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By its very nature the clown, as represented in art, is an interdisciplinary phenomenon. In whichever artform it appears – fiction, drama, film, photography or fine art – it carries the symbolic association of its usage in popular culture, be it ritual festivities, street theatre or circus. The clown, like its extended family of fools, jesters, picaros and tricksters, has a variety of functions all focussed around its status and image of being “other.” Frequently a marginalized figure, it provides the foil for the shortcomings of dominant discourse or the absurdities of human behaviour. Clowns, Fools and Picaros represents the latest research on the clown, bringing together for the first time studies from four continents: Europe, America, Africa and Asia. It attempts to ascertain commonalities, overlaps and differences between artistic expressions of the “clownesque” from these various continents and genres, and above all, to examine the role of the clown in our cultures today. This volume is of interest for scholars of political and comic drama, film and visual art as well as scholars of comparative literature and anthropology.
This history of clowns is documented in this generously illustrated volume, tracing the evolution of clowns and clowning from the entertaining rituals of the American Indians to the worldwide clown costumes and clown routines of today
Establishes the importance of the popular radical figure of the pantomime clown in the work of Charles DickensThis book reappraises Dickens's Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi and his imaginative engagement with its principal protagonist. Arguing that the Memoirs should be read as integral to Dickens's wider creative project on the theatricality of everyday existence, Jonathan Buckmaster analyses how Grimaldi's clown stepped into many of Dickens's novels. Dickens's Clowns presents new readings of Dickens's treatment of topics such as identity, the grotesque and violence within the context of the tropes of the Regency pantomime. This is the first study to identify the Dickensian clown as a unifying ...
Focusing on the clown Will Kemp, this book shows how Shakespeare and other dramatists wrote specific roles as vehicles for him.
For clown lovers and art lovers alike, the only collection of clown faces painted on eggs anywhere in the world The Clown Egg Register is a unique record of two hundred and fifty clown faces, each one painted on to an egg. The eggs act as copyright for a clown's personal visual identity, preserving the unwritten rule that a clown must never copy the face of another. It is a tradition that began in the United Kingdom in the 1940s at Clowns International, the oldest established club for clowns. In this book, the inimitably eccentric collection of images is paired with biographies of each clown, revealing details of their private and public lives, and giving a glimpse into this outmoded art form that continues to delight and terrify children everywhere.
A strange new phenomenon is striking fear into everyday people. It is happening from the bustling cites to the tranquil suburbs. From the back of bus windows to brief glimpses of figures in the woods. A sinister laugh erupts behind a group of boys. They turn and see a clown behind them. He suddenly throws a stick at them and it strikes one of the boys in the head cutting a deep gash. Bright red blood erupts and gushes onto the floor, causing him to cry out in shock and pain. The clown escapes in the confusion and the boy is taken to hospital. This is just one new event in Rotherham, England. Yes I'm talking about people dressed as creepy clowns who have been appearing around America and now ...
In this book, Paul Bouissac, pioneer and master of the scientific approach to circus arts, demonstrates in a complete and brilliant way, by semiotic, anthropological and cognitive approaches, how the clowning art is a multimodal and complex act of communication, which produces laughter and sense through cognitive and cultural constructions shared by artists and spectators. THE definitive reference to understand clowning
Clowns: In Conversation is a ground-breaking collection of interviews expanded in this second edition to include over 30 of the greatest clowns on earth. In discussion with clown aficionados Ezra LeBank and David Bridel, these legends of comedy reveal the origins, inspirations, techniques, and philosophies that underpin their remarkable odysseys. These artists speak candidly about their first encounters with clowning and circus, the crucial decisions that carved out the foundations of their style, and the role of teachers and mentors who shaped their development. Follow the twists and turns that changed the direction of their art and careers, as they explore the role of failure and originali...
From the late-medieval period through to the seventeenth century, English theatrical clowns carried a weighty cultural significance, only to have it stripped from them, sometimes violently, by the close of the Renaissance when the famed "license" of fooling was effectively revoked. This groundbreaking survey of clown traditions in the period looks both at their history, and reveals their hidden cultural contexts and legacies; it has far-reaching implications not only for our general understanding of English clown types, but also their considerable role in defining social, religious and racial boundaries. It begins with an exploration of previously un-noted early representations of blackness ...
The Victorian Clown is a micro-history of mid-Victorian comedy, spun out of the life and work of two professional clowns. Their previously unpublished manuscripts - James Frowde's account of his young life with the famous Henglers' circus in the 1850s and Thomas Lawrence's 1871 gag book - offer unique, unmediated access to the grass roots of popular entertainment. Through them this book explores the role of the circus clown at the height of equestrian entertainment in Britain, when the comic managed audience attention for the riders and acrobats, parodying their skills in his own tumbling and contortionism, and also offered a running commentary on the times through his own 'wheezes' - stand-up comedy sets. Plays in the ring connect the circus to the stage, and both these men were also comic singers, giving a sharp insight into popular music just as it was being transformed by the new institution of music hall.