 I'm running the first ever clowndance course, in Leicester, UK, in July 2022, and I'm looking for dance artists and students to join me. We'll play, discover, experiment and throw some shapes.
Am I too gentle, too safe, to go to properly dark places? Is that OK? Can I push performers far enough to challenge and do justice to negative emotions?
… OR do we fetishize pain? Between the studio run and the schools’ tour of Little Red Riding Hood (Middleton, 2021), which I directed for Nottingham Playhouse, both of the cast caught Covid, and we had to rehearse in a swing understudy. During these rehearsals, I stepped into the dual role of Granny and Wulfrick the wolf, while our understudy learned the other actor’s track.
What is it that clowns do with their legs, that’s different to what actors or dancers do? Can you spot a clown performer just by looking at their lower body?
There is a commonly-held assumption that theatre and performance for children must be interactive; it’s often phrased as ‘joining in the fun’. However, through observation of audiences, of my own son, and anecdotally from friends and colleagues, it seems many children aren’t as uncritically keen on audience participation as the received wisdom dictates.
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The BlogThoughts, notes, rants and questions, written from within the clowndance research process.
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