Yesterday, in class, Gaulier did an exercise that I tend to think of as one of his “Philippe creates a Moment of Theatre”/”master puppeteer directing” exercises. This is a moment I’ve seen him create in class now many times. It usually goes like this… A student is on stage doing an exercise or a piece
I have a lot to write about that I haven’t yet! I’m now 3 weeks into Le Jeu at Ecole Philippe Gaulier (the second time I’ve done this module) Why haven’t I written? Well, partly I’ve just been having fun. A core driver here at the school is “You must feel pleasure! If you do
Hello Friend. Welcome to Earth. This planet is a weird place. Probably one of the weirdest in the entire galaxy (though don’t tell the inhabitants of Alpha Centuri I said that, as they have won “The Weirdest Planet Award” for the last millenia and they get uppity about that type of thing… but Earth didn’t
The other day, I was talking to my dad when I was having a moment of intense self-criticism about some basic life-admin thing I’d failed to do. He reflected back about the show I have just finished doing at the Edinburgh Fringe “Alex Owen-Hill Asks Himself ‘Is It ADHD?’” “You created such a loving environment
As I write this, I’m in a coffee shop… which I have been spending a lot of time in them this past couple of weeks. It’s the 20th of August 2023 and we are 2/3 of the way through the Edinburgh Fringe. It’s the first year I’m doing a solo show (at 11:15pm each night)
Don’t tell me your shitty idea… show me your dream. I do a lot of “telling people my idea” when I want to create something new. I think a lot of us do this. For instance, the other day, I was describing my show for the Edinburgh Fringe (see the performance section of this site)
A lot has happened since I last blogged about my journey here at Gaulier. So here are 3 Haiku’s to describe the journey to now: Made Bouffon breakthroughs Then broke my back while skiing Breaking momentum. An eight-week struggle Against struggling NHS Struggled being alone Now back at clown school Protected by a back brace
I have a tendency to write FAR too much in my responses to messages on social media. Why write one sentence when a whole essay would do!? Anyway, I just replied to a teacher friend’s comment on Facebook asking about negative feedback from their students. And I found it useful to write, so I’ll share
I’ve had this metaphor bubbling away for a little while as I’ve been here studying at Gaulier. It relates performing to surfing the waves. It’s about that “leap of faith” you take when you’re on stage that can take your performance from mundane to spectacular. Is it a good metaphor? I don’t know yet. How
Life is full of games. Social games. Conversational games. It turns out, I’m rather shit at understanding the rules of social games. I am, I think, an awkward person to talk to most of the time. One of the key foundations here at the Gaulier “clown/acting school” is that games are everywhere. We spend a
