Pierre Etaix is at the Film Forum... and Jim Moore is There!

[post 296]

And I wasn't. After a few years of following the re-emergence of Pierre Etaix, my plans of seeing him live were derailed by a Friday night bike repair class. Priorities, priorities. (Yes, we were actually working on derailleurs.) Luckily, intrepid blogger / photographer / videographer Jim Moore was playing Superman to my Clark Kent and covering the event for his required-reading blog, vaudevisuals.com. Here's the video he shot.


Pierre Etaix - Excerpt from Q & A at FIlm Forum, NYC from Jim Moore on Vimeo.

The collaborator M. Etaix praises so effusively is screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, who also worked with Jacques Tati, Luis Buñuel, and Peter Brook.

Thanks again to Jim! You can read the whole post here.

See all of my Pierre Etaix posts here.

With Your Brains & My Body: The Future Imperfect of Physical Theatre

George Bernard Shaw

[post 268]

"Live performance in a defined public space is our last bulwark against two-dimensional images taking over reality. Theater may turn out to have been only a brief interlude between ritual and electronics; be glad you're here to see it."  — Erika Munk

As I wrote in my last post, I was excited when I saw that the London Guardian was live streaming the latest production from Circkus Cirkör. I wasn't in London to see it, but now with the click of a button I could watch the entire 74-minute piece at home, and for free no less.

Is this a good thing?

Part of the philosophy behind nouveau cirque, especially in France, gives primacy to live performance. People need to get out of their house and engage living, breathing performers, sharing the same time and space.

I agree with this, and I've loved most of the nouveau cirque productions I've seen in my trips to Europe, yet there are dozens and dozens I've missed and wish were available on DVD or online in high-quality versions. By and large they are not — unlike, say, the work of Cirque du Soleil. 


Which brings me to this piece I wrote 25 years ago loudly extolling the many virtues of live (physical) performance over "artificial" technology-aided media.


Confession: the hot head who wrote this polemic a quarter-century ago subsequently got hooked on digital this and that, including VFX (visual effects). I still agree with most of this, though these days I can't imagine me writing anything so damn preachy. In those days, I was into manifestoes!


This piece first appeared in a special 1987/88 double edition of Mime Journal edited by Tom Leabhart and featuring the photography of Jim Moore.

With Your Brains

History in the Making: Clown Summit & Vaudephone

Christopher Lueck
(Photo: Jim Moore)

[post 236] 

James Agee once wrote a famous book called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which was about tenant farmers who were in fact guys but certainly not famous, so I was going to title this post Let Us Now Praise Three Guys Who Aren't Famous Either but Should Be for All the Cool Work They do Promoting and Chronicling Clowns and Variety Artists — but that title was already taken.

The three guys in question are Christopher Lueck, Jim Moore, and Trav S.D. One of them I've never met, one I met three or four times, and the other I've known for 33 years and even performed with in a circus. Problem is I can't remember which is which. Yeah, just kidding. (I won't be that senile for another month or two.)

So let's start with Christopher Lueck, host of New York's monthly Downtown Clown Revue, now in its fifth season, and creator of the new instructional DVD Learn Slapstick: Get Physically Funny. That should keep Christopher busy enough, but he is also the mastermind behind Clown Summit, a series of audio interviews with contemporary clowns now in its second year. Last year's lineup featured informative chats with Chuck Sidlow & Mitch Freddes, Michael Christensen, Barry Lubin, Avner Eisenberg (Avner The Eccentric), John Gilkey, and David Kaye (Silly Billy).

This year's cavalcade of stars, which can be heard starting the day after tomorrow, is equally stellar:

• Joe Dieffenbacher (Clown Conservatory)
• Sue Morrison (Institute of Canadian Clowning)
• Jesse Dryden (Circus Smirkus)
• Ronlin Foreman (Dell’ Arte School)
• Priscilla Mooseburger (Mooseburger Camp)
• Jango Edwards (Nouveau Clown Institute)

And it's all free! Just go to the Clown Summit web site to register and you will receive a link via e-mail to listen to the interviews, which will be available for streaming for 24 hours each — one a day from January 30th through February 4th. If you miss them, or want these as a part of your permanent collection, all the contents will be available afterwards on a reasonably priced CD or downloadable e-book. What's not to like?

Jim Moore

Next up are Jim Moore (not his real name) and Trav S.D., and their new collaboration, Vaudephone. Jim is an old friend whose work has appeared frequently on this blog. A former mime and street performer, Jim is a master photographer who has been documenting the eccentric arts for over three decades, most recently for his excellent Vaude_Visuals blog. Now that he's retired from his day job, he's put this work into high gear, if not overdrive. As I've joked more than once, if they hold a clown show in New York City and Jim's not there, does it still make a sound?

Trav S.D.

Trav S.D. is equally nuts. He actually thought the world needed yet another book on vaudeville, and then proceeded to write a best-seller on the subject, No Applause—Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous. I've read and enjoyed it and will be including it in my upcoming series of posts on variety theatre, tentatively slotted in for late 2010. (Okay, so I'm a little behind schedule.) He also does dozens of other things, as indicated by the subtitle to his encyclopedic blog. Travalanche: Being a web log for the observations of actor, author, cartoonist, comedian, critic, director, humorist, journalist, master of ceremonies, performance artist, playwright, producer, publicist, public speaker, songwriter, and variety booker Trav S.D. 

Vaudephone is producing video documentation of contemporary variety performance. Its name and its value both harken back to the old Warner Brothers Vitaphone film shorts of the early 30s that preserved some vintage vaudeville acts for posterity. Here's their intro:


The Vaudephone revives the old concept of Vitaphone vaudeville for the Vimeo age, presenting today’s hottest variety acts in a simple and attractive format for the discerning audience member from the convenience of your computer. Look here each Tuesday for a new installment from now through early 2012. 


Jim and Trav S.D. have been running around town shooting video of a wide variety of variety acts, placing the performers in a studio setting rather than in front of a live audience. What is lost in ambience and audience reaction is gained in proper lighting, crystal-clear audio, and optimal camera positioning. (It's very hard to get good video at a live show without extensive prep and some expensive equipment!)

Here's a more detailed explanation of the process from Trav S.D.:
"I've been going to Ron Hutchison's Vitaphone programs at the Film Forum for many many years. It occurred to me that there is a certain modular quality to them....something similar to the vaudeville bios I do on Travalanche and to the photo essays Jim does on Vaudevisuals. So it occurred to me that conceptually it would be a natural thing for us to collaborate on -- the joint content we create fits both of our blogs. I came up with the idea of distressing it to make it look like a Vitaphone and also came up with the semi-accurate format of the titles. I book all of the acts, determine the content, and coach them on the aesthetic we're going for (I've been producing vaudeville shows since 1995, so it's also a natural outgrowth of that.) I also secured theme music from Vince Giordano and (upcoming) Jerry Zucker, and also have a say in how the act is shot (i.e., framing composition -- there ain't much else!). Jim does all of the shooting, lighting, post-production, and works with a subcontractor on titles."

I can remember when we all discovered video in the 70s. We liked having copies of our shows (even if we all looked green and blurry), but no one appearing in a festival would let their work be videotaped by others, out of fear of their material being stolen. Now it seems everyone wants to be on YouTube, but often the production values are quite low and do a disservice to the performers. The growing Vaudephone archive remedies all that, so let's hope they continue to produce these nuggets well beyond "early 2012."

Good work, all three of you, and here are those links again:
Clown Summit
Vaudephone

Guest Post: Hilary Chaplain Interviews Spy Monkey

[post 218]
When I run into Hilary Chaplain, an old friend and fellow New Yorker, my usual greeting is "Oh, I didn't know you were back in the country." As a popular theatre clown with a one-woman show and as a teacher of clown and physical comedy, Hilary is in demand at festivals and variety theatres all over the world. It was on these travels that she became acquainted with Spy Monkey, and her enthusiasm about their work led not only to this guest post, but also to her bringing them to New York to conduct workshops. You can read more about Hilary here, and if you're anywhere near New York next weekend (Dec. 8–11), catch her show, A Life in her Day, as part of the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival at the Theatre for the New City. —jt
____________________________


Spymonkey was founded by Toby Park, Petra Massey and Aitor Basauri in 1997 and has since been joined by Stephan Kreiss. With their dark, edgy physical comedy rooted "somewhere between Monty Python, the Marx Brothers and Samuel Beckett" (The Houston Chronicle), and a quartet of performers from Spain, Germany and England, Spymonkey has proved to be a truly international phenomenon, enjoyed by and accessible to a wide range of international audiences.

In May 2010, I took a week-long clown workshop with Aitor Basauri, co-founding member and performer with the group in Brighton, England where Spy Monkey is based, and subsequently brought him to NY twice in 2011, assisted by Petra Massey on his second visit. He is a clown teacher at École Philippe Gaulier, Paris, and for Cirque Du Soleil, Montreal, and regularly teaches in London.   I find Aitor to be one of the best clown teachers out there. His teaching method and pedagogy is drawn from his teachers, Phillipe Caulier, Pierre Byland, Mick Barnfarther, and Cal Macrystal.  He has clearly created his own way and his classes are full of joy and fun and laughter. He dedicates himself to helping every student find their way.

During the workshop, I spoke to Aitor about his teaching.

“I think that everybody can be funny, and the way to show ‘your’ funny is by showing your stupidity. We see it when you do something that you know is not done or hasn’t come out in the right way. In order to do that we play lots of games that seem very simple, that the actor thinks they can play well. When they play badly, we see in their faces how stupid they feel. That’s the moment when we all laugh. That’s where we can all be funny. We laugh at stupidity because it’s very human. We like to see human people on the stage. If you see someone having lots of fun on the street — like kids, full of jokes and games — you’re amused at the amount of pleasure that kid is having.

We should have that kind of fun when we’re on the stage. We should have that kind of fun when we’re in the workshop. It should be a party, a playground, a place where you have lots of fun all the time. A place where you don’t have to worry about being funny. If you worry about being funny, you’ll never be funny. It’s great when someone tries to be funny and fails — but then they have to show it to the audience, that it didn’t work. If this doesn’t happen, we, the audience, know that they are not playing for us. And that’s the point — to play for us. If not for us, then who? Why is the audience here?  The clown exists just for the audience.  If there’s not an audience, the clown doesn’t exist. It sounds a little simple to say, but an actor can play when there is no audience. But the clown show is so clearly different every night because of the audience. There’s a clear dialogue.”

“In the clown workshop, we’re trying to see YOU. Once we do, once you’re happy on stage doing nothing, being stupid, you can do anything. We look for your pleasure, your fun and your optimism. We hate you for lying and for being clever. Anything will work – it’s not about what you’re doing. It’s your attempt and your pleasure that we laugh at.  We often don’t even know why we’re laughing. It’s a dangerous place out there on the stage in front of the group not knowing what to do, but being OK in that place and finding something just from being there and in being honest in the immediate situation. When we stay safe and do what we think will work, it will very often fall flat because there’s no honesty in the moment.”

The four members of the Spy Monkey company are Aitor from Bibao, Spain; Stephan Kreiss is German and lives in Vienna; Petra Massey lives in London; and Toby Parks lives in Brighton. The four met about 10 years ago doing a show in Switzerland and, finding an affinity with each other through a common vocabulary stemming from their training with Phillipe Gaulier, they formed this company of clowns who like to act. Aitor says “many people will not call us clowns because we don’t use the classic red nose, but we are always very interested in the stupidity of the clown and in all our shows we try to push that to many places. In all our shows we’re clowns who like to act. That’s what we’re interested in. In our PR blurb we’ve been forced to get rid of the word clown because it’s generally misinterpreted. We’re interested in the stupid situations that the clown’s spirit creates in relationship to the audience and each other and the stories that they play.”

Here's my interview with Aitor Basauri and Petra Massey, conducted during their recent visit to New York.



Thank you to videographer Jim Moore, of VaudeVisuals fame!

Here are a few Spy Monkey videos. Go to their web site to read about current and past shows and to see more videos. I  have yet to see them live, but I’ve watched their videos over and over and laugh every time!

The Clown Unmasked: Photos by Jim Moore

[post 149]

Jim Moore, whose photography I wrote about in this early blog post, has a new show of clown photos opening tomorrow at Manhattan's Cornelia Street Café. Since I realize most of you aren't anywhere near New York City, I'm planning to have a glass of wine in your honor at tomorrow's opening — one glass per missing blog reader — provided the wine's free.  I also thought I'd show you some of what you're missing with this preview of photos from the exhibit.

But first here's the official program introduction to the exhibit written by — quelle coincidence — little old moi:

If they hold a clown show in New York and Jim Moore's not there, do they still do the show?   I wouldn't know, because I'm not sure if that's actually ever happened. 

Since his early days as a street performer and photographer in 1970’s New York, Jim has made it his business to know every variety performer and to be everywhere they performed. And to photograph them. Constantly. He lived the life and knew the people, then and now.  Whether he shot you in performance, on location, or in his studio, he’s always had that uncanny ability to capture the essence of these highly individualistic characters — especially the clowns and eccentrics.

And he never stopped doing it.  For 40+ years!  Like all fine photographers, Jim has more than just a keen eye and polished technique. He has an instinctual feel for his subjects and, above all, their total trust.  In this revealing exhibit of miniatures, he shoots not only from his honorary front-row seat, but meets the performers backstage, in his studio, in their homes, in their rehearsal spaces — capturing the person and the persona and giving us a glimpse into a more deeply textured world.

On with the show!

John Leo

Joel Jeske

Audrey Crabtree

Ambrose Martos

Matt Mitler

Glen Henroy

Kevin C. Carr

Eric Davis

Clowns Ex Machina

Hilary Chaplain

Tanya Elchuk

___________________________________

For more of Jim's work, see his excellent blog, Vaude Visuals.

The Photography of Jim Moore

[post 009]

Jim Moore, colleague of and paparazzo to a generation or two of street performers and new wave vaudevillians, has a new photography exhibition in New York running through next week. You've probably seen Jim's work even if you don't know it, and many of you also saw him in the Academy-Award winning documentary, Man on Wire, where he swivels his head with the best of them. (BTW, this movie is available on Netflix instant play.)

For the 98.3% of you who can't get to Jim's show, here are a few goodies. First of all, here's Jim's web site.

And the press release for the show:

[The usual Scribd note: click on icon in upper-right corner to view document full-screen; click again on same icon to return to blog.]
Jim Moore Press Release-finalpdf

Publish Post

And here are all the nice things Jim made me write about him for his show catalog:

Like all fine photographers, Jim Moore has more than just a keen eye and polished technique. For over four decades he has displayed a sixth sense, a knack for being in the middle of the action. No, Jim, was no Robert Capa or Eddie Adams, dodging bullets in some war zone to get his shots. Instead, he was living and breathing the world of — what should we call it exactly? — the eccentric performer, including but not limited to the clown, juggler, wirewalker, magician, busker, sword swallower, puppeteer, new vaudevillian... that ancient tribe that has been delighting and astounding audiences since pre-historic times, and whose singular skills and presentation make a statement that resonates louder than ever in this age of mass-produced entertainment.

Jim began as a street performer in the 70s and made it his business to know everyone. And to photograph them. He saw their shows, sometimes even performed with them. Above all, he lived the life. Whether he shot you in performance, on location, or in his studio, he’s always had that uncanny ability to capture the essence of these highly individualistic characters. The result is a remarkable visual history of some amazing people. Enjoy!

And here's a short slide show with some sample shots:

Jim Photos