Recently Ciara Thorburn [circus artist, clown pirate (CC Member) and facilitator & instigator 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.
Thank you Ciara, for generously sharing your experience!
I hope you all enjoy,
Cheers Hamish
Day 4#
I wake up to a beautiful thunderstorm rolling in through the rustic wooden shutters of my simple apartment. I am instantly feeling better than yesterday. I walk to Café Du Depart. Manuel polishes glasses as I sit inside to write, we have a pretend conversation about the weather. I run into a few clowns from the morning class, I chat excitedly and briefly with the American actor, we follow each other on Instagram, and he goes off to class. I take the final sip of my first coffee of the day and give myself less than one hour to write.
Movement
I am ready for today, I arrive early to give myself time and space to warmup in the relatively quiet studio. I give myself a set of rules and guidelines for class. Sit back, observe, play it safe, get up for minimal exercises, don’t be sticky… try to blend in.
· We play Kings Square – I am left without a partner somehow. Kirri offers to try to join me, “Nah its cool, I got this”. After a few rounds, I lose and have no one to share the fail with.
· We warm up on the ground and begin some vocal exercises. Its forty plus degrees in the studio, I leave sweat patches on the floor.
· Vocal exercises, we sing an African song. I’m alright at it, but can’t help but wonder if I’m singing louder than everyone else. I am quickly becoming hyper-aware of my presence in the class.
· Singing Clown exercise – five students go up at a time, they are told to have to come onstage individually and sing a song, to make the audience love us. The audience must think we are beautiful, whatever your definition of beauty is. We are not wearing out noses. We are told it is not a clowning exercise, but in my mind it is.
I wait until the third or fourth round of clowns to go up. While I wait a battle activates in my head, should I sing the lullaby mum used to sing to me, I can hardly remember it… should I sing my Ciara song, yes I love that… it’s my favourite, and I never get to sing it. Or perhaps that’s not beautiful, maybe it’s self-indulgent. OK, I’ll sing Amazing Grace, that fits my vocal abilities. I go onstage and ask the audience. The audience opts for Ciara song. I try to amplify my genuine vulnerability as I sing, but the song ends with a gag “And if you don’t like me then I guess I’m out of luck, but that’s OK with me, ‘cos I don’t give a ….”. No one laughs, no one responds at all really. Tom Tom says I could have been bigger. Later, another clown will tell me I was too abrasive, which confuses me, I was playing so small, honest and vulnerable. I struggle between too abrasive, too big, too defensive, and ‘you could have been bigger’. I think about my two very distinct ‘go-to’ clown characters, and wonder if it’s a coincidence. At some point during the class, I experience deja vu.
· Accents – five clowns in a line-up, they are instructed to take on different accents. Tom Tom live coaches, I find some quite funny. Notably the dancer from Perth, Lauren. I read hers as a spoilt poodle, having a tantrum screaming “IWANTTOGOTOTHEPARK.TAKEMETOTHEPARK!”
I love it. I wait to let others go first and don’t get a turn before the end of class.
Gaulier
‘Samuel Says’ commences before everyone has had a chance to put their notebooks down. I am very good at this game and am finding it tiresome under the bright lights. Philippe mostly stops us as an opportunity to have (quite absurd, offensive but admittedly hilarious) banter with some of the students he feels like picking on. He will accuse people of moving at any point, it seems mostly random. I am hiding in the back and as he speaks with another clown, I roll out my ankle out of habit, I’m wearing red socks, so he notices. “OU! Ou moofed.” The clowns part. “Howe mani kizzes?”. I must ask for kisses from my classmates individually, as forgiveness for moving, and ask for as many as I think I am worth. Most people ask for one. I ask for seven. He comments “Rehally you zink zo?”. I ask for kisses of my classmates mostly by name, to expose how many people’s name I don’t remember, and to put myself in a vulnerable state. Eventually, I get my seven kisses, and am somewhat relieved I have escaped his ‘corporal punishment’.
I order my second coffee.
The Exercises
Philippe asks for ten clowns who speak no French at all. Only six get up, so I figure I can allow myself to participate. A French song plays, the clowns must lip-synch, the music stops and the individually the clown must continue to sing the song in French. I am last in line, it takes at least ten minutes to reach my turn. The lights are brighter today, and sweat is literally pouring from my knees. Classic sweaty knees Ciara. To one clown Philippe comments “When she mooves, it iz ze opposite of ze karma sutra. How iz it possible to miit somewhun who moofes as batly like ouu, or maibe zomewhun from Ecole Le Coq”.
This exercise soon becomes the first time we experience one of the clowns winning onstage. It makes me happy just thinking about it. Chase, the Canadian ‘Commedia’ guy, who later I find out just graduated from the French Le Coq school one month ago. His face looks great in nose, his eyebrows are incredible and expressive. He moves too much, Philippe instructs two volunteers to hit him with sticks every time he moves his body. We see his stupidity and endearing love. Philippe, for the first time, allows this clown space onstage for more than thirty seconds, he gongs the drum and says “Not bahd. Zurprizing.” I think about what he did, the techniques he used, and why it was funny. I note down what all seems very obvious to me now, but almost impossible to achieve in this space.
– He listened and kept going with the laugh of the audience.
– We saw his logic, his pathway. His lip quivered a little bit, the audience laughed.
– He responded to the audience by scaling.
It was a big win, probably the biggest win we will see here, or at least the biggest so far. It fills me with pride, somehow, to see that it is possible to win in this class at all. I chat with him later, I want to give him a hug, or a fist bump, but I simply say, “That was awesome man, so funny. You must be happy with that.” He humbly replies thanks, and that’s the end of that.
Its my turn in the exercise, I keep my nose on under the sweltering lights, and stay in clown, the others onstage do not. I utilize familiar clowning techniques but also try not to. I’m not funny, plus everyone is tired. Was it my placement in the exercise? Probably not. “Zis girl, do ou sink she iz ze dorter of Einstein?” Philippe asks the audience of my classmates, “No. Everione ere sinks you are stoopit.” OK, that’s a win, I think to myself. I sit back in the audience and I think about the attention he is giving me today. I like to think he is trying to reassure me after the way class ended yesterday. It occurs to me that perhaps he notices, and cares, much more than I think he does. When I sit down, one of the other students says to me “I thought you were being really funny, when it wasn’t your turn”.
The actor and the clown
An actor does a scene onstage. After, a clown is instructed to replicate the scene, as if he is putting on a show for his family. Philippe wants us to break the fourth wall, and to play with the audience. we are to play naïve, proud, childlike, innocent. As if to say ‘Look mummy and daddy, I am an actor’.
Chase gets up again, he has trouble separating his actor from his clown onstage. I still love him. Philippe asks “Ou ar a classique eterosexual, yesse? When ou arrifed here in Etamp. Was zere some women ou thort… oooh… ghghghughhfhoo… I would like zem to go to bed wif me?” Chase awkwardly picks Abigail and Lauren. They are instructed to kiss his neck sensually and continuously, while he recites the scene again, which is in Spanish, which he doesn’t speak. His face becomes beautiful and childlike, his cheeks go red, the girls kiss his neck and skin awkwardly and intimately, they have to move their noses out of the way. It is beautiful to watch. I realise Philippe stays in this exercise with Chase onstage, to help him to separate his Le Coq training from his clown training. It makes my day.
Some wisdom is given at the end of the class. The clown must be subtle. To be subtle is to be light. The clown is subtle so we can dream around him.
The Clowns
After class we go for a drink, everyone is feeling the same way, and we need a drink. I notice how much I prefer to find out about their lives, rather than debrief going around in circles about class, as I feel like for many it is a sensitive topic. But at the same time, not so much for some. I see myself becoming more invested in the clowns, and relationships forming. Every day in class, I notice someone differently. Over a beer I chat with Kirri (the English soccer guy) and Will (the proper English guy), conversation flows easily. For a moment the topic turns to clown, and they tell me something I’ve been told a million times, but somehow it sounds different coming from them, and I take it in.
I think my mindset has changed, because of the people around me. In Etampes, and back home. I am returning to the mindset of this is what I signed up for.
Ciara Thorburn
*You can read all 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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