Olympic Comedy--Paul Hunt & his Comedy Gymnastics Routines

Just happened across some amazing gymnastic comedy by Paul Hunt. He was a coach and gymnast in the 1980's and does some amazing comedy gymnastic routines in drag. In a tutu, Paul manages to perfectly parody a number of female gymnastic stunts, while at the same time doing a lot of amazing gymnastics and acrobatics himself. I haven't been able to find out what happened to him (the videos are all from the 1980's) If somebody out there knows, please comment listed below. There is a Hunt's Gymnastics Academy in Utah, but the webpage is currently defunct. Enjoy these incredible videos (most of which seem to be shot at Gymnastic competitions, and at least a few of these are commented on by professional sports commentators.) It's very interesting to see the floor routine shot side by side, one in French, and one in English, and how the commentators comment on them. COMEDY FLOOR ROUTINE IN ENGLISH COMEDY FLOOR ROUTINE IN FRENCH COMEDY PARALLEL BAR ROUTINE COMEDY BALANCE BEAM ROUTINE

Kathie Horejsi's Blog: Clown Mommy

I've featured Kathie previously on the blog here But that was before she had a blog! She's got a relatively new blog Clownmommy.com It's a personal account of her trying to do her work as a mom. So far I've read through most of it, and it definitely talks a lot about the struggles I have now (and I'm sure will have soon, as our baby is due to arrive in the next 4 weeks or so) I didn't know about her blog until my personal news alert for my unique last name let me know that somebody had posted it somewhere (Oh my God, The Clown Signal!) Kathie was talking about a conversation that we had about female clowning about 16 years ago. And sadly, her blog conks out in the middle of the story. I'd really like to find out what I said! And if you've got a clown blog out there where you are talking about your work as a clown, please let me know-- I don't promise to post it, but I'll give it a read at the very least!

RIP, Larry Harmon

Thanks to Pat Cashin's Clownalley.net for the heads up. Larry Harmon, the licensor of Bozo the Clown died Thursday due to congestive heart failure. Say what you will about Bozo, but Larry Harmon was personally responsible for entertaining millions of children.he entertained MILLIONS of children over the years. And that makes him a giant in my book. RIP, Bozo! Larry Harmon, who turned the character Bozo the Clown into a show business staple that delighted children for more than a half-century, died Thursday of congestive heart failure. He was 83. His publicist, Jerry Digney, told The Associated Press he died at his home. Although not the original Bozo, Harmon portrayed the popular clown in countless appearances and, as an entrepreneur, he licensed the character to others, particularly dozens of television stations around the country. The stations in turn hired actors to be their local Bozos. "You might say, in a way, I was cloning BTC (Bozo the Clown) before anybody else out there got around to cloning DNA," Harmon told the AP in a 1996 interview. "Bozo is a combination of the wonderful wisdom of the adult and the childlike ways in all of us," Harmon said. Pinto Colvig, who also provided the voice for Walt Disney's Goofy, originated Bozo the Clown when Capitol Records introduced a series of children's records in 1946. Harmon would later meet his alter ego while answering a casting call to make personal appearances as a clown to promote the records. He got that job and eventually bought the rights to Bozo. Along the way, he embellished Bozo's distinctive look: the orange-tufted hair, the bulbous nose, the outlandish red, white and blue costume. "I felt if I could plant my size 83AAA shoes on this planet, (people) would never be able to forget those footprints," he said. Read the rest of the article on the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/arts/television/04bozo.html

Laura Herts

Laura Herts is a France based American performer, whose training began years ago at the The Baltimore School for the Arts where she studied Dance and Visual Arts. Upon graduating, she began a world tour, which has now been extended into a lifetime experience. Through her travels she rediscovered a childhood passion; mime. From that moment on, she performed wherever possible, beginning with street performing and teaching mime in Israel in 1985. As her passion for the art of mime, improvisation, and comedy performance grew, she decided to continue her quest for experience and knowledge by travelling to and throughout Europe; participating in Theatre festivals and attending workshops and Schools based on the Physical Theater. Laura, studied under Lassaad Saidi, Jacques Lecoq, Philippe Gaulier, Daniel Stein, Stanislav Borgeofski, and Zigmund Mollic, while continuing to earn a living performing. Slowly and surely, Laura developed her original style of theater creating a world of clown, comedy, and social satire. She has created a number of one woman shows, including "The Last Tangle In Paradise," "Electric Lazy Land," and "Won Woman Show," as well as various cabaret numbers. Performing interactively with her audiences, she has played in theatres, cabarets, circuses, and many festivals throughout Europe, Japan, Brazil, Russia, Israel, and Madagascar, as well as teaching workshops in mime and clowning. To find out more about Laura's work, please visit her website listed below: www.lauraherts.com

The Sprockets Circus

Great article on NPR's website about the Sprockets, a family circus of three that tours the world in a 1962 Bristol double decker bus with a top speed of 33 miles per hour. The show features Scott Harrison, his wife Issabelle Feraud, and their 11 year old son Theo, who have been touring continuously since 1997. They ship their bus between continents, and have performed in 48 countries, and 6 continents. They are currently in the states, and are starting the process of writing a book about their journey. Their shows are full of magic, juggling, acrobatics, daredevil unicycling and lots of slapstick humor. Scott was a juggling entrepreneur for a while in England, and then became a performer. Find out more about the Sprockets on the websites listed below: SPROCKETS WEBSITE: http://www.thesprockets.com NPR Article/story: Circus Family Is Ready for a Safety Net SPROCKETS FLICKR site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thesprockets/

Helen Donnelly

Helen Donnelly is an actor, instructor and theatrical, therapeutic and circus clown. In the past, she was a professional performance storyteller and appeared in over 300 schools and libraries, and as an actor toured various children’s shows in Ontario. She has been teaching clown and movement workshops in the US and Canada for over 6 years at high schools, colleges and art institutions. Helen is a graduate from the University of Toronto with an Honours B.A., Specialist in Drama. Helen has studied clown with David Shiner (Cirque du Soleil, Fool Moon), Roch Jutras (Cirque du Soleil, Cirque Eloize), John Turner and Mike Kennard (of Mump and Smoot fame), Grindl Kuchirka and Theatre Smith-Gilmour. She continues her study of the art form. She has worked with circus groups such as Cirque du Soleil, Cirque Sublime, Cirque Eos, Zero Gravity Circus and continues her work with Circus Orange. Aside from her work in the theatrical clown realm, she is a professional therapeutic clown offering friendship and therapeutic play at Bloorview Kids Rehab and worked at The Hospital for Sick Children for 2 years. She is a member of The Canadian Association of Therapeutic Clowns. In 2005, Helen formed her own theatrical clown company, Foo Productions. This company seeks to produce quality theatrical clown shows which entertain through parodying existing art forms. Its other mandate is to expose clown to a more multicultural audience as the language used presents no barrier. Posey’s Wig is a theatrical clown musical, performed entirely in gibberish (an invented language) with original music. The Foo Talk Show,created primarily for the corporate world, parodies the talk show formula as Foo the host interviews in gibberish with the guests responding in English. The format showcases Foo’s unique interview style and a musical sidekick (James Fisher), with original music. Helen also teaches a number of workshops, including "Discover Your Clown" for beginners and "Flexing Your Clown Muscle" for intermediate students. These are offered a few times a year. Her website has a downloadable list of upcoming workshops. To find out more about Helen's work, visit her website listed below: www.helendonnelly.com

HawHaw James-- Self-portraits and visual inventiveness

HawHawJames isn't a professional clown-- he's a painter, artist, and (according to his bio) a drag queen and born again Christian. All that's unimportant, though, because I think his latest project is delightful. He's been doing some amazing trompe l'oeil's, using his face as a canvas, and then photographing the results. These self-portraits are witty, clever, and very well done. I've posted a few of them below-- but you should check out his whole collection on Flickr. These are portraits of his own face, and he's got a whole bunch of other interesting ones. In clown work, we talk a lot about visual inventiveness- here it is in spades! FLICKR: HawHawJames Self Portraits

Clowns Talk about Clowning- YouTube Videos

Jim Moore, the variety arts photographer who has probably photographed more clowns than anybody in the history of photography, has been doing something new-- he's been videotaping clowns. If you check out his YouTube videos (URL below), he's putting up interviews with performers as they talk about their work, how they create their work, and even why they create their work. Jim's got tons of archival stuff, so who knows what else he's got in his archives. Recently he posted an interview with Keith Nelson of the Bindlestiff's, and he's also got David Engel and Hilary Chaplain talking about creating a new act for David's character El Magnifico. HILARY CHAPLAIN & DAVID ENGEL VIDEO I suggest subscribing to his YouTube feed on the page, or checking in there pretty often to see what rare and interesting material he surfaces. He'll also be interviewing somebody from the NY Downtown Clown Revue every month, where he remains the official staff photographer) (And speaking of subscribing, thanks to the ever more efficient Pat Cashin of Clownalley.net for the link to Keith's interview. I knew Jim was putting these videos together, but didn't think to mention them until I saw Pat's post. He beats me to the punch a lot in posting stuff.) If you are not RSS'ing Clownalley.net, you should be! Jim's Youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=jm5star&p=r Pat Cashin's Clown Alley: www.clownalley.net

FRINGE REVIEW: Gardi Hutter's JOAN OF ARPpO

(PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS REVIEW ARE COPYRIGHT © 2007 BY PHOTOGRAPHER JIM MOORE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY PERMISSION.) I saw Gardi Hutter's show yesterday, and can highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. The show is original, creative, playful, physical, and downright wonderful. You should definitely see it if you have the opportunity. Gardi starts with a simple concept-- a set of washing machines on stage, and a large pile of clothes. Enter Gardi as an old washerwoman lady-- clown nose and stuffed body. She notices us and is slightly surprised by us, but then goes about her business. She reads a little from her book JOAN OF ARC & OTHER HEROINES, and starts to let her imagination go. By the end of the show she's fought in a war, caused the destruction of innocents, created and destroyed a golem made of clothes and a washerwoman's tub, and entertained the entire audience. In between she's explored a number of different comedy ideas, including getting stuck in her washer-tub, getting stuck in the washing machine, walking a tightrope/clothesline, and infinite hilarious variations on clothing and laundry gags. Part of what makes Gardi's clowning so wonderful is her inventiveness and her openness. She takes simple ideas and makes them understandable, but does it in a way that continually surprises and delights. At the end of the show I was sitting there feeling inspired, and trying to figure out how I can make my show more like her show. And that is one of the best compliments that I can pay to this show-- it gives you license to let your imagination run wild. Click on one of the dates listed below to purchase tickets online. JOAN OF ARPpO Gardi Hutter Writer: Gardi Hutter - Ferruccio Cainero Director: Ferruccio Cainero Sloppy laundry woman dreams of becoming a heroine like Jeanne d'Arc, but lacking worthy enemies, she transforms her washhouse into a grotesque battlefield. A tragicomic parable of the today world with a tousled, fury, nasty, touching and poetic female clown. 1h 10m Lugano Switzerland Clown/Mask Solo Show VENUE #2: The Cherry Lane Theatre www.gardihutter.com Sat 11 @ 9:30 Wed 15 @ 5 Thu 16 @ 9:30 Thu 23 @ 2:30 Sat 25 @ 12

Gardi Hutter

Gardi Hutter is one of the most well-known female clowns in the world. Based in Switzerland, she has been performing her shows since 1981 on stages across the world. At Carnevale, people dress as her- and her washerwoman character has cleaned the floors of the Swiss Parliament. She's won at least five international prizes for her work, and has written three best-selling children's books. She teaches clowning at two prestigious clown schools in Switzerland & Germany. Despite all this, she is little known in the United States. Here's what the Philadelphia Inquirer had to say about her show (performed a number of years ago) With a rat's nest for hair and dressed in dirty long-johns and a raggedy dress, Hutter walks into a grungy laundry room and promptly plops herself down on a heap of rags to read a book titled "Joan of Arc and Other Heroines." It soon becomes apparent, however, that this laundress doesn't need books to enter adventure-land. She does quite well on her own. Every object around her - a clothesline, a wash basin, a washing machine, a bowl of spaghetti - becomes a vehicle for heroic deeds. Hutter's character loves getting out of fixes, but she loves getting into them even more. So having finnally figured out how to get out of the washing machine, she joyfully dives back in again. She not only believes in her own catastrophic fantasies, she loves them. So when a paper doll falls to the floor she screams bloody murder, as if it were a real body. Yet so much does she enjoy screaming, she sends another doll to its death. Gardi will be performing her show Jeanne D'ArpPo at the NY Fringe Festival Make sure to catch it if you can! Click the date below to purchase tickets.... ($15 each at Venue #2, the Cherry Lane Theatre) Sat Aug 11 @ 9:30 pm Wed Aug 15 @ 5:00 pm Thu Aug 16 @ 9:30 pm Thu Aug 23 @ 2:30 pm Sat Aug 25 @ 12 pm To find out more about Gardi's work, visit her website listed below: http://www.gardihutter.com/

John Hadfield- "Crash The Clown"

John Hadfield is an actor, clown, and musician based in Wilmington Delaware. John attended the University of Delaware, getting a degree in Russian language, and while there discovered the art of clowning and circus skills. After college John enlisted in the army, and during basic training was procured by the White House Communications Agency, and worked with President Carter in the White House, and played an important role at the Bonn Summit, the Tokyo Summit and the Begin-Sadat peace talks at Camp David. In 1982 John graduated Ringling Clown College, then toured for two years with the Royal Lichtenstein Circus. He partnered with clown Chris Shelton to form the Crash Brothers, with John playing the role of Crash the Clown, and Chris playing Officer Offbeat The Clown. John also toured solo shows as Crash. As Crash, John has performed at a number of places, including the White House (twice), Disneyland, and Magic Land in Bangkok Thailand. John spends his free time competing in dog agility with his (Akita) dog Kenny, is a black belt in aikido, and ski races with the Wilmington Ski Club. Besides Crash the Clown and The Crash Brothers, John performs a science show, as a stiltwalker, his newest program is a set of kid's songs and comedy entitled John Hadfield in Concert. John's music CD's Monkeys In The House and Robot Monkey Head are available online. You can purchase them from Amazon.com by clicking on the album covers below. To find out more about John's work, please visit his website listed below: http://www.johnhadfield.net/

Housch-Ma-Housch (Semen Schuster)

Semen Schuster (whose clown character is Housch-Ma-Housch) is an eccentric clown who has been wowing audiences since graduating from the Circus School of Kiev. A winner of a number of prizes (including the Grockland "Golden Grock") at the 26th Festival Mondial de Cirque de Demain and the Silver Lion at the China Wuqiao International Circus Festival, Housch combines juggling, magic, dance, mime, and a whole lot of charm to create circus and cabaret acts that are inventive and memorable. His character is slightly mischievous, but mostly innocent. With a wide-eyed stare and his wacky hair-style (bald on top, wings coming out the sides) and his mumbling grammelot, he's a cross between the inbred hemophiliac Russian prince who has been stranded on an island and Zippy the pinhead, with Edward Scissorhands' sense of social grace. He's charming, bizarre, and eccentric-- well worth seeing if you have the opportunity. To find out more about his work, please visit his website listed below: http://www.housch-ma-housch.de/ (The site is in both German and English) He also has a number of videos posted on YouTube: Search for them here

Hilary Chaplain

Hilary Chaplain has been recognized as one of America’s foremost professional physical comediennes, performing her original solo and ensemble work for over a decade throughout the United States, Canada, South America and Europe. Uncovering the humor in everyday life, Hilary’s extraordinary work has won accolades worldwide. She is also a founding member of the New York Goofs (est.1998) appearing with them in prestigious New York venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Avery Fisher Hall, the American Museum of Natural History, Symphony Space, and on tour at Wolf Trap with Bob McGrath from Sesame Street. As an actress, Hilary was an original cast member in Bill Irwin's Largely/New York and appeared on Broadway and at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park as the Goddess Ceres in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of The Tempest directed by George C. Wolfe. Regionally, Hilary has worked with the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and with Israel Horowitz’s Gloucester Stage Company. She also played a featured role in the 1994 Oscar winning movie Forrest Gump, a lawyer on Law and Order Criminal Intent and made a special appearance on Late Night with David Letterman. Hilary is an adjunct professor of clowning at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (since 1994). She has also been entertaining children in NYC hospitals as "Nurse Nice" of the renowned Big Apple Circus Hospital Clown Program® (since 1987) and has been invited to teach Hospital Clowning internationally, most recently at the FILO Festival in Londrina, Brazil (spring 2004). A graduate of Hampshire College with a BA in Theatre Arts, Hilary spent time studying mime in Paris, France and in South Paris, Maine where she became involved in physical theatre and clown. She has worked with such teaching greats as Tony Montanaro, Avner Eisenberg, Julie Goell, Philippe Gaulier, David Shiner, Dick Monday, Ami Hattab, Bob Berky and Bill Irwin, to develop her unique style of performance. Hilary has toured her solo shows to a number of major festivals, including the Prague, Melbourne, & New York Fringe Festivals, Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston, Carcajada in Buenos Aires, FILO Festival in Londrina, Brazil, the Atlanta Fool’s Festival, the Funny Women Festival in Chicago, the Crazy Women Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia, PSNBC in New York City, Caroline’s Comedy Club, Surf Reality among others. For more information about Hilary, visit her website listed below: http://www.hilarychaplain.com