Testimony of Åsa Fält, student of the 1 month Intensive Clown Course

What do I take with me from the course at Cal Clown?

I have achieved something of a toolbox for clown work to take home with me, which was one of the things I was hoping for when attending the course. The art of clown was all new to me, and I’m happy to find that I understand it and that I want to continue working and go further into the art of clown. My toolbox now consists of a broad variety of concrete and practical techniques and methods reaching from stage fighting and magic tricks to basic elements such as the rules of three, contrasts and surprises, breath and eye contact as well as the close and sensible approach you work with in hospital clowning. I have also learned and discovered how to adapt to the clown my own funny sides that has occurred on stage and in everyday life, and these “qualities” also goes in the box. I will continue to fill this toolbox with whatever I learn and discover in my life and practice that will be useful for clown work, and I will continue to open the box and practice and improve as many of the tools that I can.

I have also received and hopefully also exchanged many reflections and experiences from all the other students and professionals on how the clown works, how interactions/meetings with audience/people function, how humor works etc. Observing all the different clowns with various personalities and qualities, and seeing all the numbers developing is to me one of the best ways of learning and discovering.

How do I see the art of clown?

I have learned a lot about the world of the clown and how it functions. Amongst other things clowns aim to connect to people/audience through a common humor, through showing their true selves in a way that the audience understands and recognizes. As clown one should be simple, clear and immediate, not to dress on more than necessary and not to put more into ones appearance than what will be visible.

I compare the clown work with the more psychological acting methods that I’ve been used to work with and it’s interesting to look at the differences, and I am happy that I can hopefully be able to work in both those ways. In psychological acting methods the character’s inner life and the background stories of the actions on stage is of importance to the actor/performer, giving more depth and substance to the characters and actions. The actor/performer chooses how much of the inner material to show the audience and the actor/performer is for the most meant to be “invisible” to the audience, so that only the character is alive on stage.

In clown there is no actor versus character in this sense, it is only the person/performer (yourself, the clown) on stage, fully visible, and the only one to put on display. As I understand it there should not be a lot more to the clown or the action on stage than what is visible and directly shown. If you find something within you should either use it openly to the audience or just remove it (if it is an option). In clown, what you see is what you get. It’s exiting and deliberating to be allowed to show your reactions and emotions to whatever happens when performing, and to include it in your performance, instead of trying to hide it or “fake it away”. As clown, you continuously shift between doing the actions of the performance and at the same time displaying your own reactions to it, and this is an exciting game! There will be further work for me to adapt to the clown way of performing and to practice this “clown approach”.

What do clown bring into my life?

On a personal level, I found it a good a good experience to be away from my stable, ordinary life over some time. During the stay at Cal Clown I had the chance to look back at my way of life from a distance, reflecting over both the things I miss while being away, what’s important for me, what I’d like to do more of as well as the things I don’t miss, what I would like to stop doing, what I could toss. I also bring back with me the clown perspective of looking at the world and myself outside of the performance space, cherishing the humoristic and the ridiculous, trying to meet life and it’s challenges in a less troubled way.


Åsa Fält