The clown is a beautiful and poetic creature...
...that comes from deep within our imagination (stage right) out into the light to share something super funny and super special with us, the audience. This offering of tremendous generosity is either a triumph of epic proportions or a horrible disaster, and both circumstances provide us with a wonderful theatrical experience. When you, the performer, stand before an audience, we see everything; all the lies, the desires, the courage, the delight, and the despair. We see where your body wants to go, even if the well-constructed architecture of your ego resists.
The places we avoid hold the most creative dynamo. When you avoid these soft places we see it even more clearly. We see the dynamic performer underneath peaking out to see if it's safe to play. The clown provokes the performer into the uncharted waters of the deepest sweetest springs of the soul and uncovers a surprising and astonishing human. It stretches the creative imagination and promotes an emotional elasticity while developing a body that can support this elasticity. In short, it cultivates a virtuosic performer who is more capable of illuminating the great texts of the theatre.
So… discover your own unique relationship to the comic world. Lead with your curiosity, pursue your pleasure, and uncover the mystery of what makes you funny- not them, or that one over there, but you. Yes... YOU!... the beautiful creature that you are. Celebrate your triumph, embrace your disaster, and delight in all the big stupid that leaks out in between.
Access the source of your playfulness and chase the creative possibilities that spring from that. Rediscover and set free those diminished parts of your self that hold the most surprising and potent ingredients for creation. Clarify why you, the performer, stand on the stage, in the light, and why the audience sits in the dark.
Through a series of solo and group games and exercises, based in Classical Clown Training, we will provoke and stoke the dynamo that makes you compelling, beautiful, astounding, magical, and maybe even funny.
As we invite you into this work, we want to recognize that the tradition of Classical Clown training is rooted in white European patriarchal pedagogical practices. This tradition wants to be embraced, challenged, and examined so that it may evolve as we do. The aim is to foster a brave working space where students feel free to practice inquiry and advocate for themselves whenever necessary. In the true spirit of the clown, our goal is to speak truth to power and disrupt the status quo.