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
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’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
