Etter noen år som klovn, har jeg erfart masse missforståelser når jeg nevner hva jeg jobber med. Noen tenker på klovnen fra skrekkfilmer og rister på hodet eller så tenker de bursdagsklovner som lager balongdyr og snubler, og så rister de i hvert fall på hodet.
Men for meg er klovning mer det. Jeg vet at jeg synes det er fantastisk og frigjørende kunstform. Jeg driver med teaterklovning, som vil være noe helt annet enn å kaste bløtkaker i ansiktet på hverandre. Det handler om tilstedeværelsn, møtet med publikum, improvisasjonen og leken. En klovn gir aldri opp, hun kan gråte og le, men vil aldri holde så hardt fast til en opplevelse og erfaring at hun blir der. Hun leker med livet, samtidig som jeg føler klovnen er en av de som tar livet mest på alvor.
Jeg har samlet noen tekster om klovnen, fra klovnepedagoger som jeg har stor respekt for:
Sue Morrison on Clowning
Clown and Native American culture
It's really hard in clown to make rules, because clowns are by nature anarchists...they exist as the conscience of society, every culture has a clown. Everybody. As far back as we can look, to prehistoric man, there were shamans communicating between the gods and the people. And clowns were shamans, because they were involved in transformation, and transformation is healing.
In native American concept of clown, they say that if you ever faced all directions of yourself at once you could just laugh at the beauty of your own ridiculousness. You're already not perfect. You are ridiculous. It's our struggle to be with some status in the world that is ridiculous. I'm fascinated by the flaws. Would you rather have dinner with someone that was perfect or someone that was flawed? I would myself be very bored, because I would have nothing in common with the perfect person but I have much in common with someone that was flawed. That's where people take their delight...
Clown and the Audience
Four elements have to be present for a successful clown turn. Present yourself. Take me into your world. Transform me. And bring me back with a new awareness. That will involve transformation and so it involve release. You should never be the same at the end of a clown turn as you were at the beginning. If you are, nothing happened. And your audience should never feel the same. They may not feel better, but they have to feel something. We're not snack food. A good clown show, you should feel disturbed in some way. In some way off balance.
Clown is about a conversation. If this is the performer and this is the audience, when these two energies connect, it's in that connecting place that the clown lives. That's the 'we', the 'us'.
I have a feeling when a clown looks at me. I think people love to be recognized. We are looked at all day long but once in a while somebody looks at you and they see you, you feel recognized, you feel an acknowledgement of your specialness, of your individuality. And that's something a clown does, whether it's for a huge audience or ten people, make people feel like they're being seen and recognised, they're being acknowledged, their story's being heard, their story's being told. We recognize ourselves. I feel like I'm actually allowed to experience something about myself that maybe I don't all the time.
In the circus after the high tension acts, like the acrobatics and the aerial acts, when people are nervous, they would send the clowns in to break the tension. Most typically you could say the arrival of the clowns breaks the tension of an environment, whether it's in the circus or in religious ceremonies or whatever.
Clown and Emotion
Clown is here to remind us of our extreme nature. When I watch you, when I'm involved with you it allows me to have that feeling, it takes me to that place and it validates me having that experience. You know, I feel devastated and I don't even know why. But I'm devastated and that's fantastic. And to get to the next place you have to go all the way through that place. People think of clown as a set of tricks that you learn like you can learn how to do a handstand or juggle. But it's much more than that. We have to learn how to manage emotions, how to work those as technique. Emotion is technique. But first you have to learn how to be comfortable with that. You have to know that these things are very empowering, that they make us bigger rather than diminishing us. When you share a feeling, you take me into that world. That's a huge experience, that's a gift.
We are an accumulation of our experiences. And that's absolutely clown. We can't be anything else. And we should never try to be anything else. We should use everything that we have and know. Everything is available at any moment.
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Richard Pochinko on clowning
Perhaps all this interest in clowning reflects the state of the world. Clowns are born when society has a need for them. Remember that Chaplin and Keaton were most popular during Depression. And that the Indians say that clowns appear when the leaders get out of hand!
What we need is a clown for our time. A clown that gives us a larger sense
of God in each of us, that celebrates our humanness, our animalness, and the times that we can touch
each other in a moment of laughter."
"EVERY ONE OF US HAS A CLOWN INSIDE; IT'S JUST A MATTER OF FINDING THE WAY TO DO IT"
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Per Sörberg, clown pedagog i Sverige
" Jag tror på en skådespelarens teater, där man är lika medveten om uttrycket av tanken - känslan - som av impulsen till den. Att fullfölja en impuls, att inte göra något annat, utan gå fullt ut tills det tar stopp. Fullfölj ideer, fullfölj linjer."
Også har jeg lagt inn noen linker til youtubevideoer som jeg synes det er verdt å besøke!!
On clown:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX8aL_WlvtE&feature=player_embedded
Barneby King, interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY3QQ9lgNXI&feature=related
Track from his show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35le1tBU3dI&NR=1
Red Bastard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TGBs6QCXDs
