Clown School part 1

 

It’s been just over a week since I got back from France and my time at Ecole Philippe Gualier. It’s hard to know where to start really. I honestly have had two of the best weeks of my life and am feeling inspired and motivated. Although it was never intended on being therapeutic, 2 weeks of prancing around, eating delicious food, being silly and focusing on my craft has been far more ‘healing’ than any of my recent travel experiences. Yikes. I’m such a hippy. But good to know where I can go if I need a break from ordinary life, as apparently, it’s not the beach.

Getting there was an absolute breeze, GOD BLESS THE EUROSTAR. Honestly, I wax lyrical about it every time I take it and vow to only use it when travelling round Europe, before promptly forgetting. Well, it’s written down now. In a weird coincidence, I was sat across from one of my soon-to-be classmates. Nell did look quite arty and was writing with an actual pen and notebook, so I wondered if she was headed to the same place as me. I wasn’t quite brave enough to ask a stranger on a train if they were going to clown school.

Anyway, easy breezy and I hop off the train at Guard Du Nord. After a long queue for tickets (I’ve since learnt you can get an app, will do so next time), I get a bargain ticket for 5euro all the way to Etampes, a town south west of Paris. My cousin Jo lives in Paris, so we discussed the possibility of me staying and commuting, but everyone’s advice was to stay in the town, and I’m glad I did.

It was absolutely freezing. This was my first experience of subzero temperatures since circa Feb 2022, and it was harsh. Luckily, I had doubly checked with my booking.com hosts that the studio flat I had booked had functioning heating. Too much time in old Italian houses had taught me many lessons. Thought perhaps it’s not fair to tar the entirety of continental Europe with the same brush. I couldn’t find a taxi from the station, and the thought of walking 20mins with my suitcase made my fragile post-Aussie body sad, so luckily the hosts came and picked me up. I also arrived to discover that there was no wifi in the flat. Gasp. That’s ok, I assured them. I had a little bit of data left, and if I’m desperate, I can go to McDonalds. Of which I did instantly. When in Rome. I accidently over ordered a meal that came with ‘free’ chicken nuggets, but was pleasantly surprised to find all of the packaging plastic and reusable, you just return it to the counter. Wild.

That night, I promised myself that I wouldn’t use my precious remaining data on mindlessly scrolling social media. Whoops.

The following morning, I woke with the excitement you get on the first day of a new school/University/job. It’s the best isn’t it? I might just do this every January. Start something big and new, just to have that feeling.

I’d been sent a slightly terrifying email saying that although class started at 10:30, doors would only be open between 09:30-10:15 to enter. After which point, they’d be locked and you were not to bang on the door, ring the bell or text them as it will not open until the next break. Harsh. I do have a persistent issue with cutting things fine for this type of thing, so determined to be a new woman, I vowed to leave the house extra early every day (which I actually maintained!). Once they unlocked the doors, you had to go in, disinfect your shoes, take them off, and put on your clean indoor shoes. We also had to take a covid test. Which I passed, despite feeling like I was on the cusp of starting a cold (spoilers, I was right). We were also told not to wear any outside clothes in the studios, so I obediently changed. I didn’t really mind all the rules so much. I’m guessing they were there to keep Gaulier (now in his 80s) safe.

First up, we had movement for two hours. This is a bit like what I had done at Uni. So a mixture of playing games, prancing around and using our bodies in different ways.  The surprising addition to this was acrobatics. It was all about impulse and moving forward, you can’t chicken out of a cartwheel halfway through. Some say that the physical act of tumbling and being upside down also does something to your perspective. Ben, our teacher, said that by the end of the two weeks, many of us will be doing cartwheel round offs into supported backflips. He’d obviously not met me yet. I was very excited at this prospect as I have about as much gymnastic ability as a goldfish. First of all, we practised handstands in pairs. This was my first hurdle. I’d never really done one in my life, and never managed it at uni either. But somehow (probably with a lot of support) I found myself shrieking because I was upside down for the first time ever. We also had to practise roly-polys on mats, I wasn’t very good at this.

We also did some CRAZY trust exercises, which included people jumping off ladders backwards into our arms (I made sure I was well away from the middle with my shrew like arms) or running and leaping onto everyone’s arms.

I came out of the class absolutely buzzing. It was just like being back at uni, and I felt this side of me suddenly awake again. Oh, to be starting my day off with a game of dodgeball and thinking intently about how I should be landing a handstand. All of these things are genuinely useful for clowning and carefully curated.

The average age in my class was probably about 27 and was mainly people in their 20s and 30s. Roughly a third were British and the rest were a mix of American, South American, Aussie and European. A few actors, a few improv people like me, a couple of professional circus clowns, writers, stand ups. Everyone was so interesting. The other group was slightly more of a mix of ages I think.

In the afternoon, it was time for Improvisation aka clowning. We had to do different games and exercises, often wearing different noses/masks or wearing our red noses. A lot of the exercises involved you coming out onto stage and trying to make everyone laugh. If your funny idea didn’t work and you failed (also known as a flop), then the teacher (usually a guy called Carlos, but sometimes Philippe Gaulier himself) would bang a drum and shout ‘flop’.  At which point, you needed to redeem yourself, sharpish. This would normally lead to another flop and your final chance. If you flopped again, then either you’d be told to go and sit down, or the teacher would make some suggestions or things to try. They always did this in a playful way ‘Vicky, can you be less boring please? Who hear thinks she is boring? Put your hand up. Could you try talking in a less boring voice?’ etc etc. Most people on the course took it pretty well. I quite enjoyed it. It was truthful, no tip toeing around someone’s feelings.

As a performer, you had to be quick. Really quick. In improv, I can talk my way out of most ‘flops’ or at least have 30 seconds to save the show. Here you have less than 10 seconds and an increasingly unforgiving audience. We also did lots of exercises to practice being in a playful, almost childlike state.  The main thing of many difficult things about clowning is that you need to stop and check in with the audience all the time. A bit like when you are playing Grandma’s footsteps and you have to freeze mid game (we did play a lot of this too). This was hard, I rarely break the fourth wall in improv and stopping for a second when you’re in the zone is difficult, especially when you are trying to be as ridiculous as possible. Takes a lot of practice I suppose.

After class, we’d often head to the nearby bar/café for a hot chocolate in debrief. We’d finish at 3pm, so time for that, and to do a bit of job hunting too. I managed to not miss any job ads/applications while I was away, which I was pretty proud of. And cements my instinct that this was a good idea while I waited for employment to come along. A few of my classmates fitted in work around the course too, something I hope to do in the future perhaps.

That first evening, I ran out of data and with no way to top up, and my tablet not working, I was faced with an evening with no internet or TV for the first time in about 10 years. Gasp. The horror. I ended up writing extensive course notes and reading lots. But stopped short of getting out a loom or playing with an egg cup and ball. That night I had the best night’s sleep ever.

The next morning, there was snow on the ground and the town was looking even more twee. I don’t really like snow, because other than it’s atheistic and the fun of a snowball fight, it makes walking anywhere difficult.  And besides, I had to avoid breaking any bones, so I could go to my acrobatics class and try to do the same.

The week went by mercifully slowly (often the way with new things!), and I had lots of fun. My handstands improved and I stopped shrieking when upside down. We did this mad trust exercise where you had to run with your eyes shut and not slow down and your classmates had to catch you. We practised giving to everything to the audience and being ‘proud’. We also started to do clown exercises in pairs, practising who is in major (aka the focus) and minor. Myself and my friend Syd (who is also an improviser from LA, ooo) even managed to save ourselves from our third flop one afternoon by having a cry off and getting into a very silly fight. On stage of course.

The evenings were spent hanging out with my new found friends or living my best Edwardian life in my internet free apartment. Oh, and trying to resist the urge of buying everything from the nearby boulangerie and only eating baguettes, cheese and croissants.  It reminded me so much of when I worked for ACLE in Italy in 2015. A January spent in a random European town doing lots of comedy, playing lots of games, getting to know some interesting people from all over and not a care in the world.

We also received our costume choices from Philppe on Thursday afternoon. One by one, we’d have to turn round, try to make the audience jump by shouting boo, and then look proud. He’d then stare at us for a bit, ask some questions, then tell us our costume. Weirdest personality test ever. Luckily for me, he said I was ‘very charming’ (haha, perhaps I’ll put that on my CV), before promptly deciding I was a Viking. Probably the messy blondish hair and the fact my name began with a V. People got a range of, at times, slightly insulting costumes; an alter boy, snow white, a truck driver. But the idea was that it was just something to make you look even more ridiculous and to not let it become too much of a character. They had bits of costumes already, but encouraged you to make your own over the weekend.

And with that, I hopped, skipped and jumped my way to Jo’s in Paris for the weekend. 

Clown School- What is it and why am I going?

 

Hello! So this is a wee bonus post or two about what I am up to. And that is sat on a Eurostar on my way to Entampes, near Paris, to go to clown school.

First off, a bit about it all. So the place I am studying is called Ecole Philippe Gualier. Which roughly translates as Phil’s school. Gualier is what’s known as a ‘master clown’ and trained under Jacques Le  Coq, who also has his own school going in France. Clowning is a serious business. I’m not even joking. Think of it more like ballet or a music conservatory. Some very serious people have taken the time, over hundreds of years, to work on the ancient art of prancing around and being funny.  Much like actors spend time at drama school learning how to master controlling their bodies, voices and minds, so must a clown.

So yes, as wankey and pretentious as you can get!

Now I know what you’re thinking. Big tent, juggling balls, and a unicycle. The word clown makes most of us think of the circus, as that’s the only place we’ve heard that word associated. And while that’s not entirely wrong, as often clown acts are found there, clowning in general is so much broader. Think Mr Bean, think Sasha Baron Cohen (e.g. Ali G, Borat), think Stav Lets Flats, think of those funny videos on tiktok with people falling over. Then also think smaller, subtler, Ted Lasso or the characters in The Office.

I might be completely wrong, but my understanding of clowning is the ability of being able to react truthfully and show that to the person watching. And to find the funny.

The one stereotypical thing we probably will do, is have a red nose. The red nose is considered to be the worlds smallest mask, and for some tried and tested reason, works in most cases.

Our classes are divided into Movement and Improvisation. Movement, I expect to be very similar to what I had near daily on my undergrad degree- lots of prancing around and generally learning how to move and control our bodies, which are our main instrument in clowning. Improvisation I imagine is going to be us standing on stage with nothing around us and working out a way to keep the attention of and amuse our classmates and to ‘find the game, play the game, and recognise when the game is over’. Which ties in scrumptiously with all of my sketch and improv antics.

And to find out our ‘type of clown’. A bit like Myers-Briggs personality test or a horoscope, we can all be divided into a type. And we all have a type of inner clown. Something that makes us interesting to be watched, silly and our gut instincts. My understanding is that if we can remove our ego, then we can find this. There are a few different types; Boss Clown, Naughty Clown, Sad Clown, Bashful Clown, Angry Clown. This is all from memory from Uni and hearsay, so I'll let you know if I'm wrong.

I’ve heard all sorts of things about Gualiers teaching methods. That he really takes on the boss clown role and tells it to you bluntly- ‘you’re not funny’, ‘you’re not interesting’, ‘make me interested’. So I’m largely expecting to have two weeks of being insulted by an old man. Very French.

Now on to the why I am I doing this. It’s always been something that has seemed vaguely interesting. A few of my close friends have been to various iterations of clown schools around the world over the years. But it wasn’t until a few of my improv friends in Melbourne flew all the way to Paris to do it was my interest piqued. It makes sense to me to go right to the source, rather than having second hand information taught to me (not that I’m slagging off any other clown schools/teachers). There are two in France that are considered some of the best in Europe (if not the world)- Gualier or Le Coq. The latter requires a year or two’s commitment, where as the former does offer short courses, making it much easier to fit it around working and life in general. I was vaguely looking into doing it this summer, knowing that it would be tricky to get the time off work, when I saw this January edition of the course. I also knew that it was unlikely that I would have a job by now, of which I was correct. And it would be difficult to justify it once I'm back being a proper grown up after travelling. I'd have to chose between clown school and things like car insurance, and the former would never win. So why not self-improve whilst I was waiting.

I have no real ulterior motive here other than to get better at something that I like doing. It’s nice making people laugh, so why not try to improve. I’d be keen to go to Chicago at some point to do an improv course at the birthplace of improv too, but one step at a time.

We did do a module or two in Clowning at uni. I didn’t really enjoy it at the time, and wasn’t very good at it.

So we’ll find out if that’s changed in a couple of week’s time.

Here is a couple of links for further reading if you are interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Gaulier

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/aug/02/philippe-gaulier-clown-school-emma-thompson-sacha-baron-cohen-edinburgh-festival-interview

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/arts/television/philippe-gaulier-clowns.html