Monday, September 15, 2014

A Day of Play - No Make-up and New York Clown Theatre Festival, Thursday September 11th

No Make-up (Guest Teacher Aitor Basauri)

For the 4th week in a row, my Thursday evening has begun with my Clown Jam. What is a Clown Jam? Right now, it's whatever I want it to be, and I've enjoyed watching it evolve for the past month.

Thanks to Kevin Laibson, Ali Farahnakian and my good friends at the People's Improv Theater (The PIT), I have been granted full reign of their theater every Thursday from 6pm-7pm to host No Make-Up. For only $1, anyone can drop in and get some stage-time working on their clown craft. And that is the form it has taken for the past month; a Drop-In. Most of the people who have attended have little to no clown experience, or took a class in college and always loved it. Each class begins with a basic warm-up, and then focuses on 1-2 exercises that allow everyone to discover their clown, or be more comfortable just playing without judgment. It has been wonderful watching people who have no idea what they are in for, get up onstage and play with reckless abandon.

One of my loftier goals was reached this past Thursday, as we had our first Special Guest instructor; Aitor Basauri. Those who are unfamiliar with Aitor can read my review of his recent Q&A session as part of the New York Clown Theatre Festival. I did not overly publicize his visit, as he was coming straight from teaching a full day workshop, and we were not sure if he could make it. He did, and the lucky few who were in attendance benefitted from a very unique No-Make-up session.

Aitor felt that with only four people in attendance, we could skip working on exercises and instead jump straight to creation. He gave us ten minutes to quickly come up with a "play" that we would have to perform for him. The only requirement; that we make him laugh. The four of us stared into each other's eyes and started planning, plotting and over complicating our mission. A love scene, in an elevator, in a hospital. You know, comic gold.

When our time was up, Aitor gave us a wonderful pep-talk. "What you're going to do will be bad. It's inevitable. You cannot write a good piece in ten minutes. So just have fun, and we will play with it." What followed was a horrific improv set. It was painful to be in, and very painful to watch. And then Aitor began giving us notes. He saw all of these tiny elements that we blew right past that could be mined for humor. On our second turn, he had characters introduce the show, made us reduce the elevator to the size of a phone booth, helped us define our comic relationships, and it all made the piece not only funnier, but more fun to play. By the end of the 3rd and 4th time, he kept focusing in on the ridiculous logic of the scene and still individually coached each of us to better clown performances.

I hope to have a new guest teacher come by each month to help lead a workshop. I've enjoyed proctoring the jam so far, and I learn every time I do it, but it was so nice to get up on my feet and just play.

If you want to do the same, come down to the People's Improv Theater (123 East 24th Street between Park Ave and Lexington Ave) any Thursday from 6pm-7pm (no jam on October 9th, Thanksgiving and Christmas).



Clown Cabaret hosted by Adira Amram 
Watching the New York Theatre Festival's Thursday night Clown Cabaret instilled in me the importance of workshopping material and testing material in front of a crowd.  New York, has a strong comedy scene where improvisers, sketch comedians and stand-ups can play almost any night of the week at an open-mic, jam or as part of a variety show. For clowns, our opportunities feel a little smaller. That's why it was so wonderful to see an entire evening of clowns showing off a quick 5 minutes of something different.

I will say this, the night had a very awkward feel to it. Some pieces landed, some did not, some were classic clown routines, some I am still trying to figure out what exactly they were. What was great though was this was an audience of clown performers, teachers, enthusiasts watching each other and sharing their laughter, when the clowns earned it, in a comfortable and supportive manner. There were some pieces that clearly have more to grow, and since I think we generally learn better from observing our successes than attacking our failures, I want to highlight the three acts that stood out to me the most.

Becca Bernard
I'll say this, Becca kept things moving. Her piece had a very simple set-up. She was going to play a piece of music on her cello. However, everything that could go wrong, did. The piece was full of problem after problem, both expected and unexpected. What impressed me most about Becca's performance were the moments when the clown suddenly found herself stuck in a problem that Becca had obviously set-up without the audience noticing. Some of her moves seemed so chaotic that it was hard to tell that she was performing a carefully choreographed dance of sorts. It was especially satisfying that the piece ended in an actual skill; cello playing and soft shoe tap.



Felipe Ortiz/Sebastian Sero
I thoroughly enjoyed watching these gentlemen perform in La Cita, and was thrilled that they brought a completely different piece to the cabaret. I am a big fan of successfully finding humor in places that may be labelled "inappropriate." Once I recognized that this scene was taking place at a funeral/wake, I was geared up for some comedy. Felipe magnificently got himself in trouble, and brought the audience on such a wonderful journey as he moved through the emotional range of guilt, curiosity, fear and ultimately sheer joy. This silent piece could be a lesson for any clown new or old on timing, vulnerability and pleasure. It was definitely my favorite of the night.


Eric Davis
Red Bastard was one of the first shows I saw that excited me to study clown. However, having now seen the show twice and as the program only listed that Eric Davis was performing, I thought this might be something different. Eric must have known that not only I, but the rest of the audience might hold these same feelings. So what did he do? He played the situation honestly. Why perform a show for an audience who has seen it before and probably knows it by heart? Why not create a new game where that very audience competes to see who can perform Red Bastard as well as the master? As a testament to how well Eric knows this character he jumped in and out of script, and in and out of character to play with the energy in the room. He explored his text in a way that he had never used before and gave a room of people expecting a re-run an exciting re-boot instead. Just like seeing the show for the first time, we all felt a sense of danger and excitement. It was a truly honest performance that was an excellent way to close out the cabaret.


A second goal I have for No-Make-up is as a showcase/workshop for clowns who are developing new work. As any clown performer can attest, you cannot really tell if a piece is successful or not until you have seen it in front of an audience. They are the ultimate judge. I invite any clown who wants to workshop a small piece of a show to join us at No Make-up where I can provide such a crowd. Anyone who is interested can e-mail me at NoMakeupClownJam@gmail.com.

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