Wednesday, 21 June 2017
"Clown Readings" Bibliography
Here is the full bibliography, listing all the sources cited or collected in "Clown Readings"http://jondavison.wixsite.com/jondavison/clown-readings
Abbott, Bud and Costello, Lou (1944) Lost in a Harem (Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer).
Adams, Patch (1993) Gesundheit! (Vermont: Healing Arts Press).
- (1998) House Calls (San Francisco: Robert D. Reed).
- (2007) Interview on Roda Viva, 9th April 2007 (TV Brasil), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h0Zf9coyAo, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Allen, Tony (2002) Attitude: Wanna Make Something Of It? (Glastonbury: Gothic Image).
Anderson, Franki (2009) Fools Gold, http://www.playfool-theater.de/pageID_3240695.html, date accessed 29th December 2011.
- (2011) Interview by telephone, 13th December 2011.
Angelo, Henry (1828) Reminiscences (London: Henry Colburn).
Anderberg, Kirsten (2005) ‘Women Street Performers and Sexual Safety’, http://www.buskersadvocates.org/womenstreetperformers.html, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Armin, Robert (1972) Collected Works ed. Feather, J P (London: Johnson Reprint Corporation).
Arratoon, Liz (2011) Review of Slava’s Snowshow in The Stage, 19th December 2011, http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/34715/slavas-snowshow, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Aspa, Jordi (2009) ‘La Integridad del Círculo’ in Zirkolika, Revista Trimestral de les Arts Circenses no. 21, Summer 2009, p.33.
Astruc, Gabriel (1929) Le pavillon des fantômes (Paris: Grasset).
Atkinson, Rowan (1992) Visual Comedy, a lecture by Rowan Atkinson M.Sc. (Oxon.) (Tiger Television).
Auerbach, N (1990) Private Theatricals: the lives of the Victorians (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press).
Ball, Lucille (1951) I Love Lucy Pilot Program, unaired episode (CBS).
- (1952) I Love Lucy Season 1, Episode 52, 22nd December 1952 (CBS).
Balderas, Elizabeth (2009) Letter to El Chamuco, reproduced at
http://clownplanet.blogspot.com/2009/06/spot-del-pt-partido-del-trabajo-de.html, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Bandolier, Adolf (1890) The Delight Makers (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company).
Barker, Clive (1977) Theatre Games (London: Methuen).
Basch, Sophie (2002) Romans de cirque (Paris: Robert Laffont).
Baskervill, Charles Read (1929) The Elizabethan Jig and Related Song Drama (Chicago: Chicago University Press).
Baudelaire, Charles (1855) ‘On the Essence of Laughter’ in The Mirror of Art (1955) tr. & ed. Mayne, Jonathan (London: Phaidon Press).
Baugé, Isabelle (1995) Pantomimes (Cahors : Cicéro Éditions).
Beeman, William O. (1981) ‘Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre: Performance and its Effects’ in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 94, No. 374, Folk Drama (Oct. – Dec., 1981), 506-526.
Bellocq, Éric, Lavenère, Vincent de et al. (2004) Le chant des balles (Vic-la-Gardiole: L’Entretemps).
Bellos, David (1999) Jacques Tati (London: The Harvill Press).
Billington, Michael (2008) Review of Varekai in The Guardian, 10th January 2008.
Boese, Carl (1931) Grock (La vie d'un grand artiste) (Universum Film AG).
Bogdanovich, Peter (1972) Leo McCarthy Oral History (Los Angeles: American Film Institute).
Bolton, Reg (1987) New Circus (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation).
Bouissac, Paul (1972) Clown Performances as Meta-semiotic Texts in Language Sciences 19, 1-7.
- (1997) The profanation of the sacred in circus clown performances, in Richard Schechner and W. Appel (eds) By Means of Performance 194-207 (Cambridge: CUP).
Brecht, Bertolt (1955) translated by Geoffrey Kelton (1998)The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent, in Collected Plays: Three (London: Methuen).
- (1994) Mann ist Mann (trans. By Gerhard Nellhaus) in Collected Plays: Two (London: Methuen).
Brinn, David (2011) ‘It’s not just clowning around with Slava and his Snowshow’ in The Jerusalem Post, 13th August 2011, http://www.jpost.com/ArtsAndCulture/Entertainment/Article.aspx?id=233659, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Brown, Ismene (2011) Review of Slava's Snowshow in theartsdesk, 29th December 2011,
http://www.theartsdesk.com/dance/slavas-snowshow-royal-festival-hall, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Brown, Maria Ward (1901) The Life of Dan Rice (New Jersey: Long Branch).
Bryant, Arthur (1952) The Age of Elegance 1812-1822 (London: Collins).
Buten, Howard (2005) Buffo (Arles: Actes Sud).
Caillois, Roger (2001) Man, Play and Games (Chicago: University of Illinois Press).
Cairoli, Charlie (1966) The Milk Number at The London Hippodrome, http://www.youtube.com/user/escoladeclown, date accessed 29th December 2011.
- (1973) The Milk Number at Cirque Bouglione, Paris, http://www.youtube.com/user/escoladeclown, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Calvi, Nuala (2011) Interview with Slava Polunin in The Stage, 16th December 2011.
Cameron, Anne (1981) Daughters of Copper Woman (Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers).
Campardon, Émile (1880) Les Comédiens du Roi de la troupe italienne (Paris: Berger-Levrault et Cie).
Carlson, Marvin (2003) ‘The Golden Age of the Boulevard’ in Joel Schechter (ed.), Popular Theater (London: Routledge).
Carse, James P. (1986) Finite and Infinite Games (New York: Random House).
Cashin, Pat (2011) Clownalley (http://clownalley.blogspot.com).
Cazeneuve, Jean (1957) Les dieux dansent à Cibola (Paris: Gallimard).
Ceballos, Edgar (1999) El Libro de Oro de los Payasos (Mexico DF: Escenología).
Cenoz, Clara (2009) Banana! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxwciaUtS1o, date accessed 29th December 2011.
- (2011) Interview at Escola de Clown de Barcelona, 20th November 2011.
Chai, Barbara (2011) ‘The Red-Nosed Revolution’ in the Wall Street Journal, 1st November 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204394804577010180278814076.html, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Chamberlain, Franc and Yarrow, Ralph (eds.) (2002) Jacques Lecoq and the British Theatre (Oxford: Routledge).
Champsaur, Félicien (1901) Lulu, Roman clownesque in Basch, Sophie (2002) Romans de cirque (Paris: Robert Laffont).
Chaplin, Charlie (1916) The Pawnshop (Mutual Film Corporation).
- (1921) The Kid (First National).
- (1928) The Circus (United Artists).
- (1931) City Lights (United Artists).
- (1936) Modern Times (United Artists).
- (1964) My Autobiography, (London: The Bodley Head).
Chekhov, Michael (1953) To the Actor (New York: Harper and Row).
CIRCA (2006-11) http://www.clownarmy.org, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Claretie, Jules (1881) La Vie a Paris (Paris: Havard).
- (1888) Boum-Boum (New York: William R. Jenkins).
Clay, Alan (2005) Angels Can Fly, a Modern Clown User’s Guide (Newtown, Australia: Artmedia Publishing).
Clowns of America International (2006) 20 Years of Laughter (Nashville: Turner Publishing Company).
Cohen, Moshe (2005) ‘A Short Look at Clown and Zen’, http://www.clownzen.com/it/clownandzen2005.html, date accessed 29th December 2011.
- (2007a) ‘Conversations with Roshi Egyoku: The Three Tenets’, http://www.clownzen.com/zenofit/threetenets.html, date accessed 29th December 2011.
- (2007b) ‘Conversation with Roshi Bernie Glassman’, http://www.clownzen.com/zenofit/bernieglassman.html, date accessed 29th December 2011.
- (2007c) ‘Conversations with Egyoku: Joy and Zen’, http://www.clownzen.com/zenofit/joyzen.html, date accessed 29th December 2011.
- (2012) ‘The power of the (clown) Nose’, in Sacred Mischief, http://yoowho.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/the-power-of-the-clown-nose, date accessed 11th January 2012.
Copeau, Jacques (1990), Texts on Theatre, edited and translated by Rudlin, John and Paul, Norman H. (London: Routledge).
Cortés, Edouard (2007) El Pallasso i el Fuhrer (The Clown and the Fuhrer) (Televisió de Catalunya).
Cosdon, Mark (2010) The Hanlon Brothers: from daredevil acrobatics to spectacle pantomime, 1833-1931 (Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press).
Coward, Simon and Perry, Christopher Woodall (2009) Bob's Full House (Dudley: Kaleidoscope).
Crane, David and Kauffman, Marta (1994-2004) Friends (NBC).
Dauven, L R and Garnier, Jacques (1971) ‘Fellini’s Clowns’ in Le Cirque dans l'Univers #81 (Club du Cirque), trans. by Goodman, Diane in (1978) Mask, Mime & Marionette, vol. I, no. 1, Spring 1978: 41-4 (New York).
David, Larry (2000-2011) Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO).
David, Larry and Seinfeld, Gerry (1989-1998) Seinfeld (NBC).
Davis, Janet M (2005) ‘Bearded Ladies, Dainty Amazons, Hindoo Fakirs, and Lady Savages:
Circus Representations of Gender and Race in Victorian America’, Lecture at the University of Virginia 5th-8th October 2005, http://www.circusinamerica.org/docs/janetdavislecture_rev.pdf, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Davison, Jon (2008) The Phenomenology of Clown http://www.jondavison.net/theory, date accessed 29th December 2011.
- (2009a) The Dramaturgy of Clown http://www.jondavison.net/theory, date accessed 29th December 2011.
- (2009b) An Encyclopaedia of Clown http://www.jondavison.net/theory, date accessed 29th December 2011.
- (2010) Clown Training Today http://www.jondavison.net/theory, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Diercksen, Laurent (1999) Grock: un destin hors norme (Bévilard, Switzerland : Laurent Diercksen).
Denis, Dominique (1985) Le Livre du Clown (Strasbourg: Éditions Techniques du Spectacle).
- (1997) 1.000 gags de clowns (Strasbourg: Magix Unlimited).
Dickens, Charles (1837) The Post-humourous notes of the Pickwickian Club (London: E. Lloyd).
Dimitriev, Yuri (1967) The Soviet Circus 1917-1941 (Moscow: Progress Publishers).
Disher, Maurice Willson (1925) Clowns and Pantomimes (London/New York : Benjamin Blom).
- (1937) Greatest Show on Earth (London: G. Bell and Sons)
Double, Oliver (1997) Stand-Up: On Being a Comedian (London: Methuen).
- (2005) Getting The Joke (London: Methuen).
Dromgoole, Nicholas (2007) Performance Style and Gesture in Western Theatre (London: Oberon Books).
Dryden, John (1811) The poetical works of John Dryden, vol. 2, eds Warton, Joseph and Warton, John (London: Rivington).
Duranty, Louis-Edmond (1995) Théâtre des Marionnettes - Répertoire Guignol du XIXe siècle (Paris : Actes Sud).
Durwin, Joseph (2002) Coulrophobia and the Trickster, http://www.trinity.edu/org/tricksters/trixway/current/Vol%203/Vol3_1/Durwin.htm, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Eisenberg, Avner (c. 1980-2011) Exceptions to Gravity (live one-man show).
- (2005) Eccentric Principles, http://www.avnertheeccentric.com, date accessed 29th December 2011.
- (2011) Interview with Christopher Lueck, 3rd February 2011, www.clownsummit.com, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Evans, Mark (2006) Jacques Copeau (London: Routledge).
Feldberg, Robert (2010) 'Banana Shpeel is a Cirque du Soleil attempt at vaudeville’, review of Banana Shpeel at The Beacon Theater, New York (in The Record 27th May 2010).
Fellini, Federico (1970) I Clowns (Radiotelevisione italiana).
Findlater, Richard (1978) Joe Grimaldi: his life and theatre (Cambridge: CUP).
Fisher, John (2006) Tommy Cooper – Always Leave Them Laughing (London: Harper Collins).
Fleisher, Julian (1996) The Drag Queens of York (New York: Riverhead Books).
Franc-Nohain (1907) Les mémoires de Footit et Chocolat (Paris: Pierre Lafitte).
Franconi, Victor (1855) Le cavalier, cour d’équitation pratique (Paris: Michel Lévy).
Fratellini, Albert (1955) Nous, Les Fratellini (Paris: Éditions Bernard Grasset).
Fratellini, Annie (1989) Destin de clown, (Lyon: Éditions La Manufacture).
- (1997) Article about Annie Fratellini in L’Humanité, 2nd July 1997.
Fratellini, Valérie (2002) ‘Ça mange quoi, un clown? Soliloque d’une dinosaure’ in Jeu: revue de théâtre, no. 104, (3) 2002, p. 109-15, http://www.erudit.org/culture/jeu1060667/jeu1109687/26410ac.pdf, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Frediani, Aristodemo (Beby) (1930) Mémoires d’un clown (Paris: La Liberté).
Frichet, Henri (1889) Le Cirque et les Forains (Tours: Alfred Mame et Fils).
Frost, Anthony and Yarrow, Ralph (1990) Improvisation in Drama (Palgrave Macmillan).
Fumagalli (2011) Le Miel et la reine des abeilles (The Honey and the Queen Bee), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTBhsv4rA6o, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Jané, Jordi (1996) Charlie Rivel (Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya).
Jané, Jordi and Minguet, Joan M (eds) (1998) Sebastià Gasch, El Gust pel Circ (Tarragona: El Medol).
Gardner, Lyn (2009) Review of Le Cirque Invisible at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in The Guardian, 5th August 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/aug/05/le-cirque-invisible-review, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Gaulier, Philippe (2007a) Le gégéneur/The Tormentor (Paris: Éditions Filmiko).
- (2007b) The King of my School, http://www.ecolephilippegaulier.com, date accessed 29th December 2011.
von Geldern, James and Stites, Richard (eds) Mass Culture in Soviet Russia (Indiana: Indiana University Press).
Gehring, Wes D. (1990) Laurel & Hardy: a bio-bibliography (Greenwood Publishing Group).
Gervais, Ricky (2006) Ricky Gervais Meets ... Larry David (Channel 4).
Gervais, Ricky and Merchant, Stephen (2001-3) The Office (BBC TV).
Gervais, Ricky, Merchant, Stephen and Davis, Warwick (2011) Life’s Too Short (BBC TV).
Girolamo, Mercuriale (1569) Arte Gymnastica libri Sex. in Toole Scott, Robert (1958-1962) Circus and Allied Arts: a World Bibliography (Derby: Harpur & Sons).
Goffman, Erving (1990) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (London: Penguin).
Goncourt, Edmond and Jules de (2005). Journal des Goncourt, volume 1: 1851–1857 (Paris: H. Champion).
Gordon, Mel (1983), Lazzi (New York: Performing Arts Journal).
Goudard, Philippe (2005) Anatomie d’un clown / Lire et Écrire le cirque (Vic-la-Gardiole: L’Entretemps éditions).
Grantham, Barry (2000) Playing Commedia – A Training Guide to Commedia Techniques (London: Nick Hern Books).
- (2006) Commedia Plays – Scenarios, Scripts, Lazzi (London: Nick Hern Books).
Grock (1931) Life’s a Lark, (London: William Heinemann Ltd).
- (1957) King of Clowns (London: Methuen).
Haifa, University of (2006) ‘Medical Clowning Studies’, http://newmedia-eng.haifa.ac.il/?p=887, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Halperson, Joseph (1926) Das Buch von Zirkus (Düsseldorf: Lintz A.-G.).
Hanna, William and Barbera, Joseph (1954) Hic-cup Pup (Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer).
Harris, Paul (1996) The Pantomime Book: The Only Known Collection of Pantomime Jokes and Sketches in Captivity (London: Peter Owen).
Helm, Alex (1971) Eight Mummers’ Plays (London: Ginn).
Henderson, Jan (2008) ‘Philosophy of Clown’, http://foolmoon.org/clownAndMask/clownPhilosophy, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Hicks, Bill (1989) ‘What you reading for?’ in Sane Man (Sacred Cow Productions).
Huizinga, Johan (1970) Homo Ludens; a study of the play element in culture (London: Paladin).
Hutter, Gardi (1981) Joan of ArPpo, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPdFJYK6fYY, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Jando, Dominique (2008) The circus: 1870-1950 (London: Taschen).
- (2009) ‘Behind the Scenes at the Circus’, talk and panel discussion at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 31st March 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWPoqIp-bc&list=FLpcMgxiezNCvTR46FUxh46A&index=29&feature=plpp_video, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Jara, Jesús (2004) El Clown, un navegante de las emociones (Sevilla: Proexdra).
Jigalov, Andrei and Csaba, Albert (2009) The Sweets, http://video.mail.ru/mail/baks-show/Jigalov/345.html, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Johnson, Bruce ‘Charlie’ (1993) The Tramp Tradition (Kenmore: Charlie’s Creative Comedy).
- (2000) ‘Early Female Clowns’ in The Clown In Times, Volume 6, Issue 3.
- (2010) ‘History and Philosophy’ in Clowning Around, March/April 2010 (World Clown Association)
Johnston, Chris (2006) The Improvisation Game (London: Hern Books).
Jonson, Ben (1641) Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter, ed. (1892) by Schelling, F E (Bosotn: Ginn).
Kapoor, Raj (1970) Meera Naam Joker (My Name is Joker) (R. K. Films).
Karandash (1987) Karandash (Moscow: Москва искусство).
Kaufman, Andy (1980) Appearnace on The Letterman Show, 24th June 1980 (NBC).
Keaton, Buster (1920) Neighbors (Metro Pictures).
- (1927) College (United Artists).
Kelly, Emmet and Kelly, Beverly (1996) Clown (New York: Buccaneer Books).
Kemp, Barry (1979) ‘Bobby’s Big Break’ in Taxi Season 1, Episode 18 (Paramount Television).
Kendrick, Lynne (2011) ‘A paidic aesthetic: an analysis of games in Philippe Gaulier’s ludic pedagogy’ in Theatre, Dance and Performance Training Vol. 2 (1), 72-85 (London: Routledge).
Kerr, Walter (1975) The Silent Clowns (New York: Alfred A Knopf).
Koller, Donna and Gryski, Camilla (2008) ‘The Life Threatened Child and the Life Enhancing Clown: Towards a Model of Therapeutic Clowning’ in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, vol. 5 (2008), Issue 1, pp. 17-25, http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2008/949505/cta/, date accessed 29th December 2011.
Kramer, Mimi (1998) ‘Hot Ticket to Nowhere’ in The New Yorker 21/11/1998.
Lane, Lupino (1945) How to become a Comedian (London: Frederick Muller).
Langdon, Harry (1924) All Night Long (Mack Sennett-Pathé).
- (1925) Boobs in the Wood (Mack Sennett-Pathé).
- (1926a) Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (First National Pictures).
- (1926b) The Strong Man (First National Pictures).
- (1927a) Long Pants (First National Pictures).
- (1927b) Three’s a Crowd (Harry Langdon Corporation).
Laurel, Stan and Hardy, Ollie (1929) Unaccustomed As We Are (Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer).
Le Roux, Hughes (1890) Acrobats and Mountebanks trans. by Morton, A P (London: Chapman and Hall).
Levine, Josh (2010) Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good – Larry David and the Making of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm (Toronto: ECW Press).
Lily, Peta (2011) ‘The Dark Clown - In pursuit of a different kind of laughter’ (unpublished article).
Little, Kenneth (1981) ‘Clown Performance in the European One Ring Circus’ in Culture 1(2): 67-72.
- (1991) ‘The Rhetoric of Romance and the Simulation of Tradition in Circus Clown Performance’ in Semiotica vol. 85(3/4): 227-55.
- (1993), ‘Masochism, Spectacle, and the “Broken Mirror” Clown Entree: a Note on the Anthropology of Performance in Postmodern Culture’ in Cultural Anthropology, vol.8, no. 1: 117-29.
- (2003) ‘Pitu’s Doubt: Entrée Clown Self-Fashioning in the Circus Tradition’ in Schechter, Joel (ed.) (2003) Popular Theater (London: Routledge), originally published in The Drama Review 112 (1986): 182-6.
Louvish, Simon (2001) Stan and Ollie: The Roots of Comedy (London: Faber and Faber).
- (2003) Keystone – The Life and Clowns of Mack Sennett (London: Faber and Faber).
Makarius, Laura Levi (1974) Le sacré et la violation des interdits (Paris: Éditions Payot).
Mamet, David (1998) True or False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor(London: Faber and Faber).
Margueritte, Paul (1886) Pierrot, assassin of his wife in Gerould, Daniel (1979) ‘Paul Margueritte and Pierrot assassin of his wife’ in The Drama Review, XXIII (March): 103-19.
Mariel, Pierre (1923) Histoire de trios clowns (Paris: Société Anonyme d’Éditions).
Martin, Steve (2008) Born Standing Up: a comic’s life (London: Pocket Books).
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- (1962) Harpo Speaks! (New York: Limelight Editions).
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McKinven, John A. (1998) The Hanlon Brothers (Illinois: David Meyer Magic Books).
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- (1998) Over the Limit (London: Century).
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- (2011) Interview by telephone, 20th August 2011.
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- (2011) Interview in London, 16th August 2011.
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Poliakoff, Nicolai (1962) Coco the Clown: by himself (London: Dent and Sons Ltd).
Polunin, Slava (2001) Interview with Natalia Kazmina, translated by Julie Delvaux, http://www.loscuadernosdejulia.com/2008/11/slava-polunin-monologue-of-clown-1.html, date accessed 29th December 2011.
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- (1954) Jean-Gaspard Deburau (Paris: L’Arche).
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- (1962) Entrées Clownesques (Paris: L’Arche).
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Robbins, Norman (2002) Slapstick and Sausages, the Evoluiton of British Pantomime (Devon: Trapdoor Publishing).
Robinson-Holden, Joey (2011) Interview with the author, London, 15th August 2011.
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Tuesday, 9 February 2016
Clown Devising Workshop
Every Thursday 6.30-8.30pm
at Apiary Studios
at Apiary Studios
Coming
soon! - please let me know if you are interested in coming to this. We will
start soon: once we have enough people.
Jon Davison
London Clown School
Following on from the popular success of
the weekly clown workshop on Mondays (we've only missed one Monday since
starting in April last year) I am happy to announce a new opportunity for all
to develop their clowning.
The Monday class has been covering everything from discovering the joy of being stupid in front of others to the work of coming up with workable ideas for performing in public.
There's so much to do in such a short time that I've decided to open up a new class to focus on the devising aspects of clowning, leaving Mondays freer to work on the dynamics of clowning and enjoying your own stupidity and thereby making others laugh. That doesn't mean there will be no devising at all on Mondays, nor that Thursdays will ignore the essential need to actually perform your material as stupidly and funnily as possible. But it will allow for some more in depth work to take place in both areas.
The
need for training in devising clown material
It’s all very well experiencing clowning
in a workshop situation, where the teacher sets up the frame and conditions,
but quite another matter when you come to perform in front of audiences out
there in public. Learning the dynamics of clowning won’t be enough. Something
else is required. Other kinds of comic performers habitually spend a lot of
time and effort on ‘material’. Stand-up comedians worry over joke structure,
sketch comedians search for strong premises for their ideas. Why should clowns
be different? Popular misconceptions suppose that clowns just get up there and
are funny just by being true to their inner selves. But looking inside yourself
won’t really save you.
There are countless practical ways of
devising material appropriate for your clowning. Awareness of and understanding
of these is far preferable to just hoping the clown you ‘found’ will survive
the real stage situation. These forms and structures of clown material also
derive from simple notions of what clowns actually do. At the moment, my
favourite terms for what clowns do are ‘wrongness’, the ‘unthinkable’, the
‘unexpected’ and the ‘obvious’.
This workshop is ongoing, drop in,
continuous, unending - basically every week - so you can come regularly or occasionally
or just once. It works for different kinds of people: you might have just started
clowning and want to try performing in public; you might want to get back to it
after a time away, or revisit your material and improve it or change it.
So now you will be able to dedicate even
more time to clowning. Come to both days or just one. It's up to you.
Time:
Thursdays 6.30 – 8.30pm
Venue: Apiary Studios, 458 Hackney Road, London E2 9EG http://www.apiarystudios.org/
Cost: Single class £15; or £50 for four classes paid in advance; or £60 for five classes paid in advance; or £110 for ten classes paid in advance
Venue: Apiary Studios, 458 Hackney Road, London E2 9EG http://www.apiarystudios.org/
Cost: Single class £15; or £50 for four classes paid in advance; or £60 for five classes paid in advance; or £110 for ten classes paid in advance
Labels:
clown training,
clown workshop,
training,
workshop,
Workshops
Tuesday, 2 February 2016
Coming soon! Clown Studies
This will be the first of its kind. I started running these classes way back in
2006 when we opened the Barcelona clown school. It felt like an innovation then.
No one was really teaching clown history or theory or analysis. To me it seemed
self-evident that thinking and knowing about clowning could benefit your
performing. Or that it could be a worthwhile study in itself.
Ten years later, and still no one is offering
clown studies in this way, anywhere, as far as I am aware: neither in private clown
schools nor in universities, despite all their talk of embracing ‘popular
performance’.
I flirted with the academy for a number
of years (aside from my experience setting up clown workshops myself), teaching
and researching at high-level drama schools which had become part of the
university system: the Institut del Teatre in Spain and Royal Central School of
Speech and Drama in Britain. I learned much from my students in Barcelona and
had great opportunities to research in London. But I realise that the academy
is destined to remain a dead end as far clowning goes, insofar as no one is
likely to take the subject seriously enough at an institutional level.
So after years of trying to forge a
niche for clowning, either through systematising its teaching or by trying to
set up an MA in clowning, I now prefer to put my energies into my independent
teaching. Over the last year, the London Clown School Monday workshop has become
well-established. We haven't missed a week, not even for Xmas. People come
regularly or occasionally, and there is always a mix of old and new faces. Each
participant gets to explore as they wish, whether it's discovering the joy of
being stupid in front of others, or preparing performance material to try out
in public. One of the many advantages of this format is that it avoids the
crushingly standardised control of education today with its targets, aims and
objectives. So there’s not a hint of "by
the end of this course you will have learned x". As a teacher, it’s
not my business to bet on what you may learn, nor when you may learn it.
So, now it’s time to offer, in a similar
sustained way, an opportunity to explore the other side: the history, theory
and analysis of clowning. Every week I receive requests from students needing advice,
guidance and tuition for their projects, dissertations and theses investigating
clowning. It's hardly surprising, given universities' long-term failure to
invest in clowning.
This new initiative will offer a
programme of studies in 2 formats:
- a weekly drop-in class
held in London
- an online class, also following a weekly pattern
I’ll also continue to offer one-to-one
tutoring, guidance or supervision either in person or online.
Clown
Studies Syllabus
This falls into four broad areas: theory, history, analysis and personal research project.
Theory
General
questions - What is clown? What is funny? How can we talk about clown? What is
clown’s relationship to comedy? to humour? How do we know what clowns are? What
are they for?
History
What
is clown’s history? How are clowns specific to their time and place? Why do
different meanings become attached to clowns according to their time and place?
What is a Shakespearean clown? A circus clown? An auguste clown? A personal clown?
Analysis
Using
practical observation of the work of clown performers, live or on video/film, contemporary
or historical, how can we talk about them? What is the vocabulary of the clown critic?
How can we answer the question ‘why is this (not) funny?’
Projects
Compiling
a short project on a theme of your choice, in any presentation format (except
clown performance itself) that can be stored or recorded for future clown
students to consult.
Provisional
expressions of interest:
Please get in touch if you are
interested in any of these options and I will keep you posted on developments.
Best wishes,
Jon Davison
London Clown School
Labels:
clown theory,
clown training,
Theory,
training,
workshop,
Workshops
Friday, 27 November 2015
Monday Clown Workshops
Quite a few people have been asking me
recently what the clown workshops held every Monday are all about (including
some people who come regularly).
There are two main aims as far as I am
concerned (participants might have other aims, of course). One aim is to work
continuously on a better understanding in practice of what makes clowning
happen. As the years have passed, I have more and more come to the conclusion
that it’s all rather simple. So simple, in fact, that it’s easier to clown than
it is not to clown (people often say comedy and clowning is so difficult, but
maybe they’re wrong). You just have to create the right conditions. So that’s
what I hope to do in a workshop: set up the best possible conditions for participants
to clown, and, crucially, to understand how it works. Increasingly, then, I’ve
preferred to whittle down what used to be a whole mountain of games and
exercises into two or three fundamental forms, which can help you access the
dynamics of clowning as directly as possible. And those forms, or dynamics, are
derived in turn from the basic premise of clowning, which is to be the object of
laughter for others.
My second aim comes from the fact that
it’s all very well experiencing clowning in a workshop situation, where the
teacher sets up the frame and conditions, but quite another matter when you
come to perform in front of audiences out there in the world. Learning the
dynamics of clowning won’t be enough. Something else is required. Other kind of
comic performers habitually spend a lot of time and effort on ‘material’. Stand-up
comedians worry over joke structure, sketch comedians search for strong
premises for their ideas. Why should clowns be different? Popular
misconceptions suppose that clowns just get up there and are funny just by
being true to their inner selves. But looking inside yourself won’t really save
you. There are countless practical ways of devising material appropriate for
your clowning. Awareness of and understanding of these is far preferable to
just hoping the clown you ‘found’ will survive the real stage situation. These
forms and structures of clown material also derive from simple notions of what
clowns actually do. At the moment, my favourite terms for what clowns do are ‘wrongness’,
the ‘unthinkable’, the ‘unexpected’ and the ‘obvious’.
This workshop is ongoing, drop in,
continuous, unending - basically every Monday - so you can come regularly or occasionally
or just once. It works for different kinds of people: you might be just starting
clowning; you might want to reinforce your understanding of clowning, or get
back to it after a time away; you might want to start performing in public; or
revisit your material and improve it or change it.
Time:
Mondays 6.30 – 8.30pm
Venue: Apiary Studios, 458 Hackney Road, London E2 9EG http://www.apiarystudios.org/
Cost: Single class £15; or £50 for four classes paid in advance; or £60 for five classes paid in advance; or £110 for ten classes paid in advance
Venue: Apiary Studios, 458 Hackney Road, London E2 9EG http://www.apiarystudios.org/
Cost: Single class £15; or £50 for four classes paid in advance; or £60 for five classes paid in advance; or £110 for ten classes paid in advance
Jon Davison
www.jondavison.net Friday, 15 May 2015
Documenting Clown Training
This
paper was presented at Salford Comedy Symposium ‘Documenting Comedy’ on 13th
May 2015, hosted by University of Salford and Media City UK, Salford
Documenting
Clown Training
I
want to ask some questions about the nature of clowning, or a particular part of it, which arise when we
consider the relationship between clown performance and its possible
documentation. By doing so I will also reflect upon the nature of documentation
itself.
What
do we mean by clowning?
What do we include? Exclude? The term is
multi-connotational and sometimes hotly disputed. It depends on who you ask,
clowns or clowning are:
-
‘A clown who doesn’t provoke
laughter is a shameful mime’ (Gaulier 2007a: 289)
-
‘It's okay not to be funny. Clowns do not have to make people
laugh‘ (Simon 2009: 31)
-
Clowns are sad and exhibit ‘shabby melancholy‘ (Stott 2009: XVI).
-
‘The key feature
uniting all clowns is their ability, skill or
stupidity, to break the rules (McManus 2003: 12).
-
Etymologically, in 16th England, clowns those who do not behave like
gentlemen, but in ‘uncivil fashions‘ (French
Academy, 1586).
-
‘a quest for liberation from the “social
masks” we all wear‘ (Murray 2003: 79, on
Jacques Lecoq).
-
‘the main similarity between
clown and Zen is that if you are you are thinking, then you are not where you
want to be‘ (Cohen 2005);
-
‘Clowning is about the freedom
that comes from a state of total, unconditional acceptance of our most
authentic selves‘ (Henderson 2008).
-
Some believe clowns are
responsible for bringing rain to the crops: ‘they also fast, mortify themselves, and pray to Those Above that every kind
of fruit may ripen in its time, even the fruit in woman’s womb‘
(Bandolier 1890: 34).
-
Some ascribe such powers to
their taboo-breaking: ‘This “wisdom” magically acquired shows well that this is
a question of the breaking of a taboo’ (Makarius 1974: 63).
-
Some think that clowns are a
socially useful way to control traffic, since they ’can achieve what traffic
police cannot achieve using warning and sanctions [...] by employing artistic
and peaceful actions’ (Toothaker 2011),
-
Others believe that to be a clown
is to sink below human dignity: ’I'm going to earn something, even if it’s as a
clown’ (Partido del Trabajo de México 2009).
-
Some have believed clowns could
stop wars: ’The laughter of Bim and Bom almost stopped the Russian Revolution’
(Schechter 1998: 33).
-
Alternatively, they might find
themselves on the side of governments: ’Nikulin replied: “Who will be the
subject of our parody? The government is marvellous”’ (Schechter 1998: 15-16).
The list is much longer. Clowns have
been seen as revolutionary, reactionary, avant-garde, universal, marginal,
irrelevant, fundamental, dangerous, harmless, immoral, exemplary, skilled,
chaotic, wealthy, poor, innocent, cruel, scary, joyous, melancholic, or as fulfilling
any number of social, artistic, cultural or political functions as can be
imagined.
There is one particular definition of
clowning I want to look at here. It has its contemporary source in the
experiments by Jacques Lecoq with clowning in the early 1960s: the flop... the
eliciting and re-eliciting of laughter. Laughter as a response to the failure
of the clown to make us laugh, which is the job, the agreed contract between
clown and audience. And that this laughter should be as a result of our finding
the clown himself the joke.
This definition or practice has been
hugely influential, indeed dominant, over the last half century of contemporary
clowning, and forms a pillar of clown training, in many, though not all, clown
pedagogies.
Over the last half century clown
workshops and training, since Jacques Lecoq’s experiments teaching clown in the
early 1960s, have arguably gained prominence over clown performance itself.
Clown teachers command international respect and power, aesthetic and
financial, which very few clown performers can aspire to. In the workshop,
theories, orthodoxies and philosophies have become established which often make
transcendent claims to ‘truth’, in a manner that general actor training has
done for some time.
Despite remaining a relatively isolated
niche in the fields of performer training and comedy performance, this
new-found boost in the value assigned to clown training and its practitioners
has also visibly filtered into the public arena, via tributes paid by household
names such as Sacha Baron-Cohen, or Edinburgh Perrier award-winner Phil Burgers
(Dr Brown) and others to master clown teachers such as Philippe Gaulier.
However, outside the confines of the
clown workshop, very little is known about just what the value of clown
training might be. Are the experiences of students and teachers of clowning
alike, which are often reported to be ‘life-changing’, destined to lie
neglected as traces in the personal memories of participants? Or can they be
documented and disseminated in such a way that a wider audience might share
their insights?
So, how can we document this clowning?
How can we document a flop?
Before addressing that question, I want
to briefly ask what a document is.
What
is a document/documentation?
Etymologically,
a document means (early 15c)
"teaching, instruction," from Old French document (13c.)
"lesson, written evidence," from Latin documentum "example,
proof, lesson," in Medieval Latin "official written instrument,"
from docere "to show, teach" (see doctor (n.)). Meaning
"something written that provides proof or evidence" is from early
18c.
document (v.)
1640s, "to teach;" see
document (n.). Meaning "to support by documentary evidence" is from
1711.
In
Library and Information Science,
a document is, according to Suzanne
Briet’s influential “What is documentation?” (1951) a theoretical construct, "evidence
in support of a fact." (Buckland, Michael (1998). “What is a digital
document?”)
In a Court of Law
I have to provide proofs, or documents,
to convince you of the probability of my argument. These might be material
evidence - signed papers, photographs, audio recordings, bus tickets, phone
bills, scientific experiments, forensic tests. Or witness statements converted
into written and signed statements.
Either way, the document’s function is
to aid proof of an argument.
Clown
documentation
If we take this sense of a document as only
being a document as such when it serves the purpose of demonstrating, or
proving, something, how does this then apply to clown documentation?
Imagine this: I have witnessed some
clowning, some good clowning, but a friend of mine wasn’t there to see it. How
will I explain and convince my friend of the value of the clowning? How can I show
to those who were not present why it was good, or why it was clowning, or
perhaps more objectively, why, or when we laughed?
If you’ve ever done, seen or trained in
clowning, you may have had the experience of trying to recount your experience
to someone who wasn’t there. ‘Oh it was so funny what they did, one of them was
smiling then he stopped and we all laughed, then the other one left and it was
hilarious!’
At times, while teaching clowning, I
venture to suggest that this undocumentability, or more precisely, this
undisseminatability, is a good indication that good clowning has taken place.
If clowning, at least of this type, is about you, the clown, being the joke,
then how could I possibly transmit or explain ‘you’? If on the other hand the
pleasure was in the jokes, as in other kinds of non-clown comedy, or the
farcical situation, or in the characters, then I would be more likely to be
able to convey, to recount to retell the jokes, the stories or the situations to
my friend. Even if I couldn’t tell the jokes as funnily as the comedian, my
friend would at least have seen that, in the hands of a professional, this
material might well elicit laughter. That would be enough to convince my friend
that when I say I laughed a lot when I saw that show, I am not lying, nor am I
completely mad.
Gaulier argues precisely this, that
clowning is not about having good jokes, but the opposite
A question:
‘Why do clowns choose bad
jokes?’
If the jokes were good,
they would be comic actors. They wouldn’t meet Monsieur Flop. They wouldn’t
perform with the feeling of having committed a blunder. (Gaulier: 307-8)
The audience doesn’t
laugh at the gag, but at the imbecile who has a moronic idea. (Gaulier: 308)
How can I convey the essence of the
clown’s comedy by retelling some bad jokes? Conversely, if the jokes are too
bad to be retold, does that demonstrate that they were clown jokes, or at least
that any laughter provoked by them in the show was a result not of the quality
of the material, but of the quality, if you like, of the clowning?
In short: if clowns have shit material,
what can we document? What document, what proof can convince my friend that it
was indeed funny and that they really should have been there?
You may say here that I should have just
videoed the performance on my phone so I could share it afterwards, with ALL my
friends. But will the video be a good enough document for the clowning to hold
up in court?
Or, should we just be happy with no
documentation? The idea that clowning might be by its nature that which cannot
be documented might indeed be appealing... but is it strictly true? Or is it
just a bit of rhetoric designed to claim for clowning that unmediated presence
so sought after by performance practitioners and scholars?
Video
I want to address the issue of video
briefly and perhaps throw a spanner into the works of my argument so far. A few
years ago at a performance conference I was presenting a paper entitled
‘describing clowning’. I had been wrestling with how to describe my own
practice in order to then make arguments about that practice as evidenced in
the descriptions. I wanted to keep at bay any temptation on my part to impose
my own preconceptions about the meaning and effect of my own performance work. Searching
for a ‘rigorous methodology’ to do this, I had
recourse to Gilbert Ryle’s notion of thin and thick descriptions. Grossly
oversimplifying, thin descriptions tell us what happened in an event, thick
descriptions also tell us what those happenings might mean. By dispensing with thick description I hoped
to remove all trace of my pre-interpretations of the event.
Up until that point I had written
several thick and thin descriptions of my performances but had not been
convinced of the value of this exercise. During the paper presentation I had
planned to show a short video clip of my own clown performance, in order to support
my argument about the dynamics of laughter in clowning. When I came to the part
where I was going to show the video, I felt that those present would most
likely find this boring: watching a youtube clip on a distant projector screen
in poor lighting, with poor sound, no context and no sense of what the
performance event had actually felt like. That event had taken place in a room crammed
full of spectators sitting on the floor and anywhere they could find, in a
circus community in London. In an instant there came to mind so many occasions
when I had shown to friends and family a bit of video of a show I had done,
only to be disappointed by the blank looks on their faces as they tried to
figure out what was going on in this little 2D rectangle, and most importantly,
just when or why they were supposed to laugh. Excruciating. So I made a quick
decision to dispense with the video. In its place I elected to read the thin
description of the same event shown in the video clip. Before commenting
further on this, I will now repeat that reading.
Thin
description of a performance....
The compere says,
‘okay, and so for our next act, please bring your hands together and welcome
Jon’, and exits the stage.
The audience applaud.
One second later I enter,
taking one step onto the performing area, in the upstage right corner. I am
wearing a black suit, a white shirt, black tie, black shoes with white laces.
Looking at the audience, I am smiling. I remain there. I bring my hands
together in front of me then return them to my sides. Silence for six seconds.
The audience applauds again. I adjust my tie a little, after which it is
slightly longer than before. I say, ‘Thank you’. Silence for six seconds,
during which my smile disappears.
There follow a couple of
small laughs from the audience. I smile
and take one more step onto the stage, in a diagonal line towards centre stage.
Silence for six seconds. A beer bottle in the audience is heard rolling onto
the floor. Six seconds of silence. I turn towards the exit, smiling and saying,
‘bye!’ The audience laugh loudly. I turn back and take another step towards
them. In amongst that laugh is a faint single voice which sighs ‘oh!’ I stand,
smiling and say: ‘Thanks’. More audience laughter, patchy. I take one more step
forwards, and repeat ‘thanks’. More patchy laughter. I take another step as the
audience laughs and some applaud. Stopping, I drop my smile and look down at my
tie, which I adjust, leaving it longer than before. Silence, six seconds, then
more applause (no laughs), I elongate my tie more. Some of the audience laugh,
in spurts. I take a step whilst saying thanks. Four seconds silence, audience
laugh, I step and say thanks. This again, a laugh and step, then I also laugh,
a single burst that ends in a snort. A one second pause and a single
hysterical-type laugh from the audience. I look quizzical. I laugh again and
say: ‘oh, thank you very much’. A big
laugh from both the audience and myself, which I end by faking the laugh. More
audience laughs, as I step towards them.
A few more steps follow
similarly, I laugh, the audience laughs. I look at the front row to my left,
who aren’t laughing. Looking at them, my smile drops, my mouth becomes
down-turned.
[The Hive, Hackney Wick,
London, on 09/03/13. A video of the
performance can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnnRhMRViSQ]
The semiotician of circus and clowning,
Paul Bouissac, repeatedly bemoans the fact that when commentators talk about
clowning, they mostly restrict themselves to a few well-worn clichés about what
clowns are deemed to engage in (Bouissac 2015).
What Bouissac wants, instead, are
detailed descriptions of what particular clowns actually did. Thin
descriptions, in other words. His own publications have repeatedly tried to redress
this imbalance. Only when we have an accurate description of a routine,
Bouissac claims, can we begin to analyse and interpret how the meaning is
constructed in a clown performance.
This also chimes with what the clown and
fool expert and teacher, Franki Anderson, has to say about observation. One of
her exercises consists in one student showing a small performance of themselves
as themselves, while their companions (their audience) observe and then recount
to them what they saw. Two types of observation are suggested by Anderson;
subjective and objective, which coincide with the thick/thin binary. Although
not universally so, what many report is that the objective/thin description is the
one which offers the descriptee the most useful information. By useful here I
mean that this kind of description gives the descriptee the potential to: 1.
Recall the action (a kind of rehearsal notes, or script) 2. Recall how it felt
to do this performance, and maybe how to regain that feeling when re-performing
(a kind of mnemonic for reencountering the clown state, or however you want to
call it). What seems surprising about this is that the subjective description
does not give the descriptee the tools to rediscover the feeling or state,
despite, or perhaps because of, subjectivity’s aim being precisely to capture
emotions, states, intentions and motivations.
Could it be, then, that a kind of
Beckettian script is what serves clown documentation best? Perhaps. Though I’m
not sure that the next time I see a clown show and then try to tell a friend in
a pub how funny it was, that I will begin by saying.... a tall figure, sex
undeterminable, enters and stands upstage right, left foot first. .....!
Conclusions
This all finally brings us back to the
flop, and to Gaulier. In his book, ‘The Tormentor’ Gaulier uses a character
named ‘Victor Francois’ to illustrate typically clownish behaviour. This Victor
resorts to joke shops and, crucially, a written document in his drive to be
funny:
Joke shops sell vulgar
half-masks, big hooked noses, with (or without) a moustache, big potato-shaped
noses, with (or without) glasses, alongside squeaking cheeses, exploding
sweets, fake brandy, plastic turds and the Encyclopaedia of Jokes.
I know someone who goes
to these shops regularly on Fridays after work. He opens the door and looks
along the shelves. He considers carefully. How will I be funny tomorrow? He
buys this and that: not too much but just enough to make his friends burst out
laughing. He knows exactly what to choose. He longs for tomorrow evening. He
has to learn three gags by heart from his Encyclopaedia of Jokes. Ah, his
Encyclopaedia! He bought it thirty-five years ago. He has never lost it or left
it anywhere. The Encyclopaedia has pride of place on his bedside table. In the
evening he reads it before going to sleep. According to his wife, he often
chuckles when he’s asleep. [...] His favourite joke is the story of the
archbishop who ... he has told it too often. It’s got worn to death... Three
new jokes tomorrow.
[...] He admitted to me
he was better on the visual and dramatic front, rather than with jokes.
He forgets them.
‘You understand? I begin.
It’s OK. Then, little by little, I flounder. I tie myself in knots. I forget
the punch line or say it too soon. The surprise effect is lost. I say I’m sorry
I got it wrong. Everyone laughs. Unfortunately they don’t laugh at the joke.
They laugh at my stupidity. (290)
And so, the encyclopaedia of jokes is
the clown’s greatest prop. The idea that one can pluck a joke from a document
and then make people laugh with it, is, frankly, funny!
Appendix
1: jokes as doumentation
This
observation might lead us even further, into the territory of jokes, comic
material and indeed theatre in general. The pattern is: event, observe event,
retell event/re-perform event. Until now I have taken the event to be the
original clown performance; the observation being my own in the moment and then
in notes plus watching the video afterwards and annotating it – or going to see
a show then telling a friend about it - or, in Bouissac’s case, going to the
circus several times until he has a detailed description for the purposes of
semiotic analysis.
But
we can also begin from a non-performance event. Let’s say, my mother-in-law
said something to me last Tuesday... and so on. The observation is simply me
remembering what happened. And the retelling becomes, you guessed it! a joke.
‘my mother-in-law.....[cite joke
The
doorbell rang this morning. When I opened the door, there was my mother-in-law
on the front step.
She said, 'Can I stay here for a few days?' I said, 'Sure you can.' And shut the door in her face.]
She said, 'Can I stay here for a few days?' I said, 'Sure you can.' And shut the door in her face.]
This
is the standard staging of this kind of joke: a presumed event retold.
Of
course, it is also the standard pattern for joke-stealing! Watch a comedian,
write down the joke, tell it next night. And not just stand-ups. The Fratellinis
tell of how their competitors would be lurking in the audience on first nights,
paper in hand, ready to steal their new routines and reproduce them tomorrow,
in the same bill as themselves, but earlier, thus sabotaging their act.
Of
course, according to Brecht, this is also the nature of theatre: a retelling of
an event, in such a way as to allow for new interpretations and meanings.
Brecht’s image of the witness here [cite] also brings us back to the heart of
documentation: the purpose of which is to ‘prove’ (in court) the truth or
otherwise of a particular interpretation of the meaning of someone’s acts. In
the case of the mother-in-law joke, what, we might ask, would be proved by this
‘document’? that all mothers-in-law are x, y, z..... of course!
This
perspective on the nature of comedic material gets us away from obsessing over
punchlines and how they work (incongruence, rhythm, timing etc.) such an
‘ontology’ of comic material fits the pattern even better in the case of the
less structured or formulaic format of observational comedy. In this light,
Jerry Seinfeld is the ‘witness’, and the case to be proved is that, well, isn’t
the world a funny place?
Appendix
2: Lenny Bruce
Here is an example which confounds both
the nature of performance documentation and the status of performance as proof
in a court of law.
Bruce used courtroom transcripts, about
the alleged obscenity of his act, in his act, telling the story of how a
policeman would come to see his act and make notes on the rude things he said,
to be reproduced in front of the judge as evidence in a case.
[This
was Bruce’s penultimate stand-up performance of his life, soon after he was
convicted, virtually banned from performing, and died of an overdose.]
Whole
clip is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St0Y8-1BlCc
Jon
Davison is artistic director of the
clown-circus-pantomime company, Stupididity,
co-founder of the Escola de Clown de Barcelona, Visiting Lecturer at RCSSD,
author of Clown: Readings in Theatre
Practice, and Clown Training, a practical guide, both published by Palgrave
Macmillan.
Friday, 27 February 2015
Weekly Clown Workshop in London taught by Jon Davison
Dates: from 13th April until 29th
June 2015
Time: Mondays 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: £15 per class; or £60 for five classes
paid in advance
How
to register and pay for the course: please send an email to info@jondavison.net indicating your
interest and to know if there are places available.
This
course is suitable for anyone interested in exploring clowning, with or without
experience.
Maximum
number of students: 16
These classes will start by looking at the fundamentals of clowning,
learning to feel and enjoy our own ridiculousness. Converting our habitual fear
of ridicule into the pleasure of laughing at ourselves, we can use it to make
others laugh and experience the freedom of the clown.
We will also look at ways of devising material for performance, forming
and structuring your individual clown idiosyncrasies into clown numbers as well
as learning from the classics.
Most things are ridiculous when you really look: our bodies,
our movements, our ideas, our emotions, our words, our relationships, the
universe. The only aim in clowning is to turn failure into success, fear into
laughter, suffering into joy. We don’t need to change ourselves, just look at
everything from another perspective. It’s a human thing to do, so anyone can do
it. Although only a few will choose to dedicate their lives to it, anyone can
experience the clown.
Jon Davison is a clown
performer, teacher, director, researcher, writer and musician with 30 years
experience. Co-founder in 1993 of Companyia
d’Idiotes, he has toured festivals, theatres, tents, streets and bars throughout
Europe from Sicily to the Arctic. He trained at the École Philippe Gaulier and Fool
Time Circus School (Bristol). As well as performing solo, he is part of the
four-person clown/circus/pantomime company, Stupididity,
currently touring Not A Real Horse.
He was co-founder of the Escola de Clown de Barcelona, one of the
world’s leading centres offering comprehensive clown training programmes
covering both practical and theoretical aspects of the clown arts. He
previously taught clown, impro, and acting at the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona from 1996-2006, and was a Research
Fellow investigating clown training at Central
School of Speech and Drama (University of London), where he is now a
visiting lecturer as well as working towards his PhD on clown performance.
He is the author of Clown Readings in Theatre
Practice
published by Palgrave Macmillan, a rich collection of readings offering
a wide-ranging and authoritative survey of clown practices, history and theory,
from the origins of the word clown through to contemporary clowning. His second
book, Clown Training, a practical guide for teachers and students, is
due out later in 2015.
For more information about Jon
Davison and clown courses in London:
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