris. Gabor was acting in the film The Moulin Rouge (1952). Keaton was performing a short season across the street at Cirque Medrano.
Clown – Teaching Clown
In Clown and in Teaching and Directing and Choreographing Clown and clowning, I am particularly interested in assisting you to refine your interest and possible training and performance of Clown in your own terms.
I provide clear, simple, useable and adaptable tools and ideas within exercises.
The same exercises are excellent for anybody no matter how experienced or inexperienced.
The very same exercises I have taught for Cirque du Soleil performers and to pre-school children.
Others have taught the same exercises in all varieties of people, situations, and cultures.
The exercises are elegant in their simplicity.
It IS their simplicity and their lack of dogma that allows them to be of value anywhere, to anyone.
Their simplicity, and lack of dogma, allow you to refine your own sense of mastery. You have the chance in each exercise to practice refining your own sense of mastery.
The instructions are always clear and simple and procedural.
What happens to, in, and for you when you follow the instructions is simply your own journey.
Like the clown film advises us “follow the yellow brick road”. Follow the instructions and something good will happen. That clown film is The Wizard of Oz the 1939 version. There was the main quartet of clowns: The Tin Man; The Scarecrow; The Cowardly Lion; and The Innocent One named Dorothy. And lest we forget The Fifth Element – Toto!
photo: Ray Bolger; Jack Haley; Judy Garland; Bert Lahr – The Wizard of Oz 1939
I like Clown. I relate clown directly to acting and theatre and creativity and culture. To you. In your own terms. I consider my method and exercises and ideas ‘neutral’. That is they are clear yet imediately useable in your own interests.
That includes for you if you are already a teacher of clown, or a director of clown, or a clown of any sort.
Whoever you are, I hereby offer you my method, ideas, template, and thoughts or musings not only on Clown but also Acting, Theatre, and Creativity.
But the tools are to construct, to deconstruct. To reveal secrets in the art form as well as secrets within yourself which you can keep to yourself. But once you reveal such secrets to yourself you can work with those secrets in your own way. I provide ideas intertwined with useful creative tools. In my book CLOWN SECRET those exercises are provided in chapter 2 with explicit, simple, clear step-by-step instructions. When you practice them often enough to know them then the exercises belong to you. You can use them with any other ideas or training and actually any art form or creative practice.
If you are already fit enough and strong enough, then pushups are healthy and good for you. If you are not fit and strong enough then you must do preliminary training before you start doing full pushups. Some people start with half-pushups as in kneeling pushups. Even with those, some are best to start only by lowering DOWN for some weeks or months, before really trying to push UP.
Clowning is something anyone can try at any time in any condition.
At the same time, traditionally clowns say in the circus and in vaudeville were super physically fit.
In the tradition they were always acrobats of some sort before they were clowns.
My method and its practical introduction template of exercises are directly beneficial for veteran clowns and performers as well as for novices or people just exploring clown or performance.
Due to one’s own limitations, one can also adapt any of the exercises.
None the less, my instructions are always explicitly clear, and simple.
Of course one has to try them a few times simply to understand i.e. become familiar with the instructions.
None the less, Art and Creativity can be deeply emotional experiences. Love is supposed be wonderful. It is. It can. It can be frightenting and challenging and awful. Art and Creativity are like Love. As the saying goes “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Beauty is relative. Art can be touching or bold and brash.
In Art and Creativity and Love one needs to take one’s Time.
Amy Winehouse and Janis Joplin were great artists. They were like Clowns. Clowns lost in space and time and life even though they found their art form. They were immensely creative. They were great performers.
two photos: Janis Joplin 1943-1970, and, Amy Winehouse 1983-2011
Doing clown exercises is simply meant to assist you to find something for and of and from yourself.
Even if I were to teach you a clear established clown routine it is up to you and your own experience and your own engagement with that experience that is the fun of clowning. That is also the hardest part. Or the most difficult to find or to express.
The famous Vipasana retreats are notoriously challenging.
So too is my method.
Like a Vipasana retreat the challenge offers the benefit.
In Vipasana there are clear, specific instructions that must be adhered to. Otherwise you will be ‘encouraged’ to leave.
In my work I offer clear instructions to START each exercise. However in Clowning something along the way may change and you need to recognize the moral dilemna within yourself whether to continue or to adapt.
In fact through the template one has the chance to explore that very moral dilemna of How to Proceed.
My method allows and encourages and supports anyone to learn How to Proceed.
In the clown genre known as ‘Horror Films’ the dark joke is when the butler says “Walk this way”, or, “Follow me”. Amongst the great horror films that are comedies, clown films a few are easily recognizable such as Mel Brooks’ film Young Frankenstein – a clown horror film. And The Rocky Horror Picture Show – a clown horror film. Both play on the cliche of ‘walk this way’ or ‘follow me’ or ‘step inside’.
photo: Director Mel Brooks; Peter Doyle; Marty Feldman; Gene Wilder; Teri Garr – Young Frankenstein 1974
photo: Tim Curry; Barry Bostwick; Susan Sarandon – The Rocky Horror Picture Show 1975
Like any Art Form, Clown can be a Way of finding one’s way in the World. Clown can occur as an infinite variety of conflicting ways. Clown as a field of human endevour, to me, can embrace all of those paradoxical and even conflicting ways. When one goes to the famous Bondi Beach in Sydney some people insist that the North end is ‘better’ than the South end. Some prefer the Middle. But Bondi Beach is forever the whole North, South, and Middle, and more. Clown is a broad beach. It is a field. Like a Quantum Field. Thus my whole method is named “Quantum Theatre: Slapstick to Shakespeare“. The method’s Introduction and Practical Template is named “The Four Articulations for Performance“.
Sometimes I refer to The Four Articulations as “Pushups For Clowns“.
We can thus say The Four Articulations for Performance: Pushups For Clowns.
But it is not just for clowns and clowing. The Four Articulations and the whole method are for Creativity. And for Acting. And for Theatre.
I have consciously viewed and trained myself in clowning since I was 5 years old. That means soon I will have been somehow watching and studying Clown for nearly 70 years.
I saw a GREAT clown troupe just a few days ago. They have been going 18 years with a small stable of regular performers and a small variety of guest perfomers.
On the other hand, sometimes I see performers ‘doing clown’ and it seems there is a problem. I’ve observed that problem now for over 50 years.
Let me be blunt, and clear.
I think there is a problem or a few problems or a set of problems with the so-called ‘teaching’ of Clown.
I see or think I see the end result of the ‘teaching’ problems.
I have never exposed the complete ideas about those problems as I see them.
However, I am going to be unusually brief in this particular blog/essay.
There two objectives here.
1) to mention that there is a problem, and, to mention my method’s solutions which any teacher of clown is welcome to learn and to use
2) I will list a few long-winded blog/essays so that you can have the titles to some to them in one location i.e. at the bottom of this current blog/essay. You can access them and others via www.iraseid.com/blog
One essential problem with the ‘teaching’ of Clown is double sided. It is inner and outer.
A) The outer side – is that many people who claim to have been ‘taught’ clowning or clown, show that when they perform either on stage or in videoed or filmed work is: they do not appear to have control over what they are attempting to communicate. I begin to locate those performance attempts in four articulations of: Body; Space; Time; Space-Time Continuun.
B) The inner side – is that many people who claim to have been ‘taught’ clowning or clown, show that when they perform either on stage or in videoded or filmed work is: they do not appear to know how to draw out what they feel or what they imagine they are feeling and to express that in a clear readable way for any viewer in the audience.
- For ‘A’ the outer – I offer my method’s Introduction Template of creative exercises known as: The Four Articulations for Performance. The 4 articulations as mentioned above are: Body, Space, Time, Space-Time Continuum.
- For ‘B’ the inner – there is the internal experience of doing each of those exercises
In other words there is the DOING the exercises as proscribed (outer); and, there is the EXPERIENCE of doing the exercises as proscribed (inner).
That duality is one of the ‘secrets’ in my method. The duality I also describe thus: the CONSCIOUSNESS of the procedure of the exercise allows the SUBSCONSCIOUSNESS of the actor to arise to be utilized. Put another way, LOGIC prepares the ground for the INTUITION.
The last point I will propose is that it seems clear that a LOT of so-called ‘trained’ clowns when performing do not really know what they are doing, where, or how. They think they know.
In seems to me that even well-meaning teachers of Clown and clowning have confused, misinformed, misdirected, and consciously or unconsciously have misled their students who are also their customers.
Below are some of my most accessible writings related to Clown, clowning, creativity, and acting for stage and screen.
The two books are availble electronically in a minute via Kindle. Clown Secret; and, Quantum Theatre: Slapstick to Shakespeare. Those books can also be ordered as print-on-demand via main online booksellers.
Here are a few of my blog/essays related to teaching and learning clown and clowning. There are a total 90+ blog/essays.
For information including for I.S.A.A.C. Creative Mentorship see www.iraseid.com
For direct contact – iraseid@gmail.com
CLOWN CODE has 3 Parts
WHAT DOES A CLOWN KNOW? has 4 Parts