I went to my first clown workshop in 2017. it was called the Tao of Clown and was run by Giovanni Fusetti, who is a master clown teacher. I don’t know exactly what a “master” means, and I think it has some kind of special meaning among craftspeople, but regardless I saw him as a master. Giovanni was in Lecoq’s final pedagodgy year, and had combined what he learned there with a lot of other techniques and skills. I know one was gestalt therapy and I also know I’ll get the others wrong if I try to name them. Whatever he was doing, it was three days of this amazing experience. We got into a deep awareness of the patterns in our bodies, and they informed the clown that came out. I felt deeply, deeply alive, free and released.
I decided at that point I would quit whatever I was doing, follow Giovanni around the world and demand he teach me. I told him this and he laughed and said that was my clown talking (my clown at the time was quite demanding, see photo). I didn’t follow him around – I got sucked back into my beliefs which weren’t stretchy enough to allow for that at the time, and I stayed right where I was.
I did meet the wonderful Amy Russell after the workshop. Amy was also in the final year of Lecoq’s pedagogy teaching and a friend of Giovanni. Amy and I stayed in touch. She is teaching her own methodology of clown and physical theatre in many places including Europe and Australia. She ran an embodied poetics workshop at Kickstart Arts for us before travelling back to Europe for a while.
Since then, I have been deeply desiring the joy I got from clown. I had a taste and I wanted more! Being in Tasmania there weren’t many clown teachers who come here. And I didn’t really consider going overseas or interstate for skills development until recently. There’s probably something about leaving my teaching job permanently to be an artist and performer that opens up these possibilities.
That was until the completely brilliant Anna Thomson came to Tassie and started offering their “Down 2 Clown”workshops! This is a photo from the first one, earlier this year. I went to the second workshop and it was SO + MUCH + FUN!!
(Some of) the great things about Anna’s workshops:
Anna reminded us that no one owns clown. There are specific teachers and traditions, but really it belongs to many, or even, everyone.
Anna sharing that clown is related to protest tradition, which I “kind of” knew – but I find very, very exciting and want to explore more.
Learning the game “three mangos!” – one of the best games I’ve ever played!!
The time when I asked Anna to push me in class and they did (emotionally I mean).
And, the best things!!
–MAKING CLOWN FRIENDS – there is something amazing about this little group, who have been coming to clown workshops most of the times, where we have just gelled and it’s been so easy to hang out and chat.
–CLOWN IS BACK – yep! I’ve gotten reconnected with clown! Anna has suggested I apply for arts grants for skills development, because I have a vision of eventually having a clown troupe in Lutruwita.
Now there’s two more Anna workshops coming up this year – a bouffon workshop in a week and another clown in December. Then Anna goes away. Yet we still have the dream – the grants, the skills development. I’ve never applied for an arts grant in my life, so that will be a learning curve. Yet Tasmania doesn’t have an active clown troupe, so the uniqueness could be a factor that works in our favour.
I also spoke with Amy a few weeks ago. She suggested I come over to Italy in mid-2026 to do her 2-month “Embodied Poetics First Voyage”. It’s Lecoq’s first year of clown training, plus his third pedagogy year, distilled into two months of intense clown training. I am excited by the possibility, and I think it would fit excellently within my mid-year break of third year uni.