The Big Brag

Here is what I could find about the original cover, or what I think it is.

It was originally placed in the Red Books Magazine in December of 1950.  It was only two pages and was the seventh book listed.

Snee Snee Did You Say Sneetches?

...what Kalond and I were singing last week:

Clown Olympics

Group 1 (Darcy, Kayla, and Rachel):

I really feel like this group a great job in terms of using as many actions as possible.  The group really took charge in demonstrating what clowning was in a technical sense.  Personally I felt that it was a little long, but I enjoyed it.  One thing that I did not understand was the miming conversation that Darcy and Rachel had after Kayla decided to quit.

Group 2 (Eli, JD, Jess):

This group was very successful when it came to clowning through the physicality.  Each of the members knew exactly what kind of clown (or person) they were portraying, and they allowed the hats to illustrate those characters for us as well.  One of my favorite parts was when Jess was doing the relay race, when Eli did his shot-put, and when JD tried to catch his body from the fall on the map.  I think I enjoyed these parts because those are the moments when the characters really seemed to be set in stone.  There was a point towards the Mid-End where the energy dropped a bit, but the group picked it back up.

Group 3 (Melissa and me):

I think that my group did a great job of telling a story.  One of the things that I could have improved on was incorporating more clowning actions into my routine.  We had them in the story, but it was mostly Melissa who had the actions.  In a way it worked for our characters, but I still feel as though I could have done more.  I did enjoy our length though.

Clownlympics

JD, Jess, Eli
I loved this. There was something very classic about the way they set up the entire scene. JD always seems to have a strong, hilarious character (Comedia del arte HOHOHOHO.... or however you would spell that laugh lol) and everything was timed well. I agree Eli could have committed more to the bit where he took a really long time to throw the discus and as the person doing the drumroll I got sick of that bit more quickly than everyone else ;)

Melissa and Kalond

I appreciated the spin they took on this, seeing as it's hard to have an olympic event with only two people that could hold a story/audience. Not gonna lie, I'm not sure if it was because I was exhausted but I missed the burglary thing. Once Jenn said that was what they did I needed Jess to use the triangle for MY realization lol. Very well done.

Ours

I was pleased with our clownlympics. When Darcy and Rachel came up with the idea of a dog show I was so on board for it. The only downfall was we originally planned on using stuffed animals to be our pets, and the gag would have been that they couldn't have performed because they were, in fact, stuffed animals. So we kind of threw together another opening that we could have fine tuned if we had more time to think about it. Prance, skip, run, Captain Kirk, army crawl, ausomble, sisson, full spin, forward roll, side roll, cartwheel, tuck jump, bridge, crucifix roll.

Clownlympics

Eli, JD, Jess
I thought they had a great opening. The physical characters were really strong for all three of them. I could tell who these characters where just by how they walked, which was great. I thought the part where Eli threw the heavy ball and it landed only a few feet away was really funny. Also the relay race was pretty great.

Kalond, Mel
This was an interesting story line. I liked how they went with a robbery as their "sport" in this situation. The story was easy to follow along. I liked how the chemistry between the two characters created some great give and take moments.

Me, Kayla, Darcy
I really loved our story line. Our beginning could have been longer to better establish what was going on. A comment was made that I could have embraced my winning of the dog award more instead of being sad because I'm actually a human. In hindsight I agree. If I had to do the scene over I would make that change. The stunts we used: prance, skip, run, ausomble, sisson, full spin, forward roll, side roll, cartwheel, bridge, Captain Kirk fall, tuck jump, crucifix roll, bridge, and army crawl.

http://images2.sina.com/english/life/p/2010/1023/6295bbd9eba6b7d21d37cdcbc3f05d7b.jpg

Funny Gymnastics "Clown" Paul Hunt

Hey everyone! Here are the funny gymnastic videos I was talking about in class! The guys name is Paul Hunt. There are multiple videos on YouTube but these are my favorites.

1) Uneven Bars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q52axiiPeQ

2) Beam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LslN0nwQNg

3) Floor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBPjhB9d3jc

Clownlympics

Hey everyone!
Today in class we did the clownlympics which was so much fun to watch and perform!!!  Each group had something different, but they all were pretty specific when it came to their event.  The first group was a dog show type event where each person had a dog and they did their little bit, every one different than the other.  I loved the fact that we got to play music with them because we added to their intensity.  I saw a lot of different movements with each person and felt it was appropriate amount with what the circumstances were.  The second group did another event with running and a shotput.  Eli was so funny when he just wouldn't throw the lead ball, which added to the whole experience.  Each person was unique and different and it was really cool how whoever wasn't actually doing the event was rooting on the other person.  The last group was Kalond and I.  We definitely did something way different and did a bank robbery.  This was a lot of fun and the music I felt worked with us rather than us working with the music.  Kalond and I had a different dynamic than everyone that worked very well, especially with the follow the leader mentality.  The movements we did were pike, side roll, prancing, backward fall, sisson, and assemble.  This was really fun to do with Kalond and I was totally into this piece 100%!

Video Reactions

Hey guys!
I really liked all of these videos and I noticed that even though every person is different, they all make specific gestures and everyone had a type of unity that worked really well for their character in the realm of clowning.  When it came to Mr. Bean, I loved his use of the drum set and how it slammed on top of his hand.  This worked really well with the traditional clowning due to the fact that it's a simple task to not let the symbols slam on you, but clowns normally kind of mess that common sense up.  Marcel's clown, however, looked very animated and totally different than Mr. Bean's.  I noticed that he used more of his entire body with what he was doing rather than emulating what an object was.  I really felt this worked great and I loved the differences each video had, especially with these two, but the major similarities they had as well.

Video Reactions

Personal Reaction:

The strength some of these people have is crazy! The amount of control they have over their bodies requires serious muscle. I laughed at a lot of these, I grew up with physical comedy (Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, mostly :P) so I am a huge fan. Each was very distinct in their own style, which I enjoyed the variety as well.

Professional Reaction:

I think it's easy to forget that miming is a form of clowning, because people recognize it as its own art rather than thinking of all clowns when it is mentioned. Each clown had a very distinct character and story that went with the character, and each story was very well performed. Rowan Atkinson is very good at doing the unexpected methods of problem solving from our reading. And who doesn't love Mr Bean?

http://www.theplace2.ru/photos/Rowan-Atkinson-md2030/pic-328333.html

Clowning

Personal reaction: I really feel like after reading what a clown actually does for a routine that it seems silly for people to have such a fear of clowns.  When a lot of people hear the word clown today they do not think of actors who use physical comedy or anything about that nature.  Generally they picture horror movies and/or that story "My Cousin It," I think it was called.  Clowns are supposed to be funny not scary, and I never knew there were distinctions between different types of clowns.

Professional reaction: After the reading on what the different kinds of clowns there were and what the history of the clown was, one of the things that stood out to me was the mention of the name Marcel Marceau.  This name caught my attention because a year ago I was in a one act at Metro that had to deal with a mime, and my character tried to reference Marcel to my friend in order to give an example of what a mime actually did.  I find this interesting because for some reason I never really tied the act of miming as clowning.  They were generally separate categories for me, but now I see that miming is a form of clowning.

Clowining Videos

Rowan Atkinson
I love Rowan Atkinson. I was first introduced to him many years ago by my parents. He is hilarious. His facial features are probably one of my favorite things he does in his comedy. In this video I loved how he used his body and pantomimed this huge drum solo that kept going awry.

Marcel Marceau
This one was weird. It was fine when he first started changing masks from one facial expression to the other but after that it just got weird. I did not laugh at all during this performance. Personally I don't know why anyone would want to pay money to see this performed. I understand that he was telling a story and I guess it was cool how he kept changing his body posture based on the mask used but over all it was just weird.

Bill Irwin
This guy had pretty good control of his body. I liked the part where he was dancing and making his foot dance but then his foot just kept on dancing off the stage making the rest of his body follow. The hat tricks were also pretty cool. I cracked up when he shot the gun after he turned his dancing into a karate battle. I think that his height really worked for his character, especially with the costume because it just made the character look like he had long awkward limbs, but it worked.

Jeff Wills
First of all that mustache is hilarious. This was an impressive show of body strength. The use of the two curtain things was really creative. I didn't really find this video that funny. I mean the only funny part was when he did that high pitched scream when he thought he was going to fall.

http://www.theplace2.ru/archive/rowan_atkinson/img/RowanAtkinson4.jpg

Clowning Videos

I was inspired (and intimidated) by these videos and got some ideas for our Clownlympics performance from them. Rowan Atkinson has a great sense of play and reminds me of an overgrown kid in this drum skit.  He kept his drum set very clear and his movements precise. I was impressed by how well the drummer matched his movements during the performance (even though I'm sure it was all choreographed).

The first thing I noticed about Marcel Marceau was how beautifully he moved his hands - it could be a dance! He established each mask well in terms of where they each were and I liked that the scene built and by the end he was using his entire body to match each mask.  Something that made his performance easy to follow was how consistent his 'neutral' face was in between the masks.

Bill Irwin had a wonderful style of movement that was free, agile, and exact. I particularly enjoyed his hat moves - it is now my life ambition to learn how to do that forward-spring-into-the-hat move if it's the last thing I do (which it probably would be).  He squished and expanded very well too, I thought, and his physical comedy style reminded me a lot of Dick Van Dyke.

For Jeff Wills, my eye was immediately drawn to his handlebar mustache.  The concept for the piece was original and very clever and he used a great balance of looking slightly out of control but still safe enough that the audience was never too concerned about him falling, and being concerned for someone's safety makes things decidedly less funny. I've never seen aerial dance used as a comedic tool and I thought it was really fun.

http://www.theplace2.ru/photos/Rowan-Atkinson-md2030/pic-377550.html

Video Response

While I didn’t think anything Rowan Atkinson did was funny, I could “see” the drum set. I would not have been able to “see” it if he didn’t have a very clear picture in his head.

Marcel Marceau’s piece is what I think of when I think of classic clowning and miming. Something I would like to avoid looking like at all costs. Also, there was something going on with his costume in the crotch area that kept bringing my eye back to his twig-n-berries. Another thing I want to avoid at all costs.

When it comes to the Bill Irwin clip, I see why you like him so much Jenn. It was funny and he has complete control over his body. He was doing very difficult moves and making them look effortless. I also helps that there was dancing in the clip, you know how I’m bias in that department.

I found the Jeff Wills clip very interesting.  I do enjoy watching the arial performers, but a lot of times they look so clumsy in-between each move.  I think it was a great idea to make an arial fabric act into a comedy. So I guess what I’m getting from these videos is that any comedic physical performance can be called clowning. 

 Clowns Ex Machina. Photo by Vanessa Lenz.     http://circusnow.org/causes/clowns-ex-machina/

Clowning Vids For Homework

Here are the vids I'd like you to view for your reading response:

1.) Rowan Atkinson


2.) Marcel Marceau


3.) Bill Irwin


*Note: I took a class from Bill Irwin in Physical Comedy back in the day. I pretty much worship him. 4.) Jeff Wills (this is a WIP piece, FYI)