UoD/EMDAN Clowndance Intensive 2024
MONDAY: Playing Together
This was a shorter intensive than the others I have delivered, so I edited and streamlined the material somewhat to give the participants enough time to explore and reflect. The theme on Monday was playing together, exploring how we find complicity and trickery in pairs and as a group.
Working with a mixture of dancers and clowns meant that every game introduced something new and potentially nerve-wracking for someone; the dance-based provocations were a bigger ask for the clowns, and vice versa. I was reminded of clown practitioner Avner Eisenberg’s eccentric principles, in which he tells the performer ‘don’t leave your comfort zone. Make your comfort zone bigger’ (Eisenberg, 2020, online). I think that the atmosphere we built together in the studio allowed everybody’s comfort zone to expand a little, knowing that there would be no terrible consequences, and in particular no shame, if they took a risk on something new.
Working with a mixture of dancers and clowns meant that every game introduced something new and potentially nerve-wracking for someone; the dance-based provocations were a bigger ask for the clowns, and vice versa. I was reminded of clown practitioner Avner Eisenberg’s eccentric principles, in which he tells the performer ‘don’t leave your comfort zone. Make your comfort zone bigger’ (Eisenberg, 2020, online). I think that the atmosphere we built together in the studio allowed everybody’s comfort zone to expand a little, knowing that there would be no terrible consequences, and in particular no shame, if they took a risk on something new.
Material Covered:
We started by talking about our hopes and our worries for the intensive, and we discussed the unhelpful stereotypes that exist around both clown and dance; the spectres of Pennywise and the Sugar Plum Fairy were raised and dismissed.
On our feet we began with Walking, evolving quite swiftly into two related games:
After both of these I asked for feedback in tightly controlled language; (see Bodies (Re)Searching Bodies for details)
The rest of the session included two more dance-based provocations:
We also played a long and involved iteration of the Find the Game Game, a dear favourite of mine, which I credit director and creator of early years performance Sarah Argent with introducing me to.
We started by talking about our hopes and our worries for the intensive, and we discussed the unhelpful stereotypes that exist around both clown and dance; the spectres of Pennywise and the Sugar Plum Fairy were raised and dismissed.
On our feet we began with Walking, evolving quite swiftly into two related games:
- The Jumping Game (Wright, 2006, p. 64) adapted to include other ways of making contact beyond eye contact, to broaden accessibility
- Dancing (Davison, 2015, p. 25) again with broadened access around making contact with someone else.
After both of these I asked for feedback in tightly controlled language; (see Bodies (Re)Searching Bodies for details)
The rest of the session included two more dance-based provocations:
- Duets based on The Conversation (Blom and Chaplin, 1989, p. 177), with feedback to connect one dance to the next following our collective pleasure
- Unison as Visual Illusion game, danced all together using the mirror
We also played a long and involved iteration of the Find the Game Game, a dear favourite of mine, which I credit director and creator of early years performance Sarah Argent with introducing me to.
Moment 1:
The Conversation, the game, sparked a conversation, a discussion, around the goal of this work as clown meets dance. Throughout the game, we had fluctuated between wanting to see more fully embodied movement:
The Conversation, the game, sparked a conversation, a discussion, around the goal of this work as clown meets dance. Throughout the game, we had fluctuated between wanting to see more fully embodied movement:
More of dance
More of stillness
More of call and response
Journal notes: 20/05/24
More of stillness
More of call and response
Journal notes: 20/05/24
And wanting the performers to have more of an opinion on what was happening and share their comments with audience:
More of physical play
More of clarity; a clown meeting a dancer
Journal notes: 20/05/24
More of clarity; a clown meeting a dancer
Journal notes: 20/05/24
Iberis asked whether this is a dance exercise or a clown exercise, to which I answered yes. This was simultaneously a deliberately silly, tricksy response designed to elicit laughter, and an honest answer to the question. I think there is a middle way, in which we can both play the game, allowing an impulse to lead to the creation of fully embodied movement, and play with the game, to transgress and break the frame. Perhaps therefore a more honest answer to Iberis’s question would have been no; this is neither a clown exercise nor a dance exercise, this is a Clowndance exercise.
Moment 2:
During the Find the Game Game, someone pulled a ballet barre into the space. We dangled off it like monkeys, declared it to be highly dangerous, and condemned it with much head-shaking and tooth-kissing, like a group of plumbers damning a previous tradesperson’s work.
During the Find the Game Game, someone pulled a ballet barre into the space. We dangled off it like monkeys, declared it to be highly dangerous, and condemned it with much head-shaking and tooth-kissing, like a group of plumbers damning a previous tradesperson’s work.
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A game then emerged in which if someone rested their breasts on the barre, it would make a noise. Kalanchoe was the last to try this, having first looked doubtfully down at herself as if to ask ‘do I have breasts?’. Her sounds were a tiny ‘ping’, followed by a huge explosion when she tried again, with a last tiny ‘ping’ at the end of it. This felt like a satisfying conclusion to us all, and not long after, the game found its end.
Standing at the barre is such a loaded space for dancers in terms of body image, that it felt as if we were unpacking something with this very silly moment. We were bringing attention to a body part usually bound up and constrained in dance contexts. An unruly, non-muscled and sexualised body part, that we allowed ourselves, by unspoken consent, to view in a playful and non-judgemental way. |
illustration from the reflective roll of a ballet barre with a monkey hanging off it, and a large pair of breasts resting on it, captioned 'ting'
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Moment 3
We danced the Unison as Visual Illusion game together, and the next track on the playlist started before I could get to the studio sound system to stop it. As I looked back from the side of the studio, I saw that the others had gone into a spontaneous shared groove to the track (MIA’s Paper Planes), with the same non-verbal playfulness as had emerged in the Find the Game Game. Rather than stop it the track, I joined in.
The moment was un-planned, and un-commented on, at the end we just laughed and went into a discussion of the game that had preceded it, but it was one of the clearest and strongest moments of following shared pleasure of the day.
We danced the Unison as Visual Illusion game together, and the next track on the playlist started before I could get to the studio sound system to stop it. As I looked back from the side of the studio, I saw that the others had gone into a spontaneous shared groove to the track (MIA’s Paper Planes), with the same non-verbal playfulness as had emerged in the Find the Game Game. Rather than stop it the track, I joined in.
The moment was un-planned, and un-commented on, at the end we just laughed and went into a discussion of the game that had preceded it, but it was one of the clearest and strongest moments of following shared pleasure of the day.
VIDEO: Unison as Visual Illusion
Kitty and the performers experiment with using a repeated phrase of choreography as a game problem
Kitty and the performers experiment with using a repeated phrase of choreography as a game problem
In this video of the Unison as Visual Illusion game, you can see moments of people finding play together and finding their groove alone, but we don’t quite gel into one unified group. That happened moments later by which time, of course, I had switched the camera off!
As this was the first time I had had a mixture of clowns and dances in the space, it is not surprising that our conversation and reflection centred on viewing this material from both sides.
We summed up, in collaborative writing on the Reflective Roll:
We summed up, in collaborative writing on the Reflective Roll:
What is this offering clowns?
being in a space with dancers- awareness
using space
shape, poetry
movement vocabulary
different way of making content
Elements of the sense of clown into dance spaces
Inner child
Playfulness
Curiosity
Openness
Reflective Roll notes: 20/05/24
being in a space with dancers- awareness
using space
shape, poetry
movement vocabulary
different way of making content
Elements of the sense of clown into dance spaces
Inner child
Playfulness
Curiosity
Openness
Reflective Roll notes: 20/05/24
Bibliography
Blom, L.A. and Chaplin, L.T. (1989) The intimate act of choreography. Cecil Court, London: Dance Books.
Davison, J. (2015) Clown training: a practical guide. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Eisenberg, A. (2020) ‘Eccentric Principles’. Available at: https://www.avnertheeccentric.com/eccentric_principles.php.
Wright, J. (2006) Why is that so funny? a practical exploration of physical comedy. London: Nick Hern Books.
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