peta LiLY
  • ABOUT
  • COURSES
  • Shows
  • BLOG: Dark Clown, Clown plus
  • Contact
  • FAQs for the Clown & Dark Clown course
  • Creative Mentor / Acting Coach / Director
  • ONLINE COURSE INFO
  • What people say about the Clown & Dark Clown course
  • What people say about the Alchemy of Archetypes course
  • What people say about the Barefaced Commedia dell'Arte course
  • PLAYS and POETRY
  • What people say about the Clown Course

Body Horror - a Dark Clown scenario

7/29/2022

0 Comments

 
PictureThis poster was made for me by Charlotte Biszewski. It was based on a photo of a course participant doing Body Horror - the body part he chose was his eye.
Dark Clown Methodology 
If you know me, you know the old story about how, watching a particular scene in a play circa 1980, I was compelled by the particular quality of laughter I experienced.
 
I was compelled and wanted to recreate this experience of what I now call Troubled Laughter. I was already teaching Clown – and towards the end of the course I’d ask the participants whether they were interested to try an experiment and thankfully, they always said yes.
 
Early Exercises
And I’d try out various improvisations. Early provocations included: ‘do something extreme’ or ‘can you eat your own body?’ and ‘can you despair each time we laugh?’. One of the more successful exercises was ‘my body is full of holes’: a solo player explores the idea that they are horrified by owning a mouth, and nose holes – Where do those holes go? Why are they there? Am I hollow? What is this? Why? 
 
Over many years and workshops a step-by-step process is now in place. People’s bodies and minds are prepared for the work. 
The links to Red Nose Clown* are made overt and the differences articulated. You’ll see, for example, in the description below the principles of repetition, clocking, calibration and accumulation. 
 
We love to see the Clown think and feel. Clear body and eye movements indicate thinking and feeling processes. And breath of course. When you are devising Clown work and building a scene you create beats to tell the story.
 
There are a growing number of Dark Clown exercises and a growing number of Dark Clown Scenarios.
 
One of these is Body Horror.

N.B. Please note that the course is designed to lead up to the Scenarios. People's well-being is attended to along the way. There is an introductory talk on the aims and ethics of the work (perhaps one day I'll post that), so people are aware of where the work is leading. I have spent 30 years creating, devising and designing a teaching methodology for my Dark Clown work. As with many Dark Clown I describe the exercise so people can opt out if needed (no one has elected to opt out of this exercise - most people find it energising and fun to explore). Course participants in the audience have reported feeling the pain and pity, while still laughing heartily. Dark Clown represents Humanity in Extremis, so it can be witnessed. I always emphasise that the aim of the work is NOT to laugh at suffering, but to create laughter in a dark context. To implicate the audience with direct gaze (and other awarenesses and techniques). The aim of the work is to give the audience the experience of Troubled Laughter. The work is layered and needs to be done well to get the result. It's a rewarding, cathartic challenge and really boosts your awareness of the performer/audience relationship. 
 
It starts with players standing in the space. Players are invited to choose a body part. Use your intuition (Why did I choose my elbow?) – just go with it. 
 
Everyone tries in plenary.
Here are some suggested beats. Mapping beats is strategic. Well-plotted beats mean the play (the ‘game’)can go on for longer and the build and journey you talk the audience on are fully satisfying.
 
Start with sensing something is wrong. A feeling of dread and dawning horror. You must find the source of the unease.
You locate it! Maybe the aversion only lets you glimpse it. 
You want to look but are afraid.
Repeated attempts to see it.
You manage to look (body part permitting!) and are horrified.
You are repelled, lean or spiral away, maybe close eyes …
but you are compelled to see.
Is it still there? Exactly how horrific is it!
Does it make you gag? 
Do you touch with other hand? And now do you have the problem that that hand is infected? (Wipe the hand and now there are 3 spots of aversion! Ergh … ergh!  ERRRGH!)
Try to run away from it.
Try to shake it off.
 
Then two or three people can be chosen so the audience can learn by watching. Then one is selected to play further.
 
Once the body horror is established … the player becomes aware of the audience.
Take time to look and have all the unspoken questions – What is that? People on chairs? How did that happen? Why? Who are they? How long have they been there?
The shame of being seen (this can be vocalised).
Then - why are they not alarmed? Why are they not helping me? 
Look / show / calibrate understanding … 
What kind of world is this? 
Whether they have blank faces or are laughing – either way the player takes I to mean that they don’t understand.
So show them. Show them more clearly.
Then beg: help me help me 
Really look to see if audience are about to help.
Allow their inaction to affect you and add to your plight.
Why won’t you help me?
 
… then you can go the further step of begging them to chop it off.
Repeat the beat of horror and frustration that they do not do as you ask.
Sob in despair.
Look up and appeal to ‘God or the godless heavens’.
 
There’s more but that’s enough for this blog post!
 
* There are many kinds of clown but I use Red Nose Clown as a handy way to distinguish from Dark Clown (regardless of whether the little red nose mask is actually used).

The image below shows the power of costume. This is a creation of a then student designer in 2016. A woman wanting cosmetic surgery looks almost flayed.

Costume, Movement and Comedy workshop on Aristophanes' The Women of the Thesmaphoria, MA Costume Design for Performance at UAL:LCF. 
Performer: Ramona Metcalfe 
Concept and realisation by: Georgia Clark
Movement director: Peta Lily
Project leadership and photography by Donatella Barbieri for UAL: LCF

Picture
0 Comments

    SEARCH by Category - scroll below

    This blog covers my Clown, Dark Clown, Comedy, and Theatre Making practices.

    ​Buy me a Ko-fi?
    I am writing a book on Dark Clown. If you enjoy the posts here, I'd love your support on my Ko-fi page. Your donation - even a small one - will help pay for time, editors, proof readers, books to inform context etc.
    ​ Thank you!
     

     https://ko-fi.com/petalily 

    30 years of practical research has created a new genre: Dark Clown. The Comedy of Terrors - Dark Clown & Enforced Performance was delivered at Bath Spa University. The work is cited in Clown (readings in theatre practice) by Jon Davison.
    ​

    Images above: Tiff Wear, Robert Piwko, Douglas Robertson, PL and Graham Fudger. Illustration by
    Charlotte Biszewski. Mask: Alexander McPherson.

    Categories

    All
    Absurd
    Absurdity
    Absurd Theatre
    Acceptance
    Accept Everything
    Acting
    Actioning
    Actions
    Adaptation
    Adversity
    Aesthetic
    All Over Lovely
    Amygdala
    Anais NIn
    An Die Musik
    Archetypes
    Aristotle's Poetics
    Arnold Mindell
    Audience
    Autobiographical Theatre
    Avner The Eccentric
    Awareness
    Backstory
    Bafflement
    Beats
    Believable Verisimilitude Of Pain And Distress
    Benefits To The Actor
    Big And Small
    Bim Mason
    Body Mask
    Bouffon
    Breath
    Breathing
    Brene Brown
    Buster Keaton
    Buzzer Exercise
    Calibration
    Call And Response
    Carlo Boso
    Carthasis Of Laughter
    Casting The Net
    Catharsis
    Chaplin
    Character
    Chastity Belt
    Chinese Clown
    Circo-therapy
    Circus
    Circus Lumiere
    Claire Dowie
    Clown
    Clown & Dark Clown
    Clown & Dark Clown Course
    Clown Doctors
    Clown Dramaturgy
    Clown Egg Register
    Clown Genius
    Clown Jokes
    Clown Logic
    Clown Poem
    #clown #poem #clownpoem #dignity #transform
    Clown Power Symposium
    Clown Professor
    Clowns
    Clown State
    Clown State Process
    Coat-of-arms
    Colin Watkeys
    Comedy
    Comedy Craft
    Compassion
    Conditions For Comedy
    Confessional Theatre
    Conflict And Pain
    Consent
    Consumer Guilt
    Content Awareness
    Contrast
    Controller
    Corpsing
    Costume
    Costume Design
    Costume Embodiment
    Coulraphobia
    Courage
    Covid
    Creativity
    Crying
    Crystal Lil
    Curiousity
    Curriculum
    C-words
    Dark Clown
    Dark Clown Documentary
    Dark Clown Dramaturgy
    Dark Clown Scenario
    Dark Clown Scenarios
    Dark Side Play
    Dave Pickering
    Deadpan
    Declan Donnellan
    Design
    Devising
    Dignity
    Dina Glouberman
    Discomfort
    Distance
    Documentary
    Dramaturgy
    Electro-pop
    Embodied Performance
    Embodiment
    Emotions
    Empathy
    Enforced Performance
    Ensemble
    Ethos
    Evil Laughter
    Exaggeration
    Extraordinary Physiological Response
    Facilitation
    Failure
    Failure As Success
    Fairytale
    Feminist Clown
    Flow
    Fool
    Fox And Maiden
    Gaulier
    Gender
    Genres
    Getting Your Message Across
    Half-Masks
    Hamlet Or Die
    Happenstance
    Hara
    Heart
    High Stakes
    High Stakes Predicament
    High Stakes Predicaments
    Honesty
    Horror
    Humanity
    Humanity In Extremis
    Hybrid Clown
    Hyper-vigilance
    I Am A Timebomb
    Imagework
    Imaginary Circumstances
    Immersion
    Implicate The Audience
    Implication
    Impossible Choices
    Impro. Clown. Clown State
    Impulse
    Impulses
    Inner Critic
    Innocence
    Inspirations
    Intention Of The Dark Clown Work
    Interview
    Interviews & Auditions
    In The Now
    Intuition
    Invocation
    It
    Jean Genet
    John Towsen
    Journals
    Jung
    Keith Johnstone
    King Lear
    Laugh At
    Laughing Gear
    Laughter
    Laughter Nudge
    Laughter To Implicate
    Learning
    Learning Lines
    Le Bide
    Line Up Exercise
    Line-up Exercise
    Lisa Wolpe
    Lumiere & Son
    Mamet
    Marginalised Emotions
    Marx Brothers
    Mask
    Mask State
    Methodology
    Mime
    Monika Pagneaux
    Motif
    Motifs
    Name Game
    Negative Emotions
    NLP
    Normal Audience
    Not Being Seen
    'not Doing'
    Okidok
    One Action
    Pain
    Pantomime
    Pema Chodron
    Pennywise
    Performance
    Perseverance
    Perspectives
    Peter A Levin
    Philippe Gaulier
    Pip Simmonds
    Play
    Play-possibilities
    Plot And Character
    Poetry
    Pop
    Power
    Predicament
    Predicaments
    Preparation
    Process
    Production
    Proprioception
    Props
    Red Nose Clown
    Rehearsal
    Repetition
    Resonances
    Reviews
    Rhythm
    Ridiculous
    Roger Rabbit
    Rough Puppetry
    Rule Of Three
    Rumi
    'sad Normals'
    Sad Normals
    Satire
    Sedona Method
    See The Cost
    Self Compassion
    Shakespeare
    Shame
    Shows
    Sobbing
    Solo
    Solo Theatre
    Stakes
    Stand Up Theatre
    Stand-up Theatre
    Storytelling
    Strange Forces
    Strategic Play
    Sufferring
    Take It Further
    Taking Laughter To The Limits
    Tarot
    Teaching
    Teaching Hygeine
    Techniques
    TED Talk
    Theatremaking
    The 'bide'
    'The Circus'
    The Comedy Of Errors
    The Cost
    The Death Of Fun
    The Fool
    The Guard
    The Little Mermaid
    The Maids
    The Menu
    The Revenger's Tragedy
    Three Women
    Tibetan Buddhism
    Timing
    Tips
    Tips For Learning Lines
    'Tis Pity She's A Horse
    'Tis Pity She's A Whore
    Tonglen
    Topless
    Torture Over Ten Feet
    Tragedy
    Transparent Teaching
    Trauma
    Trickster
    Trigger Warmings
    Trilogy
    Troubled Laughter
    Truth & Fiction
    Truth & Lies
    Truth + Pain
    Upset
    Upset Procedure
    Useful Principles
    Use Your Senses
    Viola Spolin
    Vulnerability
    Warmup
    Wendy Darling
    'what If'
    Witness
    Women And Clowning
    Women Clowns
    Workout
    Writing
    Yoshi Oida
    Zen

    Archives

    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    February 2022
    September 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    March 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    September 2016
    July 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

    RSS Feed

workshops & shows 


Join Peta Lily Theatre Workshops on Facebook

Like Peta Lily Shows on Facebook

Follow @peta_lily on Twitter

Follow @petalily on Instagram

Curious about Dark Clown? get your FREE ebooklet when you sign up to the mailing list - see the form to the right!

Something else? If you are looking for a director / creative mentor / workshop leader for a bespoke workshop for your company or organisation or any other matter - go here.

* By signing up to the mailing list you agree to receive mailings about workshops, shows, publications and very occasionally other news, usually only about a half dozen mailouts a year. You can always choose to unsubscribe at any time – there is an unsubscribe link to click on in each email I send. Your information will not be shared with any third party.

Picture

    JOIN THE MAILING LIST & GET YOUR FREE ebooklet - 2020 extended version

    * By signing up to the mailing list you agree to receive mailings about workshops, shows, publications and very occasionally other news. Your information will not be shared with any third party.
    iCloud email addresses don't always work with the mailing system - and, IMPORTANT -please double check you input your email address correctly - if there's a typo I cannot contact you.
    iCloud email addresses don't always work with the mailing system - and IMPORTANT please be sure not to make a typo when inputting your email address.
Submit