Disaster strikes

August 1, 2022

Day 1 of Clowns at Gaulier Well, this week hasn’t started off great. In fact, it’s started off badly. I went into the school in the morning, thinking that I had a mild cold following too much end-of-course partying on Friday… To discover to my horror that I tested positive for Covid (we do tests

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A deep dive on the feeling of rejection & bouffon

July 31, 2022

Reflection after Bouffons course at Gaulier. If you were to ask me what I’ve learned so far over the last 4 weeks, I’d list a bunch of insights and ideas around on-stage performance skills. But an emotional theme to my experience? My top candidate is: Rejection. Why rejection? Of all the mental and emotional ups

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“You’re too sad” and other emotions

July 30, 2022

End of Bouffons at Gaulier It’s the end of the second 2-week course. Just one more course to go. For many people, Bouffons has been very confusing. So many people this week have said, “I still don’t really get what ‘Bouffons’ is.” Myself, I feel like I have a good idea of it. Not a

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The crushing confusion of uncertainty

July 28, 2022

Day 9 of Bouffons at Gaulier. One thing I’ve learned about myself in these past couple of weeks is that I am not comfortable with uncertainty. I’d go further than that. I’d say I function extremely badly with uncertainty. The more uncertain things are, the worse I function. When I know what’s going on, I

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Parody requires emotional distance

July 26, 2022

Day 7 of Bouffons at Gaulier I’ve gone a bit off the rails with my summaries of the learning this past week. I’m not going to lie– I mean, why would I lie? I never do, I’m compulsively honest… something that is actually an issue here at Gaulier where lying is “part of the game”

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Being ugly while being beautiful

July 22, 2022

End of week 1 Bouffon at Gaulier. This week has gone extremely quickly. By which I mean, I’ve not written up my experiences at the end of each day. A lot has happened since my past post a few days ago. I’ll write a proper summary of the week over the weekend, but the overriding

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“Don’t criticize yourself. That’s my job.”

July 19, 2022

Day 2 of Bouffons at Gaulier. One thing Philippe Gaulier is famous for is “making people cry.” This is something I’d heard a few times before coming here. But what does it actually mean when someone cries (or otherwise responds with strong emotion, like anger) as a response to one of his insults? Today, we

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Do you feel lovable to the audience?

July 18, 2022

End of day one of Bouffons at Gaulier I got a bit of a break today. Well, I say break. I took some chances today and was rewarded by some concerted stage time – a little personal workshop for a few minutes. Which, I felt, was nice of Philippe. For the first time, I felt

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An incomplete summary of Le Jeu

July 18, 2022

A reflection on the whole course of Le Jeu at Gaulier. Today, I’m heading into week 3 here at Gaulier. And that means we’re moving onto a second of the 2-week courses: Bouffons So before my brain gets blasted with a new firehose of teaching, it makes sense to reflect a little on what I’ve

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