Clowning in Calgary
Time to read: under 4 minutes
“The clown’s come out when the world is ending”
These bold words were spoken by my former Clown teacher John Turner (Smoot, of Mump and Smoot), during a 16-day baby clown workshop intensive, where we learned to skate the tight rope between ecstasy and grief.
I’ve been thinking about those words a lot lately, as I, with so many others, settle into new routines, writing and working from my kitchen island. Masking up every time I leave my apartment. Learning (and seriously failing!) to follow the arrows in grocery aisles (my mom gave me a good tip for when I go down the wrong way- she says ‘oh, just turn around and walk backwards Jenny, that’s what I do’ - it may have been my mom who was my first clown teacher). I can’t help but silently judge who is mastering this 2-metre dance we are all learning (I’ve nicknamed it the ‘Covid Dance’ and have to blurt it out at every awkward interaction). From Zoom meetings, to google meetings, to Teams meetings, and I can’t hear people breathe and I think, maybe I miss that most of all.
As I consider these words and I look at the state of the world, it strikes me that the thing holding me together, that is currently keeping me from sliding off my kitchen chair and into a puddle of existential despair, is this knowledge that the clowns are coming. They always do, when things go dark, someone somewhere finds a way to make you laugh. I mean the kind of laugh that makes your belly ache and tears flow and... well, you know, who hasn’t accidentally- you know, while laughing too hard?
I lean back into this training, of tight-rope walking. In our baby clown class there wasn’t a single day someone didn’t fall into ecstatic gales of laughter or nose dive the other way into the deep despairing grief we tuck around hearts and learn to carry quietly-and suddenly here, in this clown class learning to earn the little red nose, we were not only permitted but encouraged to explore the range of our humanness.
Most people when they think of clowning, they think straight away of either birthday clowns or Fringe festivals with their Street Performers, or rodeos and well, horror movies. And while those examples certainly exist their own delightful existence, there is a whole world of whispered clowns hiding in plain sight in the City of Calgary and I look forward to introducing you to a few in the coming weeks...
CLOWNING IN THE DIGITAL REALM
Having a conversation with Chris Gamble, Artistic Director of the Calgary Clown Festival and founding member of the Calgary Clown Society, we chatted about clowning, clowning in this city and clowning on Zoom. Chris studied clown in New Zealand as well as in Edmonton with Michael Kennard (Mump, of Mump and Smoot). Chris says that there is a bit of stigma around being a clown in the city. Clowns are having to hide that they are clowns in order to do their art. They call it physical theatre, or physical comedy, drawing links to The Festival of Animated Objects and the Beakerhead Festival (Science meeting Clown) so when the Pumphouse Theatre approached him to run a purely Clown-centric festival he gave a resounding YES! knowing that he would be able to find enough red noses to fill the stages.
CONVERSATIONS OF CLOWNING AND A PANDEMIC
It’s impossible to avoid the Pandemic topic, as live performances struggle to re-find our footing in a time of un-gathering. His foundational belief is that clown aims to blur the 4th wall, causing both fear and delight in audiences who have no idea if they’ll be singled out or not. The big question Chris is considering and actively exploring right now is: how do you take this art form and put it on an online platform? Gamble thinks that the Pandemic will result in a turning point, that new genres of performing and clowning will come out of this time.
I asked if he’d come across the sentiment of ‘clowns coming out when the world ends’ and he, in a way that I’ve only seen clowns do-didn't out right dismiss the sentiment but spun it in his own love and magic kind of way that the ‘the clowns help us to understand the end of the world’.
To find more information about the Chris Gamble check out his website nobonestheatre.com.
