Trigger warning: genocide

Recently, after I posted a new instalment of this blog, a Clown & Dark Clown 'graduate' wrote to me.

She said: 
'I’m extremely excited about the Dark Clown book you are writing. Your workshop is still as vivid as ever in my mind and that was 10 years ago. Since then I’ve been deeply involved in teaching storytelling/theatre-making for social justice, a journey that has led me to Rwanda five times. I took an intensive course, the “Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma” (HPRT) through Harvard’s medical school. The course - which deals with trauma and recovery - had direct ties to storytelling and I needed to know more. 

'So much of what I’ve felt, stories I’ve heard - the absurdity behind fear, hatred and violence - has been processed into numerous dark clown scenes in my head ... I found it was useful to do that, just to process the insanity and learn to walk with it. Right now I am working on a Master in Education and I’ve been making loads of connections between teaching and red nose clown work, also. Thank you for your work, it’s left a lasting impression on me and became a tool in my everyday life.' - Ongoing-Learning Educator and Theatre-Maker who focuses on Social Justice Education and Kinesthetic Learning

The Course Participant has asked to remain anonymous – I am going to call her Sandra. The course she attended was set up by a host (Lyndi Smith) and took place in Coventry. 10am – 5pm Monday 12th to 16th April 2010.  Just a side note as I look at my files, I see that this was back in the days when I promoted Dark Clown with this description: ‘ A chance to play with a darker kind of humour … an experiment with the edges of laughter … a way to create clown characters and performing ensembles with more edge and relevance … a way to update the sweet and poetic image of the clown … a way to make a more exciting and demanding rapport with audiences ...’

After hearing - in a FB DM exchange - that 'Sandra' found the Dark Clown work helpful to  ‘process the insanity’, I was compelled to contact her and we set up a Zoom chat.

When we connected on Zoom, Sandra first spoke about the Clown part of the week-long course. With a photographic memory (or perfect note-taking and subsequent application)* she recalled techniques she learned on the course and now uses regularly, although not under the name of ‘Clown’: e.g. dancing with different parts of your body and the point-and-name exercise which I learned via the wonderful Niall Ashdown. She appreciated the benefits of the work, saying that for her these exercises ‘slowed down time’, enabling greater ability to appreciate how your body is sharing your story and how you are connecting with your audience. She mentioned, too, how memorable the work was – ‘you can’t forget about it and go back to the old ways’.  
 
Sandra said that the Clown & Dark Clown course provided her with ‘a way to look with an innocent eye'** even when in unsettling situations such as looking at the bones of victims in what was Nyamata Church and now is the Nyamata Genocide Memorial Centre.' (Remains are now being stored out of sight).

The Clown's curiosity was helpful too - Sandra found that ‘curiousity diminishes fear’ and felt that this allowed her to simply ’be’ with the Horrific.  She said: ‘I was asking myself – how does one respond in order to be with this? And I realised I had prepped for this. Clown work heightens the senses and slows things down and that made it endurable ... listening to the stories people recounted of rape, of being made to dig their own graves. Through the Dark Clown work, I had had the opportunity of experiencing in a safe learning space - a way to imagine and embody humiliation, despair and shame and fear.'
 
Like me, Sandra appreciates that the response of anger and outrage is the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and that underneath are the Marginalised Emotions*** such as self-loathing and mistrust. These are not emotions anyone would logically choose to experience, but they can remain life-sappingly trapped if one is unwilling to look at them, or, to use Sandra's expression 'walk with them'. 
 
'Through the lens of the Dark Clown work I was able to see the component parts of the situations, examine what I was hearing. The fact that I walked the Dark Clown scenarios helped me stay settled and grounded in the face of absolute darkness and look at my emotions in a curious way. I could see things, too, from a variety of perspectives, see it as theatre and imagine: what would be like as a performer to perform this? What would the victim do in response to the perpetrator’s actions, what would the bystander/onlooker do? And my training at Harvard supported this.’****
 
I was gratified to hear this, reinforcing my own instincts that being able to Witness the detail in the Desperate Predicaments of the Dark Clown work had a benefit and validity. The aim with the Dark Clown work is that the player is able to pretend well enough so that we in the audience experience the Palpable Cost of contemplating a horrific choice - for example: someone playing in the line-up exercise is given the instruction to decide who in the group will be punished. ***** In the playing of the exercise, the aim is that the audience see: how the prisoner/player looks being given the alarming instruction, their panic/conflict/desperation while considering making the Impossible Choice and then how they look afterwards - experiencing shame and horror that they complied. 

We get to see and feel these moments clearly, broken down -  as contrasted with, say, a horrific situation being delivered in an opaque chunk (e.g. as one might read or hear the fact that people were forced to select who died and survived). When presented with a ghastly fact / event / news / story, it is natural that the nervous system shies away, retreats. There is aversion and a level of numbness. (We might even feel that it might be morbid to take time to imagine such a thing.)
 
And as a side note – the audience of the Dark Clown is (via the comedy craft) is encouraged to make a sound – a laugh (albeit a Troubled Laugh) which provides the opportunity for some release as opposed to the hushed reaction ’don’t look’; an alternative to silence, shutdown and holding in. 
 
Sandra further values the contribution of the Red Nose Clown and its 'pulse of empathy'. She mentioned Rwanda's emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation and that she had encountered perpetrators who had confessed, experienced a process of contrition and who are in the process of making reparations. She found herself in situations with these people and she found that she was able to just be with these people, to humanise not demonise them - to imagine them in the darkest and scariest moments, making the regrettable choices that they made. Sandra said that ‘curiosity and the pulse of empathy had helped me connect to the darkness and joy in another, and learn that in spite of the Horrors, there is common ground: these folks were parents, grandparents, farmers, enjoyed jokes and dancing.’

Sandra also said that Clown & Dark Clown work has also played a part in her own healing (including therapy) from vicarious trauma, accrued over the years (by being able to use the Red Nose Clown’s ability to access joy, to find relief and provide a thinking and feeling space via curiousity). Sandra again mentioned the value of Red Nose Clown providing ways for her to ‘refill’ on compassion (many care workers experience empathy burnout).

Back in the context of my open workshops for theatre practitioners, I shared with her a new practice I have installed on the Clown & Dark Clown course (when I sense it is needed or might be about to become needed). I invite participants to enter Red Nose state and to find a piece of wall or furniture and to comfort it e.g. 'it will be ok, you're doing really well. Yes it's scary but there are still donkeys ...' etc. Sometimes I instruct them to reassure or apologise to the floor and walls: 'I'm sorry you had to see that. It was dark, wasn't it?'
 
Sandra again expressed her good fortune that fate had led her to the work ten years ago: ‘When else do we get the chance to encounter the Marginalised Emotions except when it happens to us?' In the workshop we have space and are encouraged to have flexibility and are called to employ a shifting viewpoint, and shifting modalities of awareness. She said she felt that the Dark Clown work was ‘bigger than a performance practice – it is a practice for life, giving guidance, a kind of map to navigate the Horrors.’ 

I currently do not and would not offer the Dark Clown work as anything other than a theatre arts practice although a couple of course participants who were therapists have commented on the value they felt the work offered and mused on its further potential. (It is not a goal I am aiming towards, but perhaps, at some point in the future, the Dark Clown work might find a place as a component contained within a larger training programme led by a care-worker programme or some kind of well-supported teaching  or psychological training programme.)

Like me, Sandra saw that this is not work for the already traumatised. They have had the encounter with Horror, they need different help to recover. But it may be possible that for future care-workers, the Dark Clown work may offer valuable benefits.

Meanwhile, there are those of us who, although we have not been as close to experiences of large conflict, are still being remotely affected by world events - in the news, on our Facebook feed and as we walk the streets witnessing people living in destitution. At a daily level, we are not given time to deal with any feelings we might have about dreadful events in this world that we know ourselves to be a part of. *******
​Many participants report gratitude for the side benefits of the work:

'I have learned to better recognise how and where these emotions sit in my physical body, to better label and understand their influence on my being. Once labelled and located, they are better explored with the opportunity for release or conscious use to transform. I now have a process allowing me to hold on to what is useful, work through and release what is not.' - Course Participant

I aim to hold the Dark Clown work as ethically as I can. Please do see the helpful FAQ's for the work. The work walks an edge. But, like many theatre practitioners, I have an interest in inner and outer humanity and I feel it is an edge better looked at than ignored. Hence my being gratified that this particular course graduate's felt similarly and articulated her thoughts so generously and well.

For clarity's sake, let me repeat: I currently do not offer the Dark Clown work as anything other than a theatre arts practice.  Read more here.
 
*I took copious notes on my first workshop with Philippe Gaulier and Monika Pagneaux – I was magnetised by the enlivening, mysterious, de-mystifying work these masters were offering and that influence has been enduring, even as I mixed it with other theatre forms and bodies of knowledge.

​** one could also say ‘beginners mind’

*** What are the Marginalised Emotions? Imagine a horizontal line. If human expression were expressed as a continuum, you might have joy way over there on the right, and, if we are talking Red Nose Clown, we might have expressions such as silliness, loveliness, pride, bashfulness relatively nearby. As we near the centre of the line there may be grumpiness, crossness, even anger. But what about the other half of the line? Now we are heading for the expressions of the Dark Clown, what I call the Marginalised Emotions – such as: hyper-vigilance, fear, distress, shame, anguish, regret, guilt, humiliation, indignity, disbelief, grief, shock, absurdity, desolation, despair, physical pain, horror, terror and existential dread. (Listed in no special or incremental order).


**** Having had some access to Holocaust training, I avoid any role play focusing on Perpetrator / Victim scenarios. Where there is a player representing a guard, I limit their participation strictly. I say: In this work we are not interested in the Perpetrator, we are interested in the person being given the opportunity to release via the Predicaments into the Marginalised Emotions and to believably but strategically play there in order to affect the audience. If the person representing the guard needs extra clarification, I invite them to imagine that they need to ‘do their job’- they need to vigiliantly watch the audience and the prisoner otherwise they could easily be in the prisoner’s place. I read in that Maria Alyokhina (Pussy Riot Member) in her book Riot Days  describes how the guards had found it very effective to delegate certain prisoners to police the others (in order to gain back privileges - 'privileges'- which had been inhumanly denied them).  

***** Line-up exercise – see the post on vulnerability.

****** Hannah Arendt’s concept of the ‘Banality of Evil’ articulates people doing beyond dreadful things in the name of doing their job.

******* In her excellent book, The War Hotel, author Arlene Audergon points out that the world has a tendency to want to separate off and see countries where ghastly conflict has taken place as ‘tribal’ or ‘civil’ war, rather than being situations where people were manipulated and divided by politics towards unthinkable ends.

No, Clown State is not a country...(yet?).

After a recent evening class (for the wonderful Hoopla Improv company) a course participant asked for a recap of what Clown State is and how to access it.

An altered state - a mask state
Decades ago when I had the privilege to participate in a workshop led by Jacques Lecoq - he described the red nose as 'le plus petit masque du monde' (the smallest mask in the world) and a light switched on - Clown State can be approached as a mask state. See the wonderful Keith Johnstone's book Impro for more on mask state.

Occasionally one hears of people finding their 'inner clown' or having 'their own unique clown'. When teaching I find it is helpful to remove any pressure are anxiety these phrases might cause - 'what if I don't have an inner clown?!', 'what if I can't find it?'. Imagine rummaging in a dark cupboard - 'it's meant to be in here but where? where?!' People might think that they are creating their unique and precious inner clown, chiselling it carefully out from marble ... one wrong angle with the chisel and kkkkrrrrshhh!
The historical image of the unique clown-face makeup carefully painted onto a porcelain egg and placed inside a glass cabinet in a museum (a beautiful tradition with a pragmatic, copyright purpose), might lead someone newly learning clown to think they need to arrive at a fixed entity. I love to quote Angela de Castro: 'I have more than one Clown'.

Thinking of entering a Clown State is, for all these reasons, a useful thing. I feel it is helpful to see Clown State as a robust and elastic state of play. The concept of 'inner clown' works very well for many - but it could, to some, sound fragile, elusive, fixed, precious.

Here is what I use as a Clown State Process. I like people to have a 'before and after' so they can notice the changes for themselves. So I use a process of steps. On and off. In and out.

Normally when teaching Clown, right at the start, I get people to look into the eyes of the other - 'looking and seeing, making a connect'; but for the purposes of this process (the first several steps, at any rate), participants are invited to look only at objects and surfaces in the room.

1/ The instruction is: 'See things with potentially equal enthusiasm'. With the proviso that enthusiasm is not required, only a predilection, a favouring towards enthusiasm. Different things affect the clown differently - some things disappoint, some bore, some disturb, some are unexpectedly fascinating.

Participants are set off to do this task, then after about a minute I say 'stop doing that'. Participants then share in pairs. In plenary: Did they notice a change? Did they see anything that surprised them? Did they like anything? Did this feeling arise spontaneously? Did anyone have a problem? Trouble shoot.**

2/ As above, using the whole head to look - the eyes rest in their sockets.

3/ As above, but the whole torso moves to each new direction. If this starts to feel robotic, then stop and return to the head only. 

4/ As above, with mouth open. (It's not a rule and does not need to be open all the time but it has an opening effect). Do for 45 seconds or a minute, then I again give the instruction: 'Stop doing that'.

Pair share to discuss experience. Plenary: trouble shoot. An example problem: some people don't like the 'stupid'* feeling that can visit when the mouth is open (or that comes with 'ears' below). On the other hand many love it and find it liberating. I remedy by giving an alternative such as the Genius Spark (see below). Brain chatter? If student experiences the inner narrative voice - return to step 1; if student experiences the Inner Critic voice, use the thought cancelling Homer Simpson 'Doh' or Goofy 'Unhuh!' mantras. Feel you have to be happy? - remember the full explanation of instruction 1. Feeling stilted or too normal? - did you leave out an emotional reaction? Were you bored or disappointed and did you try to push that emotion away / cover over it? ​It's great when emotions arise. Give emotions a sound and a shape. That's what the audience loves and benefits from - the humanity of the clown.

Some feel frustrated that this is a standing exercise - they want to run and touch - excellent, they can do that later! - for now, appreciate the spontaneously arising power of that incitement / compulsion as a gift of the Clown State!

Again the main points are:
that this is a different way of being to our everyday out-on-the-street 'normal';
that emotions and thoughts arise spontaneously;
that there can be Curiosity, Wonder, a sense of play or a meditative quality or a new level of feeling/sensing.

5/ All of the above plus Optional Added Extra: 'Think about your ears a lot'. If this instruction gets in the way, ignore it. Many find this hilarious or a beautiful and unexpected and almost magical lift to their awareness. I owe this instruction to the amazing teacher Monika Pagneaux.

Sometimes at this point I get people to take one tiny step out of that state. Sometimes I say 'step back like a hand coming out of a glove'. This is so that people can 'taste' the difference between the accruing state and the default composure of the self.

Stepping in and stepping out is a technique I learned from Mollie Guilfoyle, as applied in her mask and character work. 

'Now step back in ... and make that 70% more vivid ... 90% more viivd ... adda sound, add a little movement with an elbow or a knee ... And gently step out again ... see how it was all there for you?
Stepping in and stepping out gives people and experience of Clown State as Altered State and also as something easily accessible. It can help people grow the facility to fully enter at speed, when needed.

I used to stop there - pair share and plenary trouble shoot, then have people re-enter the state and go on to ...

6/ 
Gently focus your attention on the undersurfaces of your body (see Avner the Eccentric's Principles). Use the underside of your feet, chin, armpits and also the lower surfaces of the inner organs, the brain and the eyeballs! Use the Hara.

7/ Somehow you begin to notice there are other beings in this room... no need to rush, take plenty of time to look. Looking is free. Allow yourself to have whatever emotion is there in the moment (with no obligation to name it). Emotions are all just passing through - emotions will come and emotions will go. This is common Clown teaching but I like that it relates to The Sedona Method as well.***

Might there be something about some aspect of another's clothing or hair that you think is genius? No need to invent it - but be open to the possibility.

Might there be something about some aspect of another's clothing or hair that maybe freaks you out a little bit? No need to invent it - but be open to the possibility.

What's it like to be part of this group?

What's it like to be seen by this group?

If there was a sound in this moment, what would it be? 1,2,3, GO.

Gently return to seeing objects and surfaces. 

Step out of the state and return to whoever the heck you thought you used to be.

Pair share and plenary check-in.

I take care to point out that this experience is not a delineation of their clown (or their nascent clown) but simply an experience - one particular immersion into State on this particular day / in this particular moment.

Over time I have added a couple of extras or alternatives. I also mention to the group that there are too many instructions for any one moment - they are free to be open to allow the instructions to come in and out of consciousness in each moment. 

8/ Close your eyes and imagine, that just infant of you is your Clown Heart. Go with your intuition - give it a shape and colour - allow this to occur to you intuitively, accept what you receive. Is it an anatomical heart? A cartoon heart? Is it made of candy floss? Is there a circus band / samba or salsa band playing in your heart?
Now step forward and make the heart part of you - or scoop it in with your arms. Breathe in to it. Notice how you feel. Slowly open your eyes and check that you can still feel it. Take a little run around the room. You still see from your eyes but it's as if you are seeing with your heart. 
Troubleshooting: In the instance where someone feels some sadness when imagining the heart, it's good to remember that for clowning it is good to bring both your joy and your sorrow. If using the heart is not working for you, can focus instead on your Hara. Or you can  wrap any sorrow in a pink cloud. Whatever is going on for the clown, their love for / community with the humans in the audience sustains them beyond their own tragedy.

9/ About 3 inches or 7 cm above the crown of your head is a spark. That is your Clown Genius (a good antidote /alternative to those who dislike feeling 'stupid').

10/ Another process that is helpful to people is the Funny Bone. Close eyes and imagine that somewhere in your body is your 'Funny Bone'. Go with the intuition of the moment. If you've chosen your left kneecap, great. Or might it be an imaginary free-floating bone in the shape of a dog biscuit?  Find a space and all ow your Funny Bone to choreograph you. Start gently, but build your reuse and enjoy discovering moves inspired by your FB! On my workshops I play this music for the dancing. If you are in a group, fine partner and share your moves with them. Hand the focus back and forwards - be astonished, appreciative of your friend's inspired moves! Travel through the room together.

11/ Radiate - expand your sense of self beyond your own skin - maybe imagine a pink cloud. I have begin teaching The Sponge. Imagine your whole body is a sponge. Move round the room absorbing the vibe if the air, the objects and surfaces in the room. Stop and notice how it felt. Do it again.

Pick and Mix 
Obviously one cannot think of all these at once, feel free to test and try, find what works for you and / or  to allow the mind to switch between them.

Stepping In and Stepping Out
​Respect Clown State. As you immerse into clown state, every so often step out: in the room I give the instruction: take a step out to one side, glide out, like a hand gliding out of a glove. Notice the 'normal' of performer's 'neutral' a well-balanced position of alignment and settled breath. Notice the difference and step back in. Once you've done this a few times you can access Clown State just by Stepping In. When doing exercises in a room. Enter Clown State, and when the exercise is done, either exit the performing space and/or turn you back and 'step out'. This helps beginners know Clown is an altered state than can be entered and then stepped out of. 
Stepping out was invented by Susan Bloch. See her book.
​Those who do my Alchemy of Archetypes course will know I use it there. It's also helpful for the Dark Clown work, too. 

John Wright's Bafflement exercise 
Thanks to Holly Stoppit and Robyn Hambrook's wonderful Clown workouts initiative, I got to hear about a method John Wright uses. It's called 'Bafflement'.
​Here is the how-to: Think of the area on the back of your head. This helps you into a wider brain function than the everyday reality that likes us to keep our brains in the language- and logic-based neo-cortex (I am not a scientist, but at a metaphorical level, this seems to feel right/useful). Put your attention on the back surface of your head, now use this mantra: 'I don't know what I'm doing and it's ok.' Try it, then go play!

To Nourish Your Clown
a. Try the wonderful Holly Stoppit's Clown Paradise journey.
b. Or try this exercise - I call it: 'A World of Possibility' - get into Clown State and look into the air - use your intuition and see and opening - is it a window? open it and climb through - find yourself in a room or environment - is it all made of grass? Or is it full of marshmallow furniture? stay as long as you like, then look again and see an opening (maybe it's a curtain or a door or a porthole - maybe sometimes you see a ladder or a trapdoor) each portal takes you to another environment. The final door or portal brings you back into the room you started in - stay in Clown State as you look at the space you are in afresh - how does it seem now? Take all the time you need to 'return' to the room. And when you are ready, step out of clown state.  When I do this in a room, I use this music. (It's a wonderful album, consider buying it - I did).

General conditions for Clowning and 'Life-full-ness'
Before getting to this stage I use numerous games and instructions to release tension, prime the body and breathing, to get people connected and people into open play state and to find a simplicity in their physicality. 

Many of these instructions I received from the amazing movement teacher Monika Pagneaux, when she was working with Philippe Gaulier. Monika works with Feldenkreis technique and has collaborated with Peter Brook - but also has her own unique rich and fulfilling processes to bring bodies and spirits to what she calls 'lifefull-ness'.

* I often say that the Clown's 'stupidity' is an alternative intelligence.
​** There are many extra observations, distinctions and teaching points around all this - these are the bare bones of the process which works for 99.998 percent of the people I have taught.
*** The Sedona Method book is on my useful book list, which I am continually updating and which I share with workshop graduates.

There often comes a point in a Clown & Dark Clown workshop when someone says: 'It's really dark, isn't it?'

Well, yes.

Once a participant on a workshop blurted: 'But this is Horror!!'

I replied: 'Yes, Horror - but Horror plus the skilful application of rhythm, contrast, timing, musicality and audience awareness in the service of creating, for the audience, the troubled laughter (which can potentially help them question the nature of humanity and which can help them experience a certain kind of catharsis).

When I say 'Horror' - I don't mean stabby-stabby- scariness but horror in the sense of an opportunity to see an depiction of humanity suffering under oppression (force); to see a human-being stripped of dignity and stripped of all but the most appalling choices. These, sadly, are things which have happened, and which, sadly, continue to happen daily in our strange and troubling world.

When I say catharsis...In Tragedy, the catharsis is delivered via the experience of pity and fear, or compassion and dread. Perhaps it goes like this?: pity and fear being experienced by the watcher - and embodied to a degree by this audience member whose breathing and heartbeat are affected by the visuals, music and action of a well-produced Tragedy - through this act of embodiment, might pity and fear move towards the higher vibration of compassion and dread?

Some describe catharsis as purification, but F.L. Lucas (so my friend Wikipedia tells me), believes 'purging' to be a better word. Purging is unpleasant but good (I think of a documentary I saw where monks were successfully treating drug addicts by, as a first stage, giving them a herbal concoction which caused a lot of vomiting). It seems to me that in therapy, the aim is not solely intellectual clarification, but a change for the whole being. Certainly Arnold Mindell and Dina Glouberman use physical movement in their practice, seeing it as being beneficial to bring stagnant or stuck energies into view and into flow. In my experience, the juddery laughter that we aim to create in the audience of Dark Clown work can provide a literal 'shaking up', a shifting of energy. Wikipedia quotes the scholar F.L. Lucas in Lucas, F. L. Tragedy in Relation to Aristotle's Poetics, p. 23. Hogarth, 1928: "In real life," he explained, "men are sometimes too much addicted to pity or fear, sometimes too little; tragedy brings them back to a virtuous and happy mean."Tragedy is then a corrective; through watching tragedy, the audience learns how to feel these emotions at proper levels." Those last italics are mine - the 'proper levels', I like this. Is the fall of a tear the 'proper' response to horrific events? As I say in the soon-to-be-released Dark Clown Documentary 'Taking Laughter to the Limits', the absurd and obscene events of horrific torture regimes seem to be better matched* by the shocked 'bwah huh huh', the sob-like laugh which is the aim of the Dark Clown work.

It is natural that attending a workshop can bring some fear - and in the case of the Dark Clown work, some people may feel fear once they start to see the depiction of human suffering. Fear that they shouldn't be watching it? Fear that they might fall into it? Fear that they won't be able to bear it? Fear that a depiction of suffering is being associated with laughter? This last fear can arise quite naturally, at an instinctive level, prompted by human decency and compassion. That is why I take care to repeat a number of times that the intention the work is not to laugh at suffering or at those who have suffered, but to provide an opportunity to witness that suffering in a context where laughter is produced - and a specific kind of laughter - not the released scot-free laughter often prompted by the Red Nose Clown, but Troubled laughter. I believe (or hold the possibility**) that laughter (even the Troubled kind) can serve the flow of feelings. The Troubled laughter is not a 'laugh at' but a laugh springing from the helpless witness (we are usually surprised into laughter***) and containing a healthy experience of shame (I recently looked for a list of negative emotions and found this website, where Karla McLaren makes a helpful distinction between 'applied' or 'foreign shame' and 'appropriate' shame). 

The very nature of laughter is movement and breath. The experience of trauma has been linked to the experience of immobility (read Peter A Levin's books 'Waking the Tiger' and 'In an Unspoken Voice'). 

I have faith in the power of human expression (not acting out, but 'authentic' - this can be a difficult word - expression). I believe that theatre practice has the ability to help dedicated practitioners open to more of humanity in general and to their own humanity - in all its complexity.

Recently I have had two invitations to offer the Dark Clown work in a personal development context. Despite my interest in personal development and in the developmental aspects of Dark Clown work and theatre practice in general; that direction is not for me.  I am not a trained therapist and have no appetite to be one. I prefer to work with people who are on a trajectory which goes beyond but includes personal development. When we work within the discipline of and commitment to theatre practice, we realise, or are taught that opening the self is necessary, and that a healthy curiousity and courage to encounter the full breadth of humanity is part of the journey with the work. When leading a Clown & Dark Clown workshop****, I aim to hold the space for the Dark Clown work with hygiene, professional discipline, specificity, compassion, and the joy that comes from courageous play. Plus a healthy sense of humour. Humour for our human failings, for our ridiculous plight. I like this quote: “The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” - Mark Twain. And I have long admired writer Kurt Vonnegut, who had known personal loss and pain and who had also survived the horrific bombing of Dresden. He would describe terrible things then leave a line and then write: 'Heigh ho.'


*in the NLP sense of 'matching' 
** thank you Grayson Perry: 'Hold your beliefs lightly.'
*** is this a useful distinction with evil laughter? Is evil laughter a laughter, not of surprise, but of relish, of intent, of geeing the self on to unkind deeds?
**** Dark Clown work is taught at the first level in the Clown & Dark Clown Course – Clown work (openness, rhythm, rules of laughter, audience awareness & audience engagement plus the experience of a shared play atmosphere for the group) prepares the ground for the Dark.  Advanced Dark Clown Courses are in development and will be available to Clown & Dark Clown course graduates.