Clowndance Summer Course 2022
WEDNESDAY: Choreography
Prime Objective- To explore how we can combine the spontaneity and play of clown with choreographed material
Material Covered:
- Re-approaching two playful movement provocations from my existing practice:
- The Object Talent Show
- Body Part Solos (WinterWalker, 2020)
- Developing the ongoing exploration of dancing with music with the Instant Song-Story game (Simon, 2012, p. 54)
- Longer-form reflections and discussions; see blog post Bubbling with Pleasure
Moment 1:
In the morning session we played a very familiar game of mine, the Object Talent Show. Objects are placed all around the floor of the studio; items of clothing and household bits and bobs, but no toys or anything representing a human or animal. The rule is that the performers must choose an object, discover its unique hidden talent (a movement or aspect of it, like a texture or sound), present it to the other players, and then recreate that talent somehow in their own bodies. The principle of the game is to fully invest in an everyday object as a provocation for movement, and to resist the temptation to turn it into either a prop or a puppet.
I have played this time many times and in many contexts- with actors, dancers, puppeteers, musicians and animators, but this was the first time it had come directly out of several days of clown work. It suddenly exemplified for me a principle from Avner the Eccentric (Avner Eisenberg), one of the very first clown performers I ever saw. The second of his Eccentric Principles is to ‘be interested, not interesting’ (Eisenberg, 2020), which is exactly the state that I have always tried to conjure with this game, and that Lucy and Samantha, the last clowndancers standing this week, were finding so beautifully as we played.
In the morning session we played a very familiar game of mine, the Object Talent Show. Objects are placed all around the floor of the studio; items of clothing and household bits and bobs, but no toys or anything representing a human or animal. The rule is that the performers must choose an object, discover its unique hidden talent (a movement or aspect of it, like a texture or sound), present it to the other players, and then recreate that talent somehow in their own bodies. The principle of the game is to fully invest in an everyday object as a provocation for movement, and to resist the temptation to turn it into either a prop or a puppet.
I have played this time many times and in many contexts- with actors, dancers, puppeteers, musicians and animators, but this was the first time it had come directly out of several days of clown work. It suddenly exemplified for me a principle from Avner the Eccentric (Avner Eisenberg), one of the very first clown performers I ever saw. The second of his Eccentric Principles is to ‘be interested, not interesting’ (Eisenberg, 2020), which is exactly the state that I have always tried to conjure with this game, and that Lucy and Samantha, the last clowndancers standing this week, were finding so beautifully as we played.
Looking again over the rest of Eisenberg’s principles, several others seemed to chime with experiences we had had over the course of the week. Number nine is to ‘have an emotional reaction and invite the audience to join in your experience’ (Eisenberg, 2020), as we had been seeing in the Save the Show improvisations (see Wednesday) and number thirteen is ‘don’t leave your comfort zone. Make your comfort zone bigger’ (ibid) which seems to be exactly what we achieve by creating the safe and nurturing space to play that we had all experienced in the Dance Like Everybody’s Watching game (see Tuesday).
Moment 2:
Later in the day we started to move into the realms of choreography, and I worried that in recruiting a different part of our brains and experience we might lose something of the playfulness and vulnerability we had all so valued in previous days. I wondered whether the walls of dance technique might start to grow up around us again.
First we made interpretive movement in the Instant Song Story Game (Simon, 2012, p. 54), where the rule is to attempt to physicalise every single word and beat in a song. Simon’s expectation is that the performer will fail, and there will be fun to be found in the flop, but we three all managed to do more or less exactly as directed. So no flop, no laugh? In fact, there were laughs; at clever interpretations, at illusion, at the comment in our faces at what we were doing with our bodies. And as we’d touched on in previous days, perhaps laughter is not the only or the primary goal of this hybrid way of working? What we saw clearly and joyfully in the solos was each other, and our blossoming clown/movement identities, as had been slowly manifesting over the sessions.
In these video clips you can see Samantha again finding the joy of ‘no’, arguing with the music and Lucy’s boundless, puppydog-playful combative energy. Most surprisingly for me, I can see something of my own performance identity; there’s a sharpness and precision to my movement that looks like confidence and enjoyment in honestly sharing something. That’s an unusual state for me, I normally feel profoundly uncomfortable performing (See blog- Stepping in as Wulfrick).
Later in the day we started to move into the realms of choreography, and I worried that in recruiting a different part of our brains and experience we might lose something of the playfulness and vulnerability we had all so valued in previous days. I wondered whether the walls of dance technique might start to grow up around us again.
First we made interpretive movement in the Instant Song Story Game (Simon, 2012, p. 54), where the rule is to attempt to physicalise every single word and beat in a song. Simon’s expectation is that the performer will fail, and there will be fun to be found in the flop, but we three all managed to do more or less exactly as directed. So no flop, no laugh? In fact, there were laughs; at clever interpretations, at illusion, at the comment in our faces at what we were doing with our bodies. And as we’d touched on in previous days, perhaps laughter is not the only or the primary goal of this hybrid way of working? What we saw clearly and joyfully in the solos was each other, and our blossoming clown/movement identities, as had been slowly manifesting over the sessions.
In these video clips you can see Samantha again finding the joy of ‘no’, arguing with the music and Lucy’s boundless, puppydog-playful combative energy. Most surprisingly for me, I can see something of my own performance identity; there’s a sharpness and precision to my movement that looks like confidence and enjoyment in honestly sharing something. That’s an unusual state for me, I normally feel profoundly uncomfortable performing (See blog- Stepping in as Wulfrick).
VIDEO: Instant Song Story Game
Samantha Bosworth, Kitty Winter and Lucy Wordsworth take on The Corrs, Tom Waits and Queen
Samantha Bosworth, Kitty Winter and Lucy Wordsworth take on The Corrs, Tom Waits and Queen
Unexpectedly satisfying
I’m with the music – I’m annoyed by the music – I am the music!
Unexpected conjuring of an image
Journal extracts from group discussion 21/07/22
I’m with the music – I’m annoyed by the music – I am the music!
Unexpected conjuring of an image
Journal extracts from group discussion 21/07/22
Moment 3:
The next step was further down the choreographic path as we devised, set and performed a short sequence. Again, I wondered if this imposition of something more formal would raise drawbridges; whether something of the joy would be lost in nailing material down. We played the Body Part Solo game; another of my old standbys, included in an online resource for my company WinterWalker. The rule is that one body part moves as if it has a mind of its own, like a tiny dancer in its own right. The principle is to put life and personality into a single body part, but also to comment on it, on your own body, to the audience. This phenomenon of disobedient or self-aware body parts is something I’ve noticed cropping up in eccentric dance (see my blog on Clowns’ Legs) and I was keen to explore it in this company and context.
Here’s my solo, and again I'm surprised at the confidence and enjoyment I can see in myself (or at least in my right wrist):
The next step was further down the choreographic path as we devised, set and performed a short sequence. Again, I wondered if this imposition of something more formal would raise drawbridges; whether something of the joy would be lost in nailing material down. We played the Body Part Solo game; another of my old standbys, included in an online resource for my company WinterWalker. The rule is that one body part moves as if it has a mind of its own, like a tiny dancer in its own right. The principle is to put life and personality into a single body part, but also to comment on it, on your own body, to the audience. This phenomenon of disobedient or self-aware body parts is something I’ve noticed cropping up in eccentric dance (see my blog on Clowns’ Legs) and I was keen to explore it in this company and context.
Here’s my solo, and again I'm surprised at the confidence and enjoyment I can see in myself (or at least in my right wrist):
VIDEO: Kitty Winter's right wrist performs its solo
We then developed the solos into a duet, which Lucy and Samantha quickly put together and performed. We were short of time, so this is more a sketch than a finished performance, but I think there are a handful of interesting features here that might start to help me flesh out a descriptive definition of clowndance. We can see:
- Being interested, having something you want to share
- Unison, which has the potential to conjure the same magical optical illusion as mime (Bubb, 2021). We can see something similar in the satisfying way movement matches lyrics in Instant Song Stories, like lip-sync in drag acts (another clown-adjacent form?)
- Direct communication with the audience; having an opinion on the action
- Narrative or meaning coming from what is actually physically or aurally present in the moment
VIDEO: Samantha Bosworth and Lucy Wordsworth in a body part solo duet
(on setting material)
Improv: interested brain – Setting: processing brain – Performing: interested brain sharing
Unison is interesting… but only if it’s really good!
(we can) break unison with a mistake and a comment- an authentic comment, not acted
Journal extracts from group discussion: 21/07/22
Improv: interested brain – Setting: processing brain – Performing: interested brain sharing
Unison is interesting… but only if it’s really good!
(we can) break unison with a mistake and a comment- an authentic comment, not acted
Journal extracts from group discussion: 21/07/22
Our end of the day reflection looked ahead more today, we wondered how far this work could go, where it could take audiences, and what scale of performance space it could reasonably sit in. Language around the work as a whole highlighted enjoyment, engagement, fun, and even that illusive performance quality: magic. Some of these ongoing questions are set out in the blog post Clowndance Questions.
Our personal reflections were around removing the pressure to perform, slowing down, and allowing ourselves to be interested.
We attempted to sum up what we were going to take away from the week, in this final moment. I had told the others some days previously about an imaginary sign I hold up, like a Tex Avery cartoon character (Yowp, 2014), when faced with difficult questions. The imaginary sign usually just says ‘CLOWNS’, or sometimes, at the behest of my small son, ‘Mummy is an idiot’. Samantha asked what would be written on our imaginary signs today. These are our responses:
Our personal reflections were around removing the pressure to perform, slowing down, and allowing ourselves to be interested.
We attempted to sum up what we were going to take away from the week, in this final moment. I had told the others some days previously about an imaginary sign I hold up, like a Tex Avery cartoon character (Yowp, 2014), when faced with difficult questions. The imaginary sign usually just says ‘CLOWNS’, or sometimes, at the behest of my small son, ‘Mummy is an idiot’. Samantha asked what would be written on our imaginary signs today. These are our responses:
Kitty: ‘Taking up space and making noise: fucking joyful.’
Lucy: 'Take your time and embrace your flop.’
Samantha: ‘Do a chicken dance, no-one gives a fuck anyway.’
Journal extracts from group discussion: 21/07/22
Lucy: 'Take your time and embrace your flop.’
Samantha: ‘Do a chicken dance, no-one gives a fuck anyway.’
Journal extracts from group discussion: 21/07/22
Bibliography
THEATRE STORY TELLERS’. Available at: https://mimelondon.com/physicalstorytellers-2021/.
Eisenberg, A. (2020) ‘Eccentric Principles’. Available at: https://www.avnertheeccentric.com/eccentric_principles.php.
Simon, E. (2012) The Art of Clowning: More Paths to Your Inner Clown. second edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
WinterWalker (2020) FIVE @ Home [Website]. Available at: http://www.winterwalker.org.uk/educationfive.html.
Yowp, D.M. (2014) ‘Tralfaz: Cartoons and Tralfazian Stuff’, A Sign of Tex Avery. Available at: https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-sign-of-tex-avery.html.
THEATRE STORY TELLERS’. Available at: https://mimelondon.com/physicalstorytellers-2021/.
Eisenberg, A. (2020) ‘Eccentric Principles’. Available at: https://www.avnertheeccentric.com/eccentric_principles.php.
Simon, E. (2012) The Art of Clowning: More Paths to Your Inner Clown. second edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
WinterWalker (2020) FIVE @ Home [Website]. Available at: http://www.winterwalker.org.uk/educationfive.html.
Yowp, D.M. (2014) ‘Tralfaz: Cartoons and Tralfazian Stuff’, A Sign of Tex Avery. Available at: https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-sign-of-tex-avery.html.