Desert Trailer

We are very pleased to publish the trailer for our clown show 'A Day in the Desert' ...Ah.  Clown.  Such a wonderful art form.

Day in the Desert from Jenine Collocott on Vimeo.

The skin of an Elephant

Grahamstown is done.  National Schools Festival is over.  969 Festival is finished.  Life is quietly returning to normal.  So yes.  All that happened.  We did our clown show... 'A Day in the Desert'...  Barbara Draeger came all the way to South Africa... we hired a harp.  And worked for hours and hours in our - brand new - studio.  It was wonderful.  And intense.  And a whole load of fun... discovering new things.  Making necessary links...  All the while remaining true to the work - and the clowns.  The show was met with wildly mixed responses.  As red nose theatre clown is bound to do.  But because it so vulnerable - and honest - it is quite difficult - for us - and perhaps for some audience members too.  I don't know.  What I do know is I don't have a thick skin.  Sadly.  Or happily.  I'm not sure...  One thing is for sure - It was worth it.

Barbara and I as Fiona and Andromeda...
Pictures taken by Dean Hutton

The first obstacle - for me - was performing for Nick.  Ah.  Terrifying.  Nick was our outside eye... guiding us in the process of turning two 10 minute disjointed pieces into a cohesive 40 minutes.  These initial two scenes were developed while Barbara and I were studying together in Italy at the theatre school Helikos - and these scenes were the reason why we wanted to develop this work further.  But we needed help.  So Nick came on board to help.  Which was brilliant.  And he was brilliant.  He totally came with us into our world and helped us.  At the end of Grahamstown he said to Barbara that he's realised that you cannot watch Clown with you head... you have to watch it with your heart.  Gr.  That was moving.  Giovanni says that all the time when creating new work with clown.  The head can get in the way and spoil it...  You have to be very careful.

But yes...  Back to performing.  Wow.  That was hard.  Really hard.  But in this time I made a small - but perhaps important - realisation...

Giovanni Fusetti (Director of Helikos) often talks about the fact that the clown is already dead... so when you are on stage, just go for it... because, what with being dead already, you can't actually die... so you have nothing to lose.  And during this time of performing for Nick (who has never seen me perform - and clown is a bit of baptism by fire)...  I thought about this alot  'the clown is already dead... so just go for it.'  A mantra going over and over in my head.  What does it actually mean!?  But somehow thinking about it helped me 'to just go for it.'

And then one day I thought...  It means that naïvety is dead.  Once you have looked through the window and seen the world for all that it is, innocence is gone.  Naïvety is dead.  So the clown, who is necessarily naïve, is dead.  So go for it.  And people will either come with you.  Or they won't.  Perhaps this is what Giovanni means... perhaps not.  But either way it helped me just go for it... firstly for Nick and then the audience...

Because the most important thing about clown (and perhaps all theatre) is to 'play'...  As there is not much else.  There is no set... no cleverly written script and so on.  The key theatrical principles of clown - there are many i'm sure, but i'll name four here...

1.  Stay in the 'state of play' (rhythm, body shape, resonance)...
A clown is not a character, but a persona... there is a certain frequency at which the clown vibrates and if you hit that... play follows.  If you don't and you start acting.  It's over.

2.  Maintain contact with the audience always...
The audience is actually there.  And clown lives simultaneously right in front of the audience and in the imagined world.  So look for the ones who are are laughing or who are watching with their eyebrows up... and perform for them.

3.  The space matters the most...
Where are we?  Is the audience with us in the desert or amongst the starts?  That comes from intention... how you treat the theatrical space.

4.  The story is bigger than you...
It has to be.  You are in service of the story.  And if this is true you can hold your centre and play.

So when you 'go for it' these are the principals / disciplines that can help... 1, 2, 3, 4 little things I had to remind myself of often...

...even when you can see the odd audience member is clearly thinking 'What are they doing!?'  ...with their eyebrows down.  The line between the sublime and the ridiculous is sometimes incredibly thin.  And it is this that makes the work so risky.  And perhaps it is this that also makes it worth while.  So you have to try and focus on the audience members who you can see are thinking 'What are they doing!?' ...with their eyebrow up... their eyes a little wider... their mouths slightly open... with the look of a childs delight... Because for a brief moment they are remembering their own naïvety.  For it too is dead.  And that can be moving for some people.

So yes.  Here are a few lovely responses to the show...

We won an award.  Yay.  A Standard Bank Encore Ovation Award.  So that was nice.  We are now an 'award winning show!'

A few people saw the show twice in Grahamstown and in Joburg at the 969 Festival.  And that was delightful.  And encouraging.

We received a wonderful email from an audience member who was touched deeply by the work and wanted to understand how we 'developed the characters' and asked about our 'research process'... which is totally interesting that somehow she knew that these were not just characters from a bank of characters.  Discovering 'your clown' is to discover what is uniquely you - and uniquely funny about you.  And this can come from - and often does come from - our deepest wounds.  Our most hidden insecurities.  It is a most fascinating, fun, and often quite traumatic, process.  I wrote about it while I was in Helikos.  And then I wrote a bit more about 'Clowns in Life' (which is what this show is...)

Then Barbara was in a coffee shop buying tea when a young girl who saw the show at the Schools Festival said... 'Thank you for making this show.'  That was moving for Barbara - as she didn't swoon or say it was the best thing she'd ever seen... she simply said thank you.

And finally Robyn Sassen wrote a wonderful review for us... "...Suddenly, sitting in the audience, you are four or five years old, and the matter of giving a creature in distress your most precious possession to show him that you love him is perfectly acceptable. Suddenly the interplay between harp, space ship and a pot of tea is so profound that nothing else really matters."

Barbara has returned home.  A new show is in the world.  And this marks the beginning of what will hopefully be a very long journey.  x Thank you Barbara Draeger.  Thank you Nick Warren.  Thank you Giovanni Fusetti.

A Pinch and a Punch

A pinch and a punch it's the first of the Grahamstown Festival month!  ... and Barbara with Andromeda Andromeda's helmet and Fiona's fluffy purple hat arrives in 11 day's time... jetting in from Munich to Joburg to Grahamstown to Joburg and back...  And in that time the National Arts Festival, the National Schools Festival, and the 969 Festival... with 'A Day in the Desert'  ...waaa!  A very BIG thank you to Giovanni Fusetti and Matteo Destro of Helikos International School of Theatre Creation for very kindly lending Fiona her precious hat - without which she is quite naked.

(see full image)

Luggage tag with which to travel

It is nearly time to start getting things printed for the Grahamstown festival... and here is our flyer for 'A Day in the Desert.'  Isn't it cute!  A luggage tag - with which to travel to the imagined world. 

Something to remember

There are as many clowns as there are human beings.  There is one way to stand, and infinite ways to fall.  Intelligence is limited.  Stupidity is infinite.  ~ Giovanni Fusetti

Something to remember as we ready ourselves for 'A Day in the Desert.'

(see full image)

A Day in the Desert

I went to Florence and met a German clown who can play the harp, and now that harp-playing-clown, Barbara Draeger, is about to to come to Johannesburg to make a brand spanking new show called 'A Day in the Desert' with me. How exciting? Yay. We will be performing it at this years Grahamstown Festival. How totally scary.

I have spent so much time thinking about how to 'sell' the show. Selling... grr. How I wish people would just buy it without us having to sell it. Selling theatre. Rough. But the biggest question or obstacle is the theatrical style. You say clown and people think circus, balloon animals, tripping tricks and bad children's theatre. You say physical theatre and people ask.. so do you talk?  

So... it is clown a show - But there are no balloons involved. It is physical theatre because we change space - But we do also talk. Quite a lot. About what we think is quite important. I tried calling it magical realism... which is also true. But in the end honesty is the best option. And those who come to see our madness will come and see our madness... and possibly - hopefully - be a little changed - a little effected - because of it. Or not. Who knows. Take a risk. Eee. 

So there you have it. A brand new clown show will be born in a cold June 2013 in what will be our brand new studio. Here's to red noses and a harp in an epic adventure with Andromeda Andromeda and Fiona van der Walt. 

This is our poster designed by Barbara's very talented sister Kathrin. So lovely. 

How scared am I? Very. But looking oh so forward to hosing you - Barbara Draeger - in our home and in our country. 

I take tremendous comfort in these writing rules below to turn our 'little show' to be a 'bigger little show' ...without loosing why we love it and why we want to tell the story in the first place. Especially no 4. Writing rules by Emma Coates, Pixar’s Story Artist...

1. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
2. You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
3. Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
4. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
5. Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
6. What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
7. Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
8. Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
9. When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
10. Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
11. Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
12. Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
14. Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
15. If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
16. What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
17. No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
18. You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
21. You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
22. What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.