Flavien Renaud

I went to follow Ira’s teaching just after completing my PhD in anthropology. I didn’t realize what “a fine mess I got myself into”, to make a reference to a line of one of his exercise, maybe the one I like the most.

After a few weeks of learning with a few other participants, I found myself alone with Ira, for private teaching for months. I had just spent years using only my head in the most rational way and I had now to learn to put all rational ideas aside, to use my body and to follow my feelings. As he said it himself, I’m one of his students (maybe the one?) who suffered the most. I went through hell so many times. Because of myself. Because of habits. Because of self-imposed limitations. And because he sees everything and didn’t let me do less than the best I can do. I didn’t know what was the best I can do. But it’s sure more than I thought. I was receiving a recipe to develop creativity and to express it with authenticity.

Many things he told me, I didn’t really understand them at the time. But because of his patience, and because he knows the importance of repeating things so many times, they were somewhere in my mind and I understood them years later, when I was on my own. Because Ira didn’t only teach me clown, mime and acting. He taught me to be my own teacher. He taught me to be a professional artist. He taught me to teach others. He taught me to go further and further. I even asked him once if he wasn’t actually teaching me to be happy. So maybe in a way he also taught me life.

Now I do those exercises every time I train, and I’m amazed at how creative I can be and how much fun I can have. And when I teach them to others, I’ve the same amazement to see that in others. When I try to understand how I took the path to become an artist, a clown, and how quickly this transformation came into my life, well… I better have to put my rational mind aside.