Jango warned us that we would experience a let down after the workshop is over, and it is true. I am feeling very much alone here in my apartment while My Kid is at school and The Husband is at work. But, thankfully, I have a performance coming up on Monday to keep my mind and body occupied. I am feeling connected to the clown community though. Last night in Soho I talked to Michael Bongar and Stanley Sherman and Jim Moore, contemporaries of Jango Edwards, who became a clown in the 1970’s, working the streets of Europe. John Towsen, author of Clowns was there too. I just got an e-mail from Kendall. Someone from Circus Cirkor playing at BAM this week contacted her to talk about clown and risk.
Speaking of risk, it was a risk to take the Jango Edwards workshop this week. Based on what I had seen on the internet, I found him offensive and scary and I was dis-inclined to take the workshop. But, Jef Johnson said that his workshops are inspirational. So I took the risk.
Jango’s aesthetic is certainly not mine, but the way he talks about the importance of clowns in the world is something I have not heard since I was last around Steve Smith. There is something wonderful about the belief that the world needs more clowns when one is a clown or a clown in training. When I was at Clown College, we were working and sweating and nursing injuries because we were trying so hard to win of the contracts to tour with The Greatest Show on Earth, kind of like So You Think You Can Dance. At the same time we were taught that it was important for us to appreciate what we had been given. It seemed a happy bit of subversive action, reflected in the promotional materials at the time, that there was as much pride in the Clown College graduates who had gone on to become doctors, teachers and lawyers as those who become name entertainers or part of Clown Alley on the Red Unit or the Blue Unit.
Steve Smith made sure that when we left Clown College, with our professionally designed agent suits and our make-up kits full of the Krylon, Mehron and Ben Nye products that worked best for our particular skin, in addition to all of the crafts and skills we had been taught by our many impressive teachers, that it was our obligation to be kind and generous to all clowns. As healthy 20-somethings who had just had the door to the corporate entertainment industry opened for us, it was humbling to be reminded to respect and appreciate the work of those who learned everything they know about clowning in a class at a senior center or at clown club conventions.
Sometimes stage and cabaret clowns and Ringling-style clowns look askance at each other’s aesthetic sensibilities, but Jango, who brings to mind Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters wants all the clowns to come together in the same community.
The way Jango used music in his workshop reminded me of the Search Weekends at the Newman Center when I was in college. After intensive days of learning and sharing we would stand in a circle with our arms around each other, tears shining in our eyes as we sang Simon and Garfunkle’s Bridge Over Troubled Water. With Jango we did the same thing, but the song was Smile, by Charlie Chaplin.
The Sunday before I took Jango’s workshop, I attended a talk about fasting and almsgiving, which are part of all the major world religions because they can lead to humility and transformation. The same can be said of a good clown.