Long days - Le Navet Bete Workshop, RMO session and then Sound

There is a point when you blur what you have done and what you are about to do. Today I reached that point, but today it didn’t matter. The people around me guided me to where ad when, and the how just came. Structures made, and a path starting to form. Today was a good day.

It is interesting how other clown companies interpret theories of clown. In essence, clowning all sings out of the same hymn book, where each page is an epitaph of Lecoq, or Gaulier. Where phrases of bouffon, the idiot and impro comprise the themes and rythems of the hymns. Yet the timbre, the quality of each song can be sung very differently. La Navet Bete, focus on the grotesque. What is your clown? Discover your clown? It suggests that I have one character that I boil down too. One base. But this is not what I am interested in. The clown I found today is much different to the one I play in my company: the Obelix strong, yet sensitive giant, clumsy and a fool. Today I was vulgar, lustful, dirty. It was a fun character to play, it was a clown character of mine, but it was not my clown character. I have many. I am multi faceted. I exist in all regions all at once and I can choose which facet I accentuate, what I make big. How we were guided to find each character, its voice, its movement, used many if not all of the exercises I know, yet the condensed structure in a day was simple, an d got results. I build with movement into text. Annabelle Arden says that the body is the bow and voice is an arrow that fires and hits to make something happen. You first have start withy the bow, before you can fire the arrow.

It alo interests me the merging of yoga, feldenkreist and capoieara methods in there warm ups and movement practices. It appears that this is a vocabulary that speaks to the clown, and I have been taught moments of each. An applied interdisciplinary practice becomes a tool for the clown, or the body. In clown, I am honest, stupid and vulnerable. I know everything and nothing all at once. A paradox. NB: Dave look at conflict between Defoe and Gaulier.

For the latter part of the day, things started falling into place. Our RMO seems now structured, has focus in something practical. Or sound project was led by practice. This is exciting. I do, therefore I think! (who said this?)