After a bucket of cardamon infused porridge, we walked up to the workshop space. A beautiful, light room with high ceilings.
Introductions first, and Michael Christiensen's story of how he came to start the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit in New York in 1986, and how that programme spread across the world, and grew wings and developed and brought 21 of us here to Barcelona to learn from each other 28 years later.
It was a morning of eye contact and play and meeting. Familiar exercises (to all of us who worked with MC in Edinburgh), but with new people, in a new room, there is always something new to discover.
Today, for me, was about CLARITY. Clarity in your impulse, your propositions. When you make a proposition for play, make it clear, and your partner can follow. When you follow, do so fully and with a joy that will enrich that proposition.
If your proposition is unclear, if you try 3 different things one after the other without listening, then you can't see where to go, and neither can your partner.
When you find yourself thinking, 'I should know' or 'what should I do' then you are not listening. You lose the game. You lose the moment.
And most of all, enjoy the moment in between. That moment when neither of you knows what the next impulse will be, but you both know you are going to love it when it comes.
These are things that we know and we do, but to work these muscles in a space outside of the Hospital, or Dementia Unit or Hospice or school is a joy.
As Michael said this morning, 'The idea for hospital clowns was a good one...you introduce an expert and you get an idiot'. It is simple, and it works.
Our day was slightly disrupted by the fact that a 93 year old priest had passed away yesterday, and his body was downstairs. The building manager asked us (21 clowns with a healthy disrespect for authority) to try to be quiet...in case he woke up?
Of course, we were very respectful. But it did make me think - if i live to the grand old age of 93, then please celebrate with as much noise as possible. In case I am just having a nap.
Hasta manana, soletes x
Introductions first, and Michael Christiensen's story of how he came to start the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit in New York in 1986, and how that programme spread across the world, and grew wings and developed and brought 21 of us here to Barcelona to learn from each other 28 years later.
It was a morning of eye contact and play and meeting. Familiar exercises (to all of us who worked with MC in Edinburgh), but with new people, in a new room, there is always something new to discover.
Today, for me, was about CLARITY. Clarity in your impulse, your propositions. When you make a proposition for play, make it clear, and your partner can follow. When you follow, do so fully and with a joy that will enrich that proposition.
If your proposition is unclear, if you try 3 different things one after the other without listening, then you can't see where to go, and neither can your partner.
When you find yourself thinking, 'I should know' or 'what should I do' then you are not listening. You lose the game. You lose the moment.
And most of all, enjoy the moment in between. That moment when neither of you knows what the next impulse will be, but you both know you are going to love it when it comes.
These are things that we know and we do, but to work these muscles in a space outside of the Hospital, or Dementia Unit or Hospice or school is a joy.
As Michael said this morning, 'The idea for hospital clowns was a good one...you introduce an expert and you get an idiot'. It is simple, and it works.
Our day was slightly disrupted by the fact that a 93 year old priest had passed away yesterday, and his body was downstairs. The building manager asked us (21 clowns with a healthy disrespect for authority) to try to be quiet...in case he woke up?
Of course, we were very respectful. But it did make me think - if i live to the grand old age of 93, then please celebrate with as much noise as possible. In case I am just having a nap.
Hasta manana, soletes x