Contemporary Clown Philosopher
For each performance of my free-play show, AZAR, the theater or show organizers must provide certain items to create the scenery for the play. Among these required items? Two simple chairs. In Pisa, Italy, I was delighted to discover that I had been provided with two wonderful chairs. During the play, it became apparent that the two chairs represented the mother and the son, one larger and red, with a sturdy steal frame - the other smaller, made of synthetic plastic in a blocky naive form. Having lost my own mother, this imaginary connection released a world of memories, and new imaginations for me. From this moment of free association a poignant scene was born, in real time and space, in front of an audience. Existing in that vulnerable and electric space of fascination and deep personal memory was really quite powerful.
After many years working in the theater as a dancer and actor, I became fascinated with the possibility of the emerging circumstances and real, living, spontaneous play on the stage. Though several years of investigation in studio labs and in performance, both as actor/performer and director, I discovered many tools and techniques which could unlock profound layers of consciousness and emotional memory.
This work was inspired by the subjective inner processes of ritual mask and dance work. It would later lead to the discovery of the clown, not the popular sort of popular circus or party entertainer, but rather the more universal and sacred seers and builders of bridges between dreams and the physical.
Clown has, for so long, been addressed as a performer who makes comedy or jokes or performs traditional gags from circus or other popular performance modalities. Apart from this, the social comics and activists have expanded clown to also include social activism. What was missing was a contemporary focus on the fundamental pre-social and extra-social naive state of stupid genius. Almost all clown was performance, demonstration of ideas or social group exercises in protest, or addressing heavy politics with lighter foolery. I became very interested in the invisible space between the spectator and the "play."
When we play, and engage spontaneously, something occurs. There is a very evident psycho-emotional and psycho-energetic exchange between the spectator and the person onstage. In this space between, we communicate. Attention has different forms and energies. Different kinds of attention have different effect on the play. And so, knowing this, we can play with care for specific forms of attention, and in so doing, guide, organize, divide, disassemble the audience. For years the focus had been on the idea or the visual spectacle to achieve this. And this works at times, but no one was really exploring the visceral exchange which comes from being witness to another human being truthfully, honestly, spontaneously in their predicament, folly, joy. For me, this was a breakthrough. And for many people around the world, it has become a useful point of reference.
The philosophic points of "emerging game" - "state of clown" - "stupid genius" have defined the praxis of my approach to the fundamentals of creative performance and self discovery. This work has expanded to include exploration of performance in relation to the five universal social fears. This work could be useful to address the paralyzing social fears and to help artists overcome them. And in practice, it has been the case.
Through Clown, the old world Heyoka - the empathic sacred Fool, I have uncovered an approach which unlocks deeper consciousness and evokes that deep guarded naive curiosity.
When we play without fear of judgement or slander, when we remember to bear witness and to be in the light of our own simplicity, we resonate and we attract the most naive form of attention. It has no name, no age, no gender, no bank accounts. We touch the universal, the primal, the simply human. We connect, we laugh, not from any particular joke, but from remembering, from revealing, we are together, we are as one. Together we share and we respond to this world. Together we make this world.
"Together we share and respond to this world. Together we make this world."