Clowning!

Over the course of seven weeks, I studied the art of jester at The Clown School. I loved clowns as a kid, and I’ve worked as a clown for a gig here or there, but had never really studied it in a targeted way. David Bridel is simply a wonder. Both the founder of the school, and my instructor for this class, it was an absolute joy to learn from someone so knowledgeable. He never sugar-coated his feedback, but there was always support, a smile, and often a kernel of mischief. A really enchanting environment.

My goal for myself this year was to get back to the physical nature of acting and performing–of course this is part of bettering myself as a pcap and mocap actor, but it also just makes me happy to be able to express myself effectively in myriad ways!

A lot of the class was also about understanding who jesters are, and how their roles differ from that of clowns–a big takeaway is that clowns are largely emotional beings, while jesters hold up the mirror to society; one of my favorite revelations in this class was that Weird Al is a great example of a jester!