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Clown Town

Jun 28, ’11 12:33 AM

I took a red nose clown workshop from Paola Coletto two weeks ago. One of the apprenticeship students, Ned Brower, doccumented our progress and just started putting photos on line this week. These are from an excercise we did on the last day of class when we swapped costumes and clowns with a partner.

Twin Sons of Different Mothers

That’s me and Alee as our clowns, Gar and Sparkle Grape. I’m not sure they’re if even from the same universe, but if they are they would not wish to be acknowledged by the other on the street.

As silly as the photos may seem, I feel really lucky to have found such excellent and uncommon training so soon after arriving in Chicago. I wouldn’t have known how to look for this kind of class if I tried. I stumbled into them really. My friend mentioned taking clown classes, I asked him about them and a few days later he introduced me to her at the opening of his show.

I’ve been fascinated by this kind of clown performance since seeing in Fellini’s La Strada for the first time. Innocent Gelsomina is an impossible situation and fails over and over again in a beautiful way. The little flame she started in my heart was fanned at Slava’s Snow Show. My mom bought tickets to it even though I thought it sounded dumb. Clowns mom? Come on! I came out of the theater totally flabbergasted by that show and immediately afterword I can’t remember if I speechless or wouldn’t shut up about it.

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Zhenya in Detroit

Jun 21, ’11 1:02 PM

I met Gene (AKA Zhenya, Euvgene) in 2005 when we both worked at the Paramount in Wellington. We were fast friends and collaborated on a few projects together. (Maybe you remember this?) We’ve been in intermittent contact since I moved off the Long White Cloud.

Gene’s visited the U.S. a few times since then, but every time he’s been stateside I’ve either been too far away or too broke to see him. But a few weeks ago Gene ventured outside of New York City and went on an impromptu tour of some great American cities, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago.

I jumped on the chance to meet Gene in Detroit, a city that looked close enough on the map to justify jumping in without much of a game plan. I meant to spend a day with him but we ended up spending the long weekend together.

THE SPIRAL

Gene filled me in on what he’s been up to for the past few years. Back in Wellington he had been performing a little, collaborating on a few shows, he started a theater company, produced some plays and even flew a director in from New York out for a production. But he told me, “I made a hundred bucks man, it just wasn’t worth it.” He swore theater off and focused on making music.

After several months of producing music and DJing in Wellington, Gene found himself in a Commedia del’Arte workshop given by this mad man. The work was powerful enough to inspire taking a significant risk, so after talking it over with Giovanni (the mad man) and Gene’s long time partner Erin, he took the plunge and for the past six months has been studying at Helikos, a small physical theater program in Florence, Italy.

As it turns out, the woman who gives the amazing red nose workshops I’ve been taking in Chicago, Paola Coletto worked with Giovanni to develop the previous incarnation of the school in the early 2000s. Small world right?

 

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Free Day

Jun 12, ’11 11:48 PM

I’m in a workshop at Columbia College which gets me right down on Michigan Avenue every weekday. Last Wednesday was free day at the Art Institute of Chicago and I had a great walk through there with my friend Thomas. Here is a video of what it was like.

I was most struck by this Rodin bronze, Head of Pierre de Wissant. The slack-jawed sorrow on his face surprised me when I passed by the case. But I’ll have to come back because I only got a quick look at a case full of these hilarious little bronze heads.

I haven’t been able to articulate for myself what it feels like to see in person the paintings I’ve seen reproduced and riffed on a thousand times before. The closest I can come is that it’s like meeting a celebrity—the thrill of recognition but without any other familiarity.

Nighthawks is beautiful in person, but I didn’t get a long look at it. My sister  used to have print of it hanging in her room when we lived on Billings Avenue. The 10-12 year old me was particularly fascinated with the 5¢ PHILLIES sign and unsettled by the ghastly redhead and skeletal waiter. Seeing it in person I didn’t look at the ghouls at all, only at vibrant area to the right of them. I noticed two details: one of the samovars in empty, and the door has a  single brush stroke for a push plate. Now I feel like all I have is a he’s way shorter than I thought he would be story.

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The Diner Next Door

Jun 5, ’11 1:17 PM

Here is a table full of some of the people I’m in class with at the iO Training Center every Friday. For the past couple of weeks a handful of us have gotten together at the Salt and Pepper Diner, right next door to the theater, shoved tables together and started to get to know each other. We just finished our sixth week of first level classes, and only have two weeks to go. Time flies!

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Stores for Spies

Jun 4, ’11 4:46 PM

It’s impossible to miss this gem at the intersection of Western and Fullerton. Behind the buzzing neon window display a particle board wall bristles with security cameras for sale. To make them look more high tech, they’re all back lit with blue LED light, the most high tech color of all. Above the shop there may be an office that looks like this.

It’s important not to confuse this store with the world famous Boring Store, a little further south on Milwaukee Avenue. The Boring Store is a great novelty shop and a heck of a lot more fun than the paranoid and creepy Spy Store. And though I may be killed for blowing their cover, I’ll write it anyway, the Boring Store is a front for a really cool writing and tutoring program 866Chi. One of several big city storefront writing workshops started by author Dave Eggers.

end transmission…

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