Heyokah cast clowns around

"The Heyokah is a contrary clown who holds total wisdom and teaches

people through laughter and opposites. Laughter opens you up to what
the spirits want you to learn." - Bill Bowers

Because the Heyokah is a type of clown, today Jim taught the basics of "clown theory."  We each picked out a special red nose and then created a character out of that nose.  Each nose was extremely different, each actor was extremely different, and so each character was extremely different.  Here are some pictures of an exercise that we did.  Jim told us to come out onstage in groups of two, to sit in the two chairs on the stage, and to discover the audience.  Here is what happened:

Hannah's character was trying to seduce both Hossein and the audience.  Notice as she shows off her long legs...

Hossein was very playful and innocent.  When Hannah showed him her leg, he shook her foot, and completely misinterpreted the flirtation.

James was very much the "straight man" in this scene between him and Stephen.  James instructed Stephen in what to do, and corrected him periodically.

Stephen just wanted to make James happy, even if that meant that he didn't get to hang out with the audience.

Vanessa was very obviously Birgitta's caretaker in this scene.  She tried unsuccessfully to get Birgitta to sit down on the chair.

Birgitta misunderstood Vanessa's body language, and became convinced that Vanessa wanted Birgitta to rub her bottom.

Kaleena's nose kept falling off during this scene, and so she had to balance her focus between keeping her nose on and keeping Sara away from her.

Sara loved Kaleena and her nose and wanted to be near to her at all times.  Except when the nose fell off...

I'm sure that these scenes have lost a lot in translation, but please believe me when I say that the rest of the group was in stitches during each of the scenes.


We will hopefully be using some of these clown characters that we created today in the Heyokah performances, so stay tuned as these ridiculous characters develop!