Clown and mother
I awoke this morning from a strange dream where I lost my laptop while at a clown rehearsal. It was so real I looked for my laptop first thing when I woke up.
With my laptop at hand, I looked up the online application for the New York Clown Theatre Festival. I’m OK with not applying.
Friends will go see Banana Spheel tonight, the first night of previews. I looked up the cast on line. Patrick de Valette is in it! I met him at the New York Clown Theatre Festival. He’s a French street and cabaret performer and genuinely funny. I have renewed hope for that show.
I got an e-mail that makes me a little sad:
Hello NY clown community.
The Clown Revue is near the completion of its 4th year. In that time the show has met all of its initial goals and exceeded my personal expectations. In four years we have presented over 300 different clown acts! We are so grateful for the support and work that the entire community has given us. We are grateful for the amazing relationships between clown artists, audience, photographers, techies, companies, and media the Clown Revue has inspired. Thank you to everyone.
After evaluating the company’s mission as well as my personal goals I have decided this will be the Clown Revue’s final year. There will be 2 more Revue performances (February 15th, and March 15th) and 1 last Golden Nose Awards Ceremony on April 19 2010.
From the onset the Clown Revue’s goal was educational, to give NY clowns an opportunity to learn by performing and learn by observing. I have learned a lot about the art of clowning over the past four years and I hope each clown in NYC took many lessons away from the Revue. I have enjoyed watching the community grow and individuals take personal and artistic risks. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have presented the show and value each clown’s contribution over the years.
I will miss the artistic dialogue on stage every month and I will miss the gathering of community. But I look forward to the clown future that 4 years of the Clown Revue helped create.
There are still slots available in the final performances, if you want to perform let me know asap-info[at]newyorkdowntownclown.com
Thanks for your support as audience and clowns over the past four years.
Clown On!
Christopher Lueck
I am sad about this but I too am ready to move on. I attended regularly after learning about the venue at the New York Clown Theatre Festival when I first ventured out into the city on my own (without My Kid in tow). I performed on that stage with Kendall Cornell’s “Soon-To-Be-World-Famous-Women-Clowns” and with Jef Johnson’s Clownlab and on my own as a solo performer. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt (actually there isn’t a T-shirt that I’m aware of.) I will say good-bye without regret. I have not been making it to the shows as frequently as I did when I first encountered the downtown clown community. I’ve got projects of my own and people I’ve met that I work with some who I met at Downtown Clown. I will miss the bull sessions in bars after the shows. They made me feel young. But, we all move on.
A couple of weeks ago, I was on the Fort Greene Kids List, which I haven’t checked out in possibly years. The Husband did something so the posts go directly into a file, because there are so many, and I never have to see them unless I open the file.
Well, I was on the Fort Greene Kids List looking for a babysitter and I came across a call for submissions for some kind of performance showcase in the fall called Expressing Moms.
I immediately composed an e-mail.
But…
I didn’t submit it.
I wanted to imbed, or link to, or whatever to the a video of me performing at the Emerging Artists Theatre Laugh Out Loud Festival last spring and also some photos from the thing I did at the New York Clown Theatre Festival in October.
But…
Whatever supports the video took it down off of the internet because of the background music, Jimmy Durante singing “Make Someone Happy” and I didn’t know what to do about that. I didn’t know wether to send the video without sound, in which case it’s on a disk somewhere and I don’t know without assistance how to make that to be somewhere to link to from an e-mail.
And also…
I had photos from the show in the fall.
But…
I just had the disk with about a hundred images and I supposed some stranger would only be able to appreciate one or at the most two.
The Husband has been busy…
I have been busy…
Today after a couple of weeks have passed since the initial impulse to submit…
I sent an e-mail inquiry without any imbeds of photos or video or links there-to…
and got a reply…
Today…
They have just finished casting the New York show…
But,
Keep in touch!
Too bad for you…
Aghhhhh!
I suck.
Actually they said; “You would be a very unique act!”
still…
I suck.
OK I don’t suck…
But my technological skills suck.
They really do.
Really!
I never trained for the 21st century.
Last night, Jef organized a workshop with Chris Lynam, a clown who is in New York for the Broadway run of Slava’s Snowshow. It’s always good to meet new clowns. After the workshop, there were three conversations at once around the table at the diner. Jef and Chris were talking about working with Slava and working on their own work. I was talking to the only other woman from the workshop about writing and the other guys were talking about guys being goofy.
Walking to the train at the end of the evening, Chris mentioned another clown, Thomas Kubenick a Czech clown who has his own show that he tours around the world. It’s good. I’ve seen it. I met Thomas for the first time at Movement Theatre International in Philadelphia in 1990. He was at that time assisting Boleck Polivka who taught a workshop. I met him again when he showed up at the workshop I was taking with Ctibor Turba at his studio in Nectiny, Czechoslovakia (right before it turned into Czech Land–that’s what the locals called the Czech Republic–and Slovakia) I’ve been around a while, but it’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve gotten a handle on what may be my particular style…
I’m pretty much the opposite of Amy G. Chris took a call from her about a gig at a club. Organizing and coordinating are so not my thing that the passing mention of a woman I know putting together an evening of acts apparently caused me to have a nightmare. I had a dream, last night, about running a theatre space–like Annex where Allison Narver, Andrea Allen and Gillian Jorgenson have all been artistic director or the Brick where Audrey Crabtree is the face of the organizers of the New York Clown Theatre Festival. In this dream which was more like a nightmare, brought on perhaps by conversation about successful theatrical clowns and the women behind them, (I was reminded of the organized women behind the careers of monologists, Spalding Grey and Mike Daisey and cartoonist Gary Larson, not to mention the countless women who work as personal assistants, executive secretaries and stage moms (The Husband, My Kid, My Sister and I all saw Gypsy this week.) These passing bits of conversation caused me to have a nightmare about being in charge of an art space like Celebration Barn, currently run by the Amanda Huotari. In my dream there 4 toilets on the second floor that were all overflowing and unusable. The Marley dance floor in the rehearsal hall had been scrubbed with Comet by someone’s helpful visiting unsupervised mother and was now ruined… It was a nightmare.
Now, disorganized person that I am, I’ve got to hurry and help My Kid, (who is alternately yanking on my body an falling on the floor to prove the point of gross parental neglect) get dressed in a manner appropriate for both ice skating with her aunt at Rockefeller Center and hooking up at the Museum of Natural History with old Seattle Annex friends and their offspring, who are visting from Chicago.
Gotta go.
Sometimes I have dreams that are so clear and simple that when I wake up I am surprised that it didn’t really happen. This morning I awoke after one such dream.
I was sitting in a booth in a dark dive bar in Williamsburg with friends looking at a 4-page color pull-out section of the newspaper about the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Clown College Reunion taking place across the river. The feature contained a full page of yearbook-like rows of small portraits of families of clowns, parents and children in full makeup and costume. I felt sad and left out because I clown alone without my family.
This much is true: As the New York Clown Theatre Festival was taking place, there was also a reunion of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clowns hosted by Greg and Karen DeSanto in Baraboo, Wisconsin (Not Manhattan as in my dream). Jay Stewart was involved in the organization of the event. Jay is married to Kristen and they have 2 kids who perform with them sometimes. There are other couples I know, or know of, mostly former Ringling Clowns, like Tommy and Tammy Parrish who worked together on the circus and went back to the real world after they had kids. They still perform, and sometimes their kids join in the act. There is a part of me who would love to clown like that.
However, my life did not work out that way. Although I did meet my husband working in a theatre and he has an acting resume, that’s was never really his thing. He was a director and uses the skills he developed in that capacity in a management role in the real world. (So we have insurance–yeah!) The Kid we produced together hid in my arms in the kitchen when there was a clown at a birthday party. She was not at all happy when I paid attention to other children when I was a clown at her preschool’s annual fundraiser. As a dance student she refused to perform and would not even put on the little tutu for a photo with classmates.
During the recent New York Clown Festival I went to events on my own. I didn’t see as many performances as I had planned. I didn’t see many performances at all. The nights I was scheduled to be on stage involved so much planning and jumping through hoops in order for My Kid to be picked up from school and escorted to and picked up from Brownies and soccer. She requires frequent feedings and regular bedtimes. It is considered bad form for an 8-year-old to hang out with a bunch of clowns in a dive bar in Williamsburg on a school night. There were other complications. The Husband was away on a business trip for much of the festival. Although I’d visualized many evenings of passing the ball of responsibility for My Kid to The Husband the moment he walked through the door, hopping on the G-train on Lafayette and hopping off at Metropolitan for an evening of cutting edge clown performances from all over the world– that I would be able to see FOR FREE with my participants badge–followed by career promoting beer, shop talk and networking at the Lazy Catfish. Ha!. I saw one show on a night I did not perform. It cost me over $50 for a babysitter. As I was leaving, I passed Ishah Jansen-Faith on her way to the theatre. Hey are you coming back? No way. I would have had to pay the babysitter over $100 if I stayed for the free cabaret.
That’s why people put their kids in their acts.
It’s Saturday morning. My Kid and The Husband are still asleep. I haven’t had time to write at all since My Kid started school on Tuesday.
When I accompany her to school on the subway and drop her off at 8:30, I can be home by 9:30 but it’s usually more like ten. I have studio time scheduled from 12:00 to 2:00 most days (until my piece next week) and by 2:30 I have to be on my way to pick up My Kid again. A script in my head says I have all the time in the world “because I don’t work”. We were so busy I ended up ordering pizza delivery twice! The Husband has been out of town on business all week (again Paris, again without me, PARIS!). He was sad to miss The Kid’s First Day of School. I lost the morning hours I use to get myself and the apartment ready for the day. On Tuesday I was almost an hour late to my own studio time–with no one to feel guilty for but myself. I was going from bank to bank (“You have to have the number of a bank account in Paris to wire the money to.”) and making phone calls to American Express Travel Services (“Oh. No, we don’t do that anymore.”) trying to find out how to wire money to The Husband who had lost his wallet. We thought I could wire it to his hotel, but it turns out I couldn’t do that because I couldn’t call the hotel because it turns out I don’t have the international calling service in my calling plan (“Would I like stay on hold, and invent codes I will never remember and jump through other hoops to add this service now?” –“No I don’t, I’m standing in a bank, I’d have to go home to look up my husbands maiden name or serial number or whatever secret information I need to find or remember (which of course I don’t) in order change my phone service and then come back to the bank to wire the money. I’m trying to run this one errand and then get to my rehearsal studio because My Kid finally went back to school and I only have a couple of hours to work with.”)
Who knew Western Union is something done at the drugstore like dropping off film–except that you have to have a lot of cash in your hand.
Meanwhile. In the process of exchanging phone calls with The Husband in Paris (who I could talk to because we have a family plan on our cell phones) I can’t talk to anyone else in Paris and when he leaves Paris, I can’t talk to Paris at all. Sigh. What if that’s as close as I ever get to Paris….. Anyway, guess what we figured out: When The Husband called me to tell me to cancel his credit cards because he lost his wallet and I went OHMYGOD and got on the phone with the recorded voices right away!!!!!! –Well, I kinda cancelled my own credit card. Soooo. I had that to deal with as well before I could get into the studio.
I had to scramble on Wednesday to rush home between school drop-off and my rehearsal in Manhattan, to change the futon in the front room from the stuffed animal, doll and toy filled TV watching nest My Kid constructed into a bed for my puppeteer friend, Lorraine, who came to town to work on the show. I had to scramble to find another parent who could pick up My Kid afterschool on Wednesday so I could have studio time (between 2:30 and 4:30–school is dismissed at 3:00) with another clown to work on the “Contraction and Labor Dance” section of the piece. Meanwhile, I completely forgot to go to my appointment with the professional who tells me that “housecleaning is taking up too much of my mental real estate”.
Thursday. Already I don’t remember Thursday. Lorraine and I did some good work on the structure of the piece, in the studio from 12 till 2. Before we went into the studio we were talking about supplies for the Waldorf doll puppets I remembered that last year one of my neighborhood mommy friends was making a lot of felt art with bulk wool she had gotten upstate last year and I called her and she still had some and so she dropped it off on the way to pick up her kid from pre-school. I invited her to watch a rehearsal next week. After school My Kid sat fascinated on the stoop with Lorraine as she constructed a puppet head out of foam.
Yesterday, Friday, the manager of the studio space wasn’t there to let us in so we came home to work and have to reschedule that time next week. I had thought we would go to the New York Clown Theatre Festival parade and pie fight, but My Kid had her first Brownie meeting of the year after school. We ordered pizza again. I thought Lorraine and I would go to the Clown Festival Cabaret at 10 pm, but we would only have been able to do that if we took The Kid with us. The husband who had had to change plans and didn’t get home until almost 10:00 pm. THE HUSBAND CAME HOME!!! WE GOT PRESENTS!! WE CAN ALL RELAX NOW!
I’m writing out my rehearsal schedule for the piece for the festival. I was feeling anxious because that is likely the only performance related thing I’ll do today. However, by writing it all out in colored markers, I see that there is plenty of studio rehearsal time for what I want to do. I booked more than enough (I hope). Because I booked time during school hours it felt easy–so I got extra. Lorraine and I should come out of this process with more material than we will show on September 11.
I still have to schedule one play date for My Kid and I need to book a babysitter for the night of the performance or The Husband won’t be able to see it.
I put the opening events of the New York Clown Theatre Festival on my schedule, but if The Husband isn’t back from the business trip, I’ll have to pay a babysitter in order to attend the free promotional events on September 5. Unless there is a sleepover invite… the first Friday of the school year might be a little too early for that…hmmm
Planning ahead is time-consuming.
Me and My Kid, we didn’t have any plans today. On our first day back from Toronto we were slow to get going day because the rain made for a dark and claustrophobic morning. My Kid watched the recorded “So You Think You Can Dance Season Finale” while I stretched, read the New York Clown Theatre Festival brochure online, and e-mailed back and forth with Lorraine about our upcoming 15 minutes of fame.
We had to play store and then restaurant before I could get My Kid out the door to run errands like going to a store. Who is to say that Target is more real than the plastic cash register arranged at the foot of the bed. The experience is essentially the same.
My Kid stands on the table in her underwear and sings into her white plastic Hannah Montana microphone with a purity that I can only wish for in my performance.
Finally I have a chance to come down to the lobby of the hotel and post a blog entry. This trip has been about The Husband and his presentation and his continued ability to work remotely while at a conference and also about My Kid who is on vacation, a glorified field trip or whatever. The Husband’s computer worked in the room but mine did not. My kid and I have been sleeping late, then she would watch cartoons and I would read the Globe and Mail that was delivered to our door each morning, until neither of us could stand it anymore, then we would dress quickly and leave for our day as tourists.
The first night we were here we met at the pool another “convention widow”. She was traveling with a 7-year-old, a 2-year-old and an American au-pair who had only been with the family for a month. We ran into them again the next day and joined them on an expedition to Little India, where the girls bought matching outfits and the au pair bought beautiful Sari fabric.
The next day the girls wore their matching outfits when we met to go together on a boat tour of the harbour and to the amusement park on Centre Island. My Kid was particularly excited by the old fashioned car on a track she got to drive–not just steering but pressing the accelerator pedal as well–very grown up!) But, at the end of the outing all of the kids melted down, we rushed back to the hotel in separate cabs and we haven’t seen them since.
My kid swam late, we went out to dinner late, and then slept late the next day and I didn’t find the other mothers phone number until around noon. By then we had decided that we would go to the Royal Ontario Museum. (My kid was not impressed. She prefers the American Museum of Natural History in New York and was more impressed with the child-friendly exhibits and activities at the Natural History Museum in London —-tough crowd My Kid—-) At the end of the visit, the souvenir she chose was a plastic box of 12 birthstones in their natural unprocessed state.
We have enjoyed the pool every day, partially outside, the pool is heated. But, I still get cold, and a little annoyed, standing in the water (not swimming laps and getting fit) watching, cheering, and being splashed in the face by every single spectacular jump into the water performed by My Kid.
We did have fun with her learning to stand on my shoulders just like we learned at clown college (although when I went, I was the tiny thing that got to stand on the shoulders of a big sweaty muscly guy…) I think that is the favorite thing to do in the pool. But, I wanted to spend more time in the hot tub than she did, (duh) and she wouldn’t believe me when I said she could swim without me.
Well, I’d better stop now as I know The Husband and My Kid are in the pool together and if I don’t join them we will never have a proper meal or make our way to another tourist destination today. Not that we must, but I do feel somewhat obligated to do so.
My plans to look up members of the Toronto Clown Community, and try to catch a show, have come to naught. I haven’t even done anything regarding the New York Clown Theatre Festival next month. This week isn’t about me. I’m just the mommy.