Clowning around in Barcelona
Art & Culture, Barcelona, Travel
Barcelona has become a haven for those who take their clowning seriously, and US-born clown Jango Edwards is spreading the message through clown courses and workshops.
By Lucy Ribchester
‘Clown is failure,’ says Chris Mitchem, co-founder of Barcelona-based theatre company Clownfish. ‘What makes a good clown is the ability to accept failure.’ I hope he’s right. My attempt to attend the first day of Clown Theory, a five-day course run by US-born clown Jango Edwards, is a bit of a disaster. The workshop, Jango says, will make you ‘remember everything you forgot’, and is based on re-learning the innocence we are all born with. Jango, whose past audiences include the Rolling Stones and Salvador Dalí, is convinced anyone can become a clown. He’s had all sorts from taxi drivers to journalists take the course, and even persuaded an Italian policewoman to give it a go while she was giving him a speeding fine. She now directs a show with him called 00Clown, ‘where she plays a cop.’
His partner, Cristina, tells me to come to the Poble Espanyol site at 5pm and give my name at the gate. Unfortunately I misunderstand the directions and end up at completely the wrong theatre banging on the door for ten minutes. I have failed to find my first clown lesson. If clown is failure, I’m doing a pretty good job.
Barcelona may be more famous for its architecture and art than red noses and slapstick, but it has a surprisingly vibrant history of clowning. Charlie Rivel, the 20th century circus clown who appeared in Federico Fellini’s film I Clowns, came from Cubelles in the Barcelona province. In 1993, the organisation Payasos sin Fronteras (Clowns without Borders) was set up in Barcelona, and has since enchanted children living in refugee camps and developing countries from Palestine to Latin America. Then, in 2001, Barcelona-based clown Pepa Plana set out to showcase female clowning with the International Festival of Female Clowns that takes place in Andorra every two years.
More recently, clowns from overseas have been settling in the city – Jango Edwards is originally from Detroit and Clownfish’s Chris Mitchem comes from Cardiff. Clownfish manages the production rights to a number of shows, including open-air physical theatre troupe Kamchátka, who are now undertaking a tour of Europe. Many of the city’s artists are working on raising the profile of adult clowning to show that clowns are not just for children. It seems to be working. Pay a visit to the funky Almazen theatre in the Raval neighbourhood, and as well as music and theatre there is a regular post-watershed slot given over to the genre of ‘Clown’. They are even showcasing clowns at their ALMaritím festival in the city’s Museu Maritím.
Luckily I manage to find the theatre school the next day. I’m not sure what to expect from a four hour Clown workshop, but it definitely doesn’t include ending up with no trousers and a biro taped to my nose whilst running around the room, although as fate would have it that is how we finish the day.
It actually starts off gently – we play some warm-ups (and by golly it is warm in the Barcelona heat), involving dancing with various body parts stuck together: palms, heads, backs. By the time we have all worked up a lather, Jango instructs us to lie down on our backs, and then tells us we are spoons in his kitchen drawer. With eyes closed, the seventeen of us, all strangers, are treated to his rendition of The Carpenters’s ‘Close to you’, only he substitutes the lyric ‘they long to be cucharas (spoons) like you’. It’s surreal, but strangely soothing. In fact the whole workshop is governed by a sense of play and freedom. There’s miming to bands, trying to pick up a bottle with closed eyes, and clown birthday parties. Which is not to say the tone is always light. Jango Edwards takes clowning seriously, and when it comes to his view on the need for laughter in the world there is no holding back.
‘We live in a fucked up world,’ he tells us, ‘the more I see humanity the more I worry it’s not going to make it.’ He recounts one of his sketches: a man finds a letter from his wife telling him she is leaving him for his best friend, taking their son, re-mortgaging their house, emptying their bank accounts, and has left him cornflakes in the fridge for his supper - although he has to buy the milk himself. He tries to kill himself, but every method fails. ‘The bullet falls on the floor, the rope hurts…this guy is so pathetic he can’t even kill himself. The sketch lasts eight minutes and people laugh. But,’ he says, ‘the fact of the matter is that every 35 seconds in Europe alone, someone tries to kill themselves, and that is not fucking funny.’
Clownfish too have a portfolio that indicates there is no subject too dark to be tackled by clowns. One of their children’s shows, Tira Tira, deals with child exploitation. A boy who works in a factory is convinced by his talking tools that he should be out playing instead of making tracksuits. Mitchem recalls one performance where ‘a man stood up and said “This is outrageous, you can’t show this to children, because this doesn’t happen.” And our response was, “why don’t you go down to the market on Sunday morning? Because you’ll see an awful lot of children working there”. Which is not quite as extreme as in developing countries, but I think children should know… why deny that truth? There are children that are being exploited constantly all over the world.’
Back in the workshop we do an exercise where we have to smile for 60 seconds. Afterwards, when asked to give feedback on how it feels, the general consensus is that it hurts. This depresses Jango. He wonders if, had we been made to look miserable for 60 seconds, it would hurt so much. ‘The problem with life is that we don’t smile enough. This [a smile] is free. That’s where your clown starts. This is not a weapon of mass destruction. It’s a weapon of mass construction.’
The workshop is conducted bilingually in English and Spanish, although the exercises are mainly movement based. There’s a fair few actors in the group, and some of the participants already have experience in the world of clown, but there are also a few surprises. A Catalan doctor is taking the course to help improve his relations with patients. Then there’s Rino with his tattoos and shaved head, who used to work in the fashion industry but quit two years ago to become a clown. ‘Clown is a drug,’ he says, ‘everywhere in the world the emphasis is on being perfect, but clown is the opposite of perfect.’
One of the big drives amongst Barcelona clowns at the moment is to get more women recognised for their work. Chris Mitchem says that Clownfish’s main project is female clowns: ‘I think there’s a tenderness to the female clown that a male clown finds difficult to find’. One of the Clownfish shows is Las Gallegas (the Galicians), a blackly hilarious double act set at a funeral and performed by Lola González and Coral Ros. Although they’ve recently been enjoying success at the Teatreneu in the city’s chi-chi Gracia district, according to Coral Ros there is still ‘a world to discover’ for female clowns. ‘It’s an unknown planet.’
Jango is similarly passionate about giving women the confidence they need to perform. ‘Women make the best clowns,’ he confidently asserts. But he believes they have been kept from recognition by fear and lack of confidence in performing. ‘Men have been using you as a joke. It’s time to fight back.’
There is something empowering about the liberation that unfolds in the room towards the end of the day. Everyone has been asked to bring something they can use as a false nose – anything except a genuine false nose. People have brought clothes-pegs and brillo pads, and a striped sock. I improvise with the inside of a biro and some sticky tape. We are about to be re-born as clowns, and experience our first birthday under clown rules, which involve fun, play, cooperation and no one being left out. Other than that, there are no instructions. By the end of it we should be some way to discovering our inner clown. It starts off as a slow exploration of bodies, as we writhe around on the floor like newborns, but soon anarchy erupts and everyone starts taking off their trousers. There is a moment when I hesitate to brandish my milk-white thighs and fuchsia pants to a room full of unknowns, but once the decision is made there is nothing for it but to launch myself into it. And it’s fun tearing around the room like a toddler.
By the end of the workshop, I feel like I’ve been in a group therapy session, and without a doubt it’s helped me remember some of the chaotic innocence of physical play. I’m some way to understanding why Jango seems so un-flappably happy as he cavorts around the room, calling us all his children. He’s been practising this for a long time. Although I’m not sure I’ve quite found my inner clown yet, I am smiling for the rest of the day, and it doesn’t hurt a bit.
Jango Edwards’s Clown Theory workshops run on a frequent but ad-hoc basis, and usually cost around €160 for 5 days (depending on the venue). For information and contact details, visit www.jangoedwards.net
The Almazen theatre in Raval runs a regular programme of Clown events www.almazen.net
For information on Clownfish productions including the Kamchátka tour www.clownfish.es