When a performer becomes aware of their movement or speaking habits their potential exponentially grows. Habits can be a source of annoyance; patterns that are always getting in the road. Or habits can be a source of great, generative, renewing play and performative awareness. In clown we are looking for a generous comic state and The Somatic Clown Journey is one that works directly with the embodied habits of the actor. It is a process that invites the actor to play with familiar habits, find new somatic awareness and mobilise all of that for comedy. My teacher Giovanni Fusetti says that ‘There are as many clowns as there are people in the world’. I totally agree with him. There is no one way to be a clown and yet, as unique as they all are, they always have something in common.
If you dare to go people-watching, you will see that each human is uniquely expressive. Each person has depth, volume and specific traits that make them a character-full, alive-as-possible being. Clown characters on stage are alive in this voluminous way too. When people-watching in the real world you might catch glimpses of clowns. There are people, who, well, there’s something funny about them. Something about them stands out, your eyes widen, cheeks rise, you smile. You inhale as the breath of laughter takes you. Wonder becomes you and you look for a friend next to you as you appreciate this quirky human animal. Almost all of the time these people aren't even trying to be funny! People in the real world are not performing of course, but theatre clowns are stage creatures. There is an actor present. Stage clowns thrive in the contact with the audience - in fact they become more fully their glorious self ONLY in contact with an audience. The actor becomes an enlarged comic form when an audience is watching.
The Red Nose Clown: Somatic Clown Journey is for people who want to compost their habits and use them as poetic fuel. For once those habits are in awareness the actor can be choiceful with them. An amplification of their habits will see them step into previously unknown poetic territory. The actor enters into a process of mirroring and amplification to exaggerate their embodied somatic features. They become aware, through a group process, of a recipe (somatic structure, spine, rhythm, tempo, costume, voice) that serves as a heightened articulation of their character. What was previously not in awareness is now creative gold.
The mystery and paradox of this work is that it asks you to become more of you, so much so that you turn you into a playful character. You are transformed into a clown mask - a mask that any of us can then wear. For a mask is a mask because it can be put on and taken off. How great is this for the actor?! Because, undoubtedly, the actor will find themselves in projects where their personal habits are not needed. Thus a clown awareness means those habits can become intentional or choicefully switched off. A huge part of the actors skill is elasticity; to be able to move (physically and mentally) and to be able to make adjustments and integrate them quickly. The physical theatre actor must be able to notice their familiar patterns and when called for, let personal habits drop away.
So, we will find your clown form by working with… YOU. Your body is already wonderfully stupid and this process finds what is hidden in plain sight. It is a quest toward one's natural stupidity. The word stupid, comes from Latin ‘stupere’ which means to be in awe, amazed or stunned. In this work we use the word stupid in its positive and regenerative sense - for being available to awe is naive. Clown work in the Lecoq-Fusetti lineage must contain a play of wonder, a play of amazement. Each clown character will engage in the world with a unique sense of naive stupidity. To be stupid-full is wonder-full and generously life-full.
The Somatic Clown Journey was devised and refined by Giovanni Fusetti and is directly related to the study of Neutral Mask. In Neutral Mask we wish to calm our idiosyncrasies, to become neutral, to clear the slate. The Neutral state is a strict foundational pillar to all mask work and was pioneered by Jacques Lecoq. It prepares the actor to be receptive to masks - for theatre is a practice of wearing masks. In Greek theatre, it would have been obscene to go on stage without a mask. They were much more interested in heroes, the chorus of citizens, gods, complex stories and outrageous satyrical entertainment. Our clown journey is a process parallel to and complementary to the Neutral Mask training. It is here that I wish to express my deep gratitude to Giovanni Fusetti for pioneering such a tender and rigorous clown garden.
In clown we embrace and celebrate what is non-neutral about us, we amplify it and voila we have a comedic form! A character to give to the world and The Muses. We glean a new comic form born from the very matter of our body. The way we hold that pinky finger, that pattern of inflection in the voice, that tic-tak-tic-tak tempo of the walk across the floor. These precious ingredients can be used as a somatic compass for the rest of our lives, it points to when our clown is closeby. It asks us "Do you want to use this moment to bring laughter into the world?”.
This Somatic Clown Journey is a rare opportunity to transform ourselves and infact go beyond ourselves. As Giovanni says, ‘If you don't play it, it will play you.’ We can either play with our habits consciously or be played by them unconsciously. The clown form is very wise, disown it at your peril. Hold your hilarious clown very seriously, for the clown compass is a power-full, awe-full, wonder-full, gift to any performer.