The scene that greets you at the second annual clowning residency organised by theatre company Madman and Me feels almost surreal. Two men wearing bright-red clown noses murmur gibberish to each other. A third drops to his knees and mimes a panting dog. He is rewarded with an enthusiastic belly rub by his bemused instructor. This space is so stripped of inhibitions that an outsider to the scene could feel keenly uncomfortable. And yet, the all-encompassing sense of absurdity seems to be familiar environment for the 20-odd people present here.
The event is a 10-day clowning residency organised at Tansa, the bungalow of theatre veterans Geetanjali and Atul Kulkarni, in Sonala village, Maharashtra. For this year’s edition, Madman and Me roped in two clowns, Susie Wimmer and Heimo Thiel, from Clowns Without Borders (Germany) to teach aspirants the art of clowning.
Initially, the organisers were unsure if they could hold the event at all. Resolving logistical issues and adhering to regulations instituted by the Clown Code of Ethics proved to be an uphill task. The code put in place by Clowns Without Borders unequivocally states that all clowns affiliated to the organisation must not advertise their work for publicity. This meant that Madman and Me would have to restrict publicising the event to a bare minimum. Fortunately, the idea alone was enough to invoke intrigue. Soon enough, enthusiasts trickled in from Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Pune and Mumbai. Malayalam film actors assembled alongside students and human resource professionals. The idea took on a unique form.
The residency has mostly attracted actors looking to improve their theatrical techniques along with some young professionals. The initial, hazy days of interacting with Wimmer and Thiel involved experimentation with jugglery, acrobatics and physical comedy.
Scheduled fooling
The clowns instituted a rigorous schedule that allowed the students to transform their art into something more disciplined. Their goal is to eventually put their clowning skills to test in front of children of municipal schools in the neighbouring Wada district. In the final days of the residency, the clowns, both master and novice, were busy practising a tightly choreographed piece.
Wimmer and Thiel describe their teaching experience in India as almost spiritual. Wimmer is grateful to pass on the ‘clown spirit’ to the younger generation, adding that “they just absorb whatever we can think of sharing; it’s almost like they download all the information off our clown app.” Thiel can’t wait to see what the students do with their newly acquired knowledge. He says, “There’s hurt, grief, trauma, disaster, but what makes you get up again is the clown spirit.”
This spirit reverberated deeply with actors Anjali Patil and Prabhanj Gouth. For them, clowning acts as a pathway into emotions they presumed long dead. Patil, who has acted recently in the films Mirzya and Newton , said, “Working in independent films has exhausted me emotionally. There was an uptightness about everything I did and I wanted to break that solidity.” Clowning, therefore, became very personal for her. Similarly, Clowning helped Gouth confront his vulnerabilities. He said, “Vulnerability is not considered a manly trait. As actors, if we don’t embrace our masculinities and femininities, then it’s not very good. The clown is a figure that has both.”
Being a member of Clowns Without Borders, Wimmer is especially keen on passing on the social aspect of clowning to her students. After all, Clowns Without Borders was first founded by Spanish clowns in 1992 to perform for child refugees displaced by war in the former Yugoslavia.
An organisation without borders and with a strict code of ethics usually evokes humanitarian social aid imagery, most notably of doctors serving in war-torn areas. A similar organisation entirely comprising clowns sounds almost bizarre. Clowning is not an activity that has ever been associated with social welfare. And yet, it is precisely this that first drew Wimmer to clowning.
A former ballerina, Wimmer took to clowning to improve her chances inphysical theatre. A stray encounter at a hospital made her a clown for life. Soon enough, she was travelling to Iran and Turkey, playing the clown for children in all sorts of marginalised zones.
Clowns in conflict
Part of what Wimmer, and by consequence, Clowns Without Borders, hope to accomplish is the restoration of playfulness and lightness during times of conflict. Wimmer defines an area of conflict as not simply a geographical location but a state of being, where emotions are exiled. In getting children to laugh and parents to enjoy a brief moment of relaxation, these clowns hope to strengthen the resilience of conflict-ridden communities.
Wimmer is aware that the work she does may sound trivial in light of what children in marginalised zones face. Yet she holds what colleagues of hers were told in Jordan close to her heart. The Syrians in refugee camps told her colleagues, “Before you came, the children were playing war; now they play clown.” It is moments like these that convince Wimmer of the importance of her job.
For her, the clown is a figure that immediately connects with the marginalised. Laughter is a language that cuts across race, nationality, religion and culture. She describes the connection between the clown and the children as one of “impossible possibilities” made probable by the honesty and openness of the clown’s expression. Both Wimmer and Thiel are determined to see their Indian students incorporate humanitarianism in their art. They’ve set aside a sizeable chunk of their schedule to speak about the merits of clowning at hospitals and social outreach programmes. They soon realised that their students had made up their minds on this subject a while ago.
Fed on a steady diet of Wimmer’s stories of clowning at hospitals, most participants were eager to involve their art in social programmes of their choice. The link between art and activism, once so profound, emerges brighter than ever in the efforts of Wimmer and Thiel, and their apprentices. For now, they are adults with bright red clown noses on and a village full of young children to entertain.
The author is a Mumbai-based writer on a mission to convert half of India’s population to feminism by 2050.
