New Deathclown Online monthly classes starting Saturday Feb 24th
hi everyone, i am beginning a new cycle of Deathclown training online starting Saturday Feb 24th, 2024!
the session is split into two sections. 10am-2pm pst all inclusive, timing breakdowns are as follows:
section one is for new students who want to begin training in this method. the section is 90 minutes long with a few 5-minute breaks. Participants who attend this section can also stay and audit/observe section two which is for continuing students.
observing the continuing students is currently the only way to begin to learn enough to be able to participate in section two. section one is from 10am-1130am pst.
I will devise procedures to determine when a new student transitions to becoming a continuing student.
there is a half an hour break between the two sections for transitioning, personal hygiene, nutrition, etc.
section two is for continuing students who attended last year’s three month intensive and is two hours long with a short break as needed. section two is from 12pm-2pm pst.
Trial costs as of Feb 2024 — all costs subject to change as everything changes based on context.
the initial cost for section one for new students is sliding scale starting at 30 USD.
ongoing students can (and should) attend section one to continue to warm up, hone the basics, prepare for section two and help practice with new students. The cost for section one for continuing students is sliding scale starting at 5 USD NOTAFLOF.
the initial cost for section two for continuing students is sliding scale 20 USD and above. the low-end of market rate is 30 USD. the high end of market-rate is 40 USD. please donate market rate or above as you are financially able to do so.
all sections are recorded for my own archival and research purposes to document the decolonial theater project that deathclown is a cornerstone of. recordings will not be sent out afterwards as practice happens live. by attending class, you are consenting for me to record and use the recordings per my discretion. breakout rooms are not recorded.
if you cannot make the times listed you can schedule private sessions or go in on private sessions with other students.
starting in March or April we will be adding a second session per month that will focus more on group devising and works in progress showings which include critical reflection processes. stay tuned for more announcements and clarity as this new wave of Deathclown training emerges.
HOW TO SIGN UP
https://buytickets.at/animistarts
Post Mortem & new writing
i am trying to develop ways of onboarding new students in an energy efficient way that is respectfully reciprocal as i currently have no future plans for another three month online intensive course, especially for the price i offered the first time. a future course such as that would be at least double or triple the original introductory offer of 500usd for three months/45 hours of training.
The following is a new brief introduction to the work/method of Deathclown and how I am holding it within a larger project of decolonial theater arts. For older writings on this please see here:
https://thenightgarden.substack.com/p/deathclowntheaterprecarity
Deathclown as Decolonial Ritual Theater
In the distant past, what we today call theater – performance arts – served functions that were not solely limited to entertainment. Ritual performances performed multiple duties, functioning as therapeutic ritual hygiene tailored to the specific group, land region and seasonal/astro-geomantic timing.
Further, as culture innovated and evolved, all the various kinds of theater we now subdivide were once parts of an ecosystemic whole. Comedy, tragedy, satire, drama, folkloric storytelling, spiritual healing/spirit retrieval & the harmonization of the 5 spirits, song & dance all co-existed within the community circle and the various ritual performances throughout the months and years.
Everyone was trained, both as performer and as audience (yes there is contextual audience etiquette and training), and the line between performer and audience was permeable and much less strict/binary than today in the western ideal.
Both the performers and the audience understood that their ritual actions (the beginning of what we call acting) were for the spirits, for each other and the more-than-human world, the ancestors and the bigger mysteries beyond our knowing.
Acting was not about reifying the “self”.
Hygiene and why it matters.
Human beings require hygiene that we can subdivide into multiple types:
precepts (based in the correct worldview, in this case nondual animism), conduct, nutrition (including herbology), neigong (energetic “exercises” and circulation methods), meditation (non-conceptual/apophatic aka “self-negation” methods such as zuowang, shamatha, etc), bathing (including spiritual baths/limpias), medicinal procedures (including massage, acupuncture, moxibustion, etc) & ritual (divination, ancestral veneration, mediumship, song & dance, offerings, prayer, etc).
It is in this last category of ritual hygiene that the most emphasis is placed when I am talking about the kind of decolonial theater I am practicing and researching. This does not mean that the actors/performers/ritualists/clowns would not need to engage in all of the other types of hygiene – they would absolutely need to in order to prepare for, integrate and maintain the equanimity and baseline required to enter and exit the ritual theater play in a harm-reductive manner.
To play well requires serious care and attention to detail. It is not merely going into a trance state and allowing impulses to “take over”.
The view & methods through which I am engaging in this ritual research project are not for everyone’s preferences. This deathclown method I am developing is akin to a spiritual martial art mixed with a critical poetic/artistic praxis. I am responsible for the vision of it, and I consider it my soul work.
Everyone is welcome to participate but it will involve taking direction, correction and usually a detox process which is not superficially pleasant. If one can commit to the long game and reduce dependency on quick-fixes and colonial habits of mind, then the fruits of the practice will reveal themselves in accordance with each person’s unique fate pattern and character.
Lineage and Training
I am trained in a number of performance arts methodologies, however in terms of the seed or spark from which Deathclown erupted, I give an impossible thank you to Nathanial Justiniano & Naked Empire Bouffon, as well as our mutual teacher Giovanni Fusetti. A special thanks also goes to Deborah Eliezer & the now defunct FoolsFury Theater company that gave me my initial training in physical theater that allowed me to absorb the bouffon training that lay in wait in my future. I also give a great thanks and appreciation to the many fellow clowns and scrappy theater makers in the bay area that created a beautiful community the likes of which I have never seen again: Fenner, Slater, Sabrina, Cara, Wendy, Zach, Marina, everyone at The Athletic Playground… the list of names & the show goes on, even in death.
Structural Overview
The training method is one of nested frames & cycles. Overall, the technical frame is one I call “impro-devising” which is exactly as a it sounds, a hybrid of improvisational and devised processes. Further, we follow a non-linear, repeating cycle of craft: Generating-Reflecting-Refining. Practitioners are trained in a number of ways: solo-without-witness, solo-with-witness, and duo/group scenarios. These may include activities such as movement, speech, song, rhythm, writing, etc.
Roughly speaking I will divide sections into more improvising or more devising based, and choose various focuses such as generating, reflecting or refining. Eventually we move on towards developing Works in Process to “test” students in their capacity to move through/with the energies of the field. We reflect on these WIPs using a modified version of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process.
