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
Back when I was here last summer – here being the Philippe Gaulier clown/theatre school, because why should you know where I am right now? – I wrote a couple of posts about being boring and the fears of social rejection. If you want to read those 2 posts, go find them for yourself! You’re
It’s Thursday, the start of the 4th day of my 6 month stint at Ecole Philippe Gaulier… and I’m now into 2 courses at once: Melodrama and Masked Play. I have things to say about both courses already, but this morning I was mulling over something else. A particular perception of Gauiler that often comes
Well, there’s nothing like an external kick up the ass to get you started with something… So, thanks to Will for asking me if I’m going blog about my experiences this time round. If he hadn’t asked me that yesterday – let’s be honest to myself – the idea would probably have gone into the
It’s been over a week since I got back from Gaulier. And I haven’t done a summary of the final Clown course… but fuck it. My basic summary is “I missed most of it due to having Covid” But what have I learned from being at famously most brutal clowning and acting school in the
Day 8 of Clowns at Gaulier Well… I’ve not written much over the last few days. Part of that is due to tiredness. Boredom – an emotion (if you can call boredom an emotion) that I spend a lot of my life struggling with. It’s a bit of a return back to the first days
Day 4 of Clowns at Gauiler (locked up with Covid and via Zoom) I’m getting used to being locked away from the class by now. I’m still not particularly happy with it, but what can you do!? Day 4 was one of those days in Philippe’s class where the students didn’t achieve what he was
Day 3 of Clowns at Gaulier (stuck on Zoom due to getting Covid) Well, today, the saga of Covid continues, as one of my classmates (also my housemate) tested positive. Which is (to vastly understate it) less than ideal. I know, I know. Covid is famously a bastard. It is excessively transmissive and can move
Day 2 of Clown at Gauiler. Today was my second day locked in my room with Covid and watching the Gauiler class on Zoom. And today, I decided I was going to gather as much as possible from the classes from my restricted vantage point behind a computer screen… Part of that meant paying much
