More clowns, less failure?

It's been longer than I intended since my last post...I'm not very good at this bloggin malarkey, am I? Well, since then, lots and lots (and lots) of things have happened - most notably, our performances at the Centre George Pompidou on 29th May.
Yes. It finally happened. After months of preparation, countless revisions, rehearsals, tearing out of hair and minor mental breakdowns, fires in train stations, national strikes, postponements and possible cancellations, it actually happened.

The extra time that we have had to devote to the CGP Project has had one unfortunate consequence, which is that we have mostly had to ignore, or perhaps even for some people, abandon entirely, our personal projects for the Developing Your Disciplines Project (hence the terrible lack of posts on this blog). So where does that leave the Failure Project now? Well, it will play a part in the Viva Voce I have to prepare and present as assessment for this course, albeit in a slightly different way and less visible form than I had first imagined. The main task now is to look at it in the context of the work I have done at the Pompidou Centre, discovering, interpreting and analysing the links and divergences between them. Hopefully, I will be able to devote more time to this Project in the summer.

Anyway...another day, another clown workshop, this time by Jon Davison, and a very different atmosphere and direction to the workshops I observed from John Wright. I sensed a shift in focus in the act of clowning, which semms to lead to a shift in the performer-audience dynamic.

Jon Davison placed great emphasis on honesty of emotion in performance: about each performer being honest about the emotions they were experiencing at that very moment, in real life, as it were, which would then be used in the performance. For example, when an exercise performed by two of the participants in the workshop seemed to be failing, with the scene becoming uninspired and boring, Jon encouraged the performers to use the real feelings of frustration and discomfort that they were experiencing when continuing with the scene. As a result, the scene almost immediately picked up, becoming more interesting, more engaging, and more funny. As Jon himself said at the time "when you don't like where you are...that's a good place to stay". It was all about committing yourself as a performer to the emotion present, whatever it may be, whether positive or negative, whether reasonable or completely weird, without fighting it or trying to change it or lie about it. In this way, the clown character was more of an extension of their real selves and personalities, rather than an outside character added on quite artificially (as I sometimes sensed in the John Wright workshop).

Because of this, I feel the focus of this workshop was more performer-centered, rather than the more heavily audience-centered workshop from John Wright. I felt that during the exercises, the performers were encouraged to focus primarily on what was NOW - what they knew to be present at that very moment, i.e. their own emotions, rather than what they anticipated in the audience later (such as laughter).

Now, in all honestly, the performances and improvisations in the Jon Davison were a lot less funny than the John Wright workshop, and so if you were to judge clowning on terms of its comedic value and of how funny it actually is, John Wright wins (although it may just be that the performers in his workshops were funnier, rather than the method having an influence on how funny it was). However, I found Jon Davison's methods to be more interesting in relation to my own practice, and particularly, the links I feel are present with my interests in the Failure Project. I found his focus on the use of the performer's real experiences in the moment to generate material for performance pertinent to my own ideas of the Failure Project, in which I have asked:

"Failure can often point to the individuality and uniqueness of the performer (each person has their own unique physical limits and traits) – could a performance be created that fully utilises these aspects? In what ways can a performer make him/herself visible when performing and what does this add to or detract from a performance?"
(My Scheme of Work)

I intend to try and get in contact with Jon Davison so I can discuss these issues with him...watch this space.

Clowning: John Wright

Failure forms the basis of many aspects of comedy (one can think of a million examples of comedy based on the failure of a person, or people, to correctly carry out a task, communicate with others, or interpret a situation correctly).



This is particularly true in the physical comedy one finds in clowning.

No investigation into failure would be complete without an investigation into clowning, and so as part of my research for this project, I went to watch a clowning workshop led by the director John Wright. Wright also very kindly allowed me to interview him via phone, and although my interviwing skills leave much to be desired I was able to gain some very valuable and interesting insights from him.

What struck me most during both the workshop and the interview was the emphasis placed on the audience, or perhaps more accurately, the interaction between the audience and the performer. Throughout the exercises demonstrated to us in the workshop, John could constantly be heard shouting out to the performers "For us! For us!" or "Find us!" ('us' meaning the audience) stressing the need for the performers to establish, and then maintain, a dialogue between themselves and the audience. For him, failure meant a breakdown in this interaction, a lack of interest and engagement in the audience. He calls it the "angel of death", to be avoided at all costs.

For John, the idea of failure in performance was completely located in the audience's reception - whether or not they engaged with a performance, were interested in it, thought it funny or moving...in short, whether a performance ultimately succeeds or fails. And although I of course agree with this, I want to broaden the idea of failure into other areas:

• The ability of the performer - what happens if a performer is required to complete physical, vocal or emotional tasks that they are unable to fulfill completely?
• Accident and mistake - in what ways does this manifest itself in performance and what effect can it have on performance?

Most importantly, how can a performer negotiate these 'failures' if and when they happen so that they create an interesting and valuable addition to a performance - so they they can move beyond failure and into success?

One week, 3 days ago, my grandmother - my abuela - died.



I had written a post about this, and intended to include it in this blog - in some ways it seemed to fit the ideas and concepts of failure that I'm looking at - but after a lot of debating with myself have decided to withdraw it. It's not the right time.

The failure begins here...

Hmmmm. It's difficult to know where to begin these things...

This blog will document my progress (or failure to progress) through the 'Developing Your Discplines' Unit of my MA, Performance Practices and Research. I have decided to focus on the concept of failure in performance during this term, specifically the failures of the performing body (although I'm open to other areas, too). This blog will be a document of my thoughts, musings, ideas etc through this term.

I've never successfully kept a diary before, and blogs often seem like virtual diaries - so we'll see how things go with this. It's interesting, and strange, how many people choose to make their private lives public in this way, but that's another story.