Recently Ciara Thorburn [circus artist, clown pirate (CC Member) and instigator & facilitator of such excellent things as the Spin Circus Festival & Circus Garage Sale Facebook group] did a course at the famous (or infamous) Ecole Philippe Gaulier (The Gaulier Clown School). As Ciara was doing it she posted a daily diary on Facebook which was such a good read I asked if we could post it here on Carnival Cinema so it could be saved and shared.
Thanks Ciara for generously sharing your experience!
I hope you all enjoy,
Cheers Hamish
Day 2#
I am quickly becoming a regular here. I like the bar owner and the waiter. He is a cross between Manuel from Faulty Towers, Ludwig Schukin, and every depiction of a classic French waiter that has ever existed. It is blazing hot and he is dressed in a black and white suit, with a vest and tie. The owner is dressed casually and greets everyone by name. As I write the waiter sweeps the mess of empty sugar packets, forgotten gambling tickets, and ripped train stubs from the floor, as he casually serenades me Bee Gee’s Staying Alive with his broom as a microphone. I ask if he likes the Beatles, “Oui”. Just now, lining the top of the bar, I recognise the only clown portrait pride of place in a silver frame, its Zach & Viggo. I say to Manuel-Ludwig (the waiter) “My friends”, he is surprised and with a smile asks “really?”.
The Clowns
So now the classes are split, and faces are getting more familiar.
I am curious about the other clowns, only speaking to them in passing over a drink or a coffee around class time. I am curious what their backgrounds are, how they ended up here… I’ve spoken to a few that have no background in clown or acting, and have just heard about the course from a friend. I say “Wow that’s awesome!” but I’m thinking do they know what they’re in for. But also I am jealous of their genuine naivety, the purest form of clown knowledge. These are the ones that are surprised and impressed when they find out I had a Russian Clown trainer, and that I can hold a handstand, let alone juggle three balls.
Then there’s another guy in group ‘A’, a working actor, 20-something, from New York. The most New York actor I could ever imagine in fact. Loud, confident, but employed. I like him. Another, an improv actor that describes himself as “too intelligent for clown”. Another, a young producer who seems like he works very hard and passionately, reminds me of someone. A big Brazillian guy, who wants to visit Slava’s garden. At lunch, I get chatting to him as I am also curious and find out that he does solo dynamic trapeze. He wants to create skilled based clowning acts for the circus ring, amazing. I like him too.
In my group ‘W’, an actor/director for the screen, whom over a drink I ask “What is the most annoying question you get asked when you tell people what you do?” with excited contemplation she replies “Do you want to work in Hollywood? Have you directed anything I would have seen?”. I think to myself how similar our worlds are. My favourite so far is simply known as ‘Columbia’ by Philippe, to us, Francesco. He is confident and stupid, and we all like him. On a side note, also a magician.
Before class, I chat to one of the Japanese students Ketch, self-described as “Ketchup without the UP”, the first time we hear Gaulier laugh. I have a particular interest in Japanese clowning as Awaji Island in Japan will be my home and the street my stage for 6 weeks later this year. Sans mohawk, I still had an inkling, so I ask of his training background and what brought him to the school. I was right, he is Ketch from Gamarjobat, one of my favourite comedy/clown duos. He remembers me from when we met for moments during one of his street shows in Singapore, how inspiring to study alongside him.
Of all the people I see in them replicas of people I know from home or people that I have met. In a way, I use these associations to try to remember them, if nothing else about them stands out. Mostly I remember people from the exercises, or what Philippe says about them onstage. As much as I want to remember their names, I wonder if it matters. Slowly I start friending these people on Facebook, but I feel like Etampes disqualifies my desire for the social internet.
The Games
Movement class begins, and I am given permission to train here quietly thirty minutes before class every day, by Tom Tom our teacher (who is in fact Swiss-German, not English). We stretch and do handstands, my partner Will is impressed. I try to go somewhat incognito, however, the dancer from Perth notices and later asks me about my training.
· Walk around the space. I notice when we are walking around the people who are good at walking, practised at utilizing space and making eye contact. I could assume a background training in Viewpoints. I hate Viewpoints exercises.
· We play Kings Square, where I am partnered with the young confident English guy, a football (soccer) player. We are both good at the game, and have fun being competitive, we get along pretty well and I respect his footwork. Later after class, I will stumble upon his group rehearsing their “homework”, and am invited to watch, which I will get into later.
· We use the sticks from Kings Square and walk around the room. Throwing the sticks to each other with little notice. Those that have the sticks don’t want a stick and those that don’t have one want one. Two rules are introduced, there must always be one person sitting on the floor and one person with their hand on the wall at all times.
· We balance the wooden sticks horizontally on our heads, we pass a ball to each other whilst maintaining the balance. I was confident and surprisingly mediocre at this exercise, though me and the soccer guy had fun testing our skills with each other.
· We stand in rows of 5, jumping for a count of 8, then 7, 6, to 1. We turn on the last number to pass the jumping to the next row. A simple and poorly explained ensemble/choreography exercise which some of us are practiced at, while others jump randomly and in confusion.
· We do a character walk exercise, in pairs follow the leader, where the follower tries to imitate the walk of the person in front. A particular trait is exaggerated using levels, we put on masks and the leaders sit down to watch this strange group of characters walking around. We are instructed to talk to ourselves in character, or sing a little song, and to blow a kiss to our initial partner and other audience members. Showing my partner what he created was fun, I note that this exercise is meant to inspire character walk and draw upon commedia dell’arte, it is supposed to be exaggerated. This character now belongs to you, not your partner. This exercise is a good opportunity to use levels (scaling) and to utilize overacting.
· We use masks with Tom Tom. He asks us to impersonate a cat that is a little bit horny. I go first, not understanding the instructions because of his accent, but I don’t really mind. I find that the more genuinely confused I am the better. Unfortunately, the part I miss is the horny bit, and I feel like this would have been something to work with. My turn goes mostly unnoticed and easily forgotten.
· Another exercise – in mask we lip-sync a song in another language, I don’t get a turn.
· We play grandma’s footsteps, this time speaking naughty words to the audience when grandma’s back is turned. This is fun and brings out a childlike play and guilt of breaking the rules. The rules are changed, and we are to say the name of vegetable instead of a swear word, but say it like we are saying a swear word. Tom Tom live coaches the students, and picks on the Chinese student, Loo, and sends him to the corner. I find this very funny, as the focus is now on Loo trying to understand whether his allowed to re-enter the game, which is difficult for him because of the language barrier. I like this type of live coaching from Tom Tom, it highlights Loo as focus with the rest of the game going on around him, and highlights genuine misunderstanding, a clown state.After observing the other clowns, some things that spring to mind that are working is the drop, the misunderstanding, stupidity/naivety, looking for the laugh/your friends in the audience. Some things that are not working corpsing (you steal the laughter from the audience), people adjusting/touching their masks and breaking the world, and not having eye contact with the audience. We haven’t had much of an opportunity for complicate exercises with our partners, but that is also missing. Mostly because we are all so terrified and desperate for our one minute of stage time.
Gaulier Enters
Class begins before everyone has even entered the room. We begin playing ‘Samuel Says’, most students are confused of the rules. Most Western students understand and commence playing easily. When a mistake is made, you must ask someone for kisses. You can ask for many kisses if you are confident, or ask for only one kiss if you are ugly. If you do not get your kiss, you get ‘corporal punishment’. The first clown to be rejected of her kisses in three attempts, is playfully ‘punished’ by the 79-year-old French master. She is bent over forwards, held in an arm lock, slapped, and her thumb is bent backwards. She survives, and later tells me she was excited to have been the first to be punished. Interestingly, one of my clown teachers from Melbourne has done this exact exercise with me, word for word, action for action. I never really liked it when he tried to replicate it, however, here I understand the game more.
· We play Mr Hit, however, Gaulier doesn’t explain the rules, and gets them incorrect anyway. Most people are confused, and we of course hardly know anyone’s names. The game turns to elimination, and most of the game is spent arguing or re-explaining the rules. My favourite.
The space is brightly lit, the lights are hot, audience silhouetted, the tension is high and pressure is constantly rising. A duo exercise is given to a couple with one of the clowns from Venezuela. As she stands in the heat of the lights, drenched with sweat and red cheeks, he tells her she looks like Astrix the cartoon’s wife, Impedimenta, an angry overweight Viking. He is trying to make her angry, he is brutal and honest. She is not pleased with the comment, which makes her angry, which makes her look more like Impedimenta, and we laugh. However I become aware that his live coaching is what is creating the comedy, and the focus is on the teacher. Eventually, flustered and angry she returns to her seat with relief. She later asks of him, “Should we really be feeling genuine emotion? What is the difference between an actor and a clown”. To which Philippe replies, “Ze cleun iz nevier ungri, e iz nut satd, e iz plaiing.”(The clown is never really angry when he is on stage. He is pretending, he is playing. No clown is ever actually angry or sad.”He also details the difference is that an actor doesn’t play with his audience, the clown breaks the fourth wall. After class, he also states that a good actor never wanted to be a clown, and a good clown never wanted to be an actor.
He says we must play with the naivety of the idiot who is trying to make us laugh, who thinks he is funny.
Play the beautiful ridiculous.
The clown has to make us laugh, you don’t need to have emotion.
Don’t play a character.
You are playing too small.
You are trying too hard.
You have to do something.
He tells Tom Tom that he is too nice to be a teacher at this school, “You have to be nasty from the bottom of your heart”.
I get in trouble for laughing
Ketch (Gamarjobat) and Loo (Chinese) are the first two clowns to get up for the dup exercise. Loo doesn’t understand the instruction, and Ketch ends up onstage by himself. We wonder where Loo is, but forget about him. Ketch is failing onstage, with some live coaching. About ten minutes into the exercise, Loo peeks from the left wing, which only the stage right audience can see. A few of us start giggling, the misunderstanding gets worse. I start laughing, a lot. Crying in fact. He is so beautiful an naïve. Gaulier speaks to me for the second time. “WHi AR OU LAUGHING? I TRI TO TEECH N OU AR LAUGHIING I CAN NOT. OU CAN MOOV TO ZE BACK.” I apologise and tell him for no reason and I will stop. I stay where I am. I giggle quietly as Loo looks out but out of fear my laughter subsides.
A dread sets in. this feeling of negativity is different to what I had planned. I had disrupted the class. He is now angry at me not for being shit but for being a bad student. This is the worst feeling. Only about five other students understood and new why, I feel instant comradery with these people. I worry that the others in the class now think I am obnoxious. As I sit here I quickly debrief with another student who was seated on my half, and I decide that this might be the worst feeling I get from being here, so I guess now I cant do any worse? I wonder how im ever going to be able to get up on that stage again.
About ten minutes later, I jump up when I see the chance. Someone was asking a question. I’ve learnt its best to sit near the front, so I have easy access to the stage. I hope he has forgotten. We are instructed to enter and do laps of the ‘circus ring’ like a circus clown, to music. To stop and to be funny. Most people are cut immediately, so I decide the offer needs to start as soon as I’m onstage. I try to do an interesting entrance, with a small prelude, but then begin running. I am too invested in the audience, and he stops me and asks why I cannot run in a circle and follow instructions to everyone else. “Do ou niid to write eet down furst in youre notebooke?”. I wonder if he realises how many notes I take.. I apologise. It’s hard to disguise my lip quivering because my nose has a moustache which amplifies my adrenaline. I wonder if anyone can see and if my vulnerability could be funny. I am not sure if he is talking to me or provoking my clown, no one is really. He says when the clown comes onstage we instantly love you or hate you. He allows us both re-enter. I do my laps of the stage and try making the concentration on completing the laps of the stage task into a bit. We stop, me and my partner have a tousle of offers, he gongs. He asks the audience sitting next to him “Could zey bee ze funniest zing ou ave ever seine, or coold zey be polise. French polise.” I realise our turn is about to be over, changing my physicality I take the offer. “WE ARE. WE ARE POLICE. FRENCH POLICE. WATCH OUT.” My partner picks it up, we begin speaking bad French. The audience laughs. He bangs the drum.
The final thirty minutes he starts churning through clowns. Most duos get up, do a lap, and bang-bang “tankyoo goodbai”. No notes. I realise we have to seize any opportunity on stage to make offers. These are flop exercises. He wants to see us fail. He wants us to think we have something impressive to show, and then to expose the naivety of the flop. The environment embraces tension, stupidity, surprise, vulnerability. I debrief with some fellow clowns after class somewhat and realise that to have feedback or comments, to learn, I must really really fail, or really really win. If I am in the middle, he has nothing to say. We are just another couple of bodies on stage, and we are forgotten. The answer is risk. It is impossible to really really win, so I must really really fail.
Ciara Thorburn
*You can read the other days here:
Ciara Thorburn
Circus Artist, Variety Performer, Children’s Entertainer, Clown, MC, Cabaret Luminary and human being.
Ciara is a passionate, progressive and creative circus artist based in Melbourne, Australia. An avid art critic in her past life, Ciara has combined her passion for conceptual art with entertainment in an inimitable fusion of variety skill with clowning. Ciara defies expectations, using everyday objects in extraordinary ways, and has a knack for turning the mundane into the astonishing with her unique character work.
Ciara Links
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