Giovanni Fusetti
| You can't think your way to right action. You can only act your way to right thinking.David Milch |
THE TAO OF CLOWN
22 September, 2016 → 25 September, 2016 - Portland, Oregon, USA
A poetic journey of
Awareness through laughter
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Welcome to a unique adventure, in which poetry meets healing and your personal clown will reveal some aspects of your own crazy wisdom.
A human being, alone in front of the audience, a Red Nose, the smallest mask in the world. No costume, no text, no devised actions, nothing: the emptiness, the simple silent presence… Suddenly a gesture appears: a spontaneous movement, an emotion, a sound… The audience recognizes something profoundly human and the miracle of laughter is there: the mysterious gift of all clowns.
The Clown is a very personal comic state. It exists in the fullness of the present moment: in this state of being without doing, the person touches the richness of the “here and now” and becomes aware of her/his way of being in contact with the world.
In this letting go of all intentions s/he touches the magical “poetry of the ridiculous”: to play with one’s uniqueness, to laugh at oneself, to laugh with oneself, transforming fragility, imperfections, wounds and contradictions into comic poetry and personal power.
Artistically, the Clown has a profound poetic potential because it allows the person to explore and play with the naiveté of the child and the rigor of the adult.
The clown is raw, pure, personal, unique, challenging, empowering, revealing, extremely rewarding. It is a fully embodied poetic form, a state of playing where everyone has access to this key question: what is so funny about myself? And the red nose as mask has the sublime power of transforming any emotion into comic presence.
The unfolding of a clown form is an exhilarating somatic process, based on the observation and amplification of the physical and emotional world of each person, as revealed by the body in space.
In terms of movement, no-body is neutral: every-body carries themes that are profoundly expressive, em-bodied in everyday movement. There is a web and physical and emotional “background noises" within each person's movement and physical presence. This web appears like painting/markings on a white sheet. They are “dramatic” in the etymological sense. They contain a drama: an action. This work of analysis leads to the discovery of a unique clown, with a specific body, tempo, voice, attitudes, emotions, and poetic world.
The search of one’s own clown is an intense and fascinating emotional journey. It’s a quest of self knowledge, that brings each person in contact with her unique way of being in the body and in space: to inhabit and play with one’s own unique physical and emotional world, to amplify it and transform it into a universal comic form.
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THE PEDAGOGY
The pedagogical approach integrates Physical Theatre with Gestalt Therapy, Bioenergetics, Taoist Principles and Process Work.
The result is a deep artistic and emotional work, involving the body in a dynamic of play, laughter and awareness. In the core of the work there is the combination of three fundamental principles.
The first two principles come from the body-oriented psychotherapy tradition, first expressed in the West by Wilhelm Reich and then explored in many different approaches:
What is not expressed by the body remains impressed in the body.
The expression of all emotions brings fluidity (flow) to the body and this fluidity brings physical pleasure.
The third comes from the ancient tradition of theatre as a ritual of connection with the powers of the human soul.
The part of ourselves that we don’t play, will play us.
Combining these principles, playing in the clown state becomes a form of knowledge, reconnection and empowerment.
So by the unfolding of the impressed energies of the body a clown will appear, and through playing this form a unique freedom and a pleasure will rise.
The Way (Tao) of clown brings a powerful insight, witnessed by the audience, and generates the ecstatic joy of being who we are, in an amazing experience of letting go of all intention (Wu-Wei).
This workshop addresses to every person wishing to experience a journey of self-discovery through the healing power of laughter. It is open to any person interested in exploring her-himself with humor and depth; to anyone involved in the arts, education, social work, health care (educators, social workers, therapists...). Theatre artists and clowns will discover a way to work with very personal raw emotional states and turn them into great physical comedy.
The emotional work will be intense and ecstatic: the body will reveal what it needs to experience and express, in a dynamic of amplification, play, letting go and insight.
Shadows, angels, demons, archetypes, physical symptoms, dreambody processes will appear and will be welcomed in the alchemical power of the group.
A strong and playful desire of diving in one’s own folly is required !
Come and walk off the cliff and discover that we don’t fall.
Actually, we are falling upward.
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SCHEDULE
Thursday September 22nd: 9:30am to 6:00pm.
Friday September 23rd: 9:30a, to 6pm.
Saturday September 24th: 9:30am to 6:00pm.
Sunday September 25th: 9:30am to 6:00pm.
LOCATION
Shout House - 210 SE Madison St., Ste 11
Portland Oregon
DIRECTIONS TO THE SHOUT HOUSE
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ENROLLMENT
Tuition
Early Bird registration: US$ 390 if deposit is sent by August 22nd.
Full Price: US$ 460 if deposit is sent after August 22nd.
Please note that tuition does not include accommodation: participants will be responsible for organizing their staying in Portland.
To apply to the workshop please send Giovanni a letter of motivation by e-mail, sharing something of the story, or the vision, or the dream, or the desire, or the fear, or the un-explicable intuition that drives you to this workshop. Once the application is accepted, applicants can confirm their enrollment by sending a $150 non-refundable deposit.
Please note that the number of participants is limited to 12.
Enrollement situation on August 25: the workshop is currently fully booked. A waiting list has been set up, in case of cancellations.
For further information about the content of the workshop,
and for applications
please contact
Picture n.1: Henri Matisse: Icarus (1947)
Picture n.2: Joan Miro: The Red Sun (1950)
Picture n.3: a clown performance at HELIKOS School of Theatre Creation, Florence, Italy, 2013
Picture n.4: Joan Miro: Blue (1961)
Picture n.5: Giovanni Fusetti in his early clown career (1970)