Clowning with Ignite Youth Theatre

A workshop with 20 members of Ignite Youth Theatre aged 11-17 observed by 2 adult theatre makers and 1 chaperone. Led by Richard Talbot and Kurt Zarniko

Ignite Youth Theatre is a thriving Southport based youth theatre, all about developing confidence, improving performance skills, making friends, and having fun.

Ignite Youth Theatre Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ignite_drama/

Managing persona

• gradually transform into teaching persona Kurt Zarniko. Having 'built Kurt', include moments to break the illusion as a way of 'checking in' with participants: how much will they tolerate? how long can the comic spirit be sustained?

Working with the group

• establishing who is the leader - skipping, participating myself, then withdrawing

• getting them to answer Kurt's questions as a group in unison

• speaking French to one person to manage the group /add confusion and keep attention

• skipping and jumping in unison caught their attention

  
  

Managing 'thinking' v playing

• begin active physical work immediately, and as participants are arriving

• reduce discussion time but build in time for reflection at the end

• introduce mask (red nose), the set (side screens) and some hats gradually and without a fanfare.

Working on skills that will be useful in productions

• Skipping and funny walks

• Grandmother's Footsteps - from minimum physicial size to maximum

• Flocking /socking (a flock of seagulls in retreat). I had to work with 2 groups at the same time to manage the sise fo the cohort and the energy)

• Davison's 5 stages, a mini-dramaturgy: performed between two theatre flats: enter the space (suddenly, slowly etc , solo in pairs or a group/move into the space/present something spontaneously, rehearsed, improvised - as you wish/move out of space/exit in one bound, like a yo-yo - as you wish.

• Gaulier "Prisoner" game - to develop tension, the feeling of being launched into the space from a sitting position; working with surreptitious signals from partners

  
  

Shaping scenes:

• Working in small groups and pairs, drawing laughter from high energy play and exploring (light) grotesque forms more than 'failure':

• Transpose these exercises to devising scenes in which they explode onto the stage from behind the screens

Small regrets

There was no time for unison hand clapping; for clown numbers e.g. hug/chase/hide; or refined patterns like the rhythm of head turning looking when sitting on a bench.

Outcomes

• New ways of working in persona - being less precious about breaking the illusion.

• Ways of working with young people that circumvent 'embarrassment'/awkwardness/shyness, by harnessing energy.

  
  

Future developments

Invitation to collaborate with the workshop leader on a series of workshops leading to a theatre production in October. This will be a chance to go into the comedy of the failure of theatre conventions in more detail, and to work on character and text.

Format - informal open workshops that draw out participant ideas and skills and 'end up' as a show. Rather than a pre-determined format to which participants must fit themselves.

Why was this workshop important ?

Exploring a new methodology is important for me. I am trying to build my own system that goes beyond a collection of exercises made by others that I adapt. The tenets of clowning practice can be idealistic, ethereal - what does it mean in practice on the workshop floor? Inclusive and 'messy' methods of the workshop run counter to highly regulated world in which young people are assessed closely by school and peer groups; so they offer a balance of relief from 'discipline' and raise questions about the value of discipline at a point when young people are shaping their identities and conforming (or not).

The use of persona is important here to help participants balance along and skip over boundaries between madcap silliness and transgression. Subconsciously perhaps norms that have only recently become self-regulating are threatened by the noise, outbursts, and group energy. Most young children know the boundaries of decent behaviour in the family but what happens when boundaries set by the peer-group are challenged (i.e. I invite you to be silly and more childish; to be excessive and strange).