Home Up Slapping Balance Accepting Attention Play With Objects Normal Question Juggling Attracting A Crowd Nonviolence Observing Silence Female Clown Kirk Marsh Rumpel's Foolosophy Lady Margo Clown Training Trunk Fools Hilary Chaplain Stretch the Clown In the Shit Clown Classes Basque Clown Hey Clown

 

Angels can Fly - A Modern Clown User Guide

Angels can Fly includes a mix of fiction which follows the adventures of ten clown characters, personal clown anecdotes from clowns from around the world, a total of 50 practical clown exercises, and some theory on the nature of modern clown. The book is available on order through bookshops and online stores in New Zealand, Australia, America and England.

And You can get a free eBook copy of the book to read on your computer at: www.alanclay.com/ebook_list.htm

On this page you will find excerpts from the book. Check back often for new excerpts from Angels can Fly.


And while you are here, why not check out Alan Clay's short clown film, , staring Annette Devick from Canada and Mark Hudson from Australia which was shot in New Zealand in October 2006.

And also the new comming of age romantic comedy, Courting Chaos, shot in Los Angeles in 2013, in which a Beverly Hills girl falls for a Venice Beach street clown named Chaos and she must overcome her inhibitions and become a clown herself for the relationship to survive.


 
Chapter 2. Exercise: Slapping Balance
PAIR / WORKSHOP
 
This is a good interactive warmup exercise which sensitises participants to working with a partner, and being flexible in the use of their own energy.
 
Participants find a partner, and stand facing one another about 30 cm apart. They each have their feet together, and are holding their hands up at chest height, palms facing forwards. They must now try and get one another off balance, while neither participant is allowed to move their feet, and they are only allowed to touch hands.
 
Competition is the energy source for this exercise, so we must allow it, for our own benefit, and for our partner’s benefit, even though we may have to overcome inhibitions to do this. We must push our partner, only on the hands, and try to get them off balance. If they resist our push, it is highly likely that they will be thrown off balance, but if they give in to our pressure, and release in the shoulders, they are more likely to stay standing, and also possibly to attract us off balance forwards, overdoing it in our efforts to succeed.
 
The exercise teaches an action-and-release flexibility, as well as a sensitivity to the partner.
 
Coaching Tips
If the exercise is being conducted in a group setting, it is good to rotate the partnerships several times, each time getting the protagonists to thank their previous partner in acknowledgement of the adversarial nature of the exercise.
 
We mainly imagine that other people are like us, because that is what we know, but good interactive improvisational work requires a sensitivity to the partner, and their particular unique approach.
 
By rotating partnerships in the slapping balance exercise we get to interact with a range of other participants, and realise that everyone is different in their approach to this exercise.


Angels can Fly is available on order through bookshops and online stores in New Zealand, Australia, America and England. Order your copy today. Find it on Amazon by following this link: http://tinyurl.com/9nrwj 


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Last updated 01 November 2013

Home Up Slapping Balance Accepting Attention Play With Objects Normal Question Juggling Attracting A Crowd Nonviolence Observing Silence Female Clown Kirk Marsh Rumpel's Foolosophy Lady Margo Clown Training Trunk Fools Hilary Chaplain Stretch the Clown In the Shit Clown Classes Basque Clown Hey Clown