Loonisee in Thunder Bay
Touring and doing the Fringe with Loonisee made us feel like we were the real thing.
Performing with Loonisee meant we challenged all kinds of contemporary topics in all kinds of places with all kinds of people. Physical improvisation and audience participation was our trademark. My clown Maude stepped up to the plate by co-founding a clown program at St. Boniface Hospital.
Nuts and Bolts
This Loonisee show ended up being a critique on psychiatric medical practices. Again, we used mime and music and improvised different bits according to where we were and how much time we had. One piece I remember is when one of the clowns becomes concerned that Pierrot can’t speak and takes her to the Doctor who happens to be Mister. Mister interrogates Pierrot and prescribes a yellow plastic bat to hit herself on the head with. Pierrot thinks twice about this and ends up, with the audience’s encouragement, to chase Mister off the stage while threatening to hit him with the bat. We developed this show for a conference on healing in Thunder Bay and they actually paid us and put us up in a hotel. On that trip we also became part of a parade in Fort Frances where we stayed in the crazy campground.
In Winnipeg, one piece we did was mime to Harry Chapin’s song, “All my Life’s a Circle.” In this case Rockbert sang it and Alvin Kaske played guitar. Pierrot mimed and encouraged everyone in the audience to copy her. We did this for a group of children with disabilities and their caregivers at a conference in the Winnipeg Convention Centre and it was taped by CBC. It was beautiful to see the children raising their arms and being the sun and the moon with Pierrot.
Pierrot also baked an imaginary apple pie and gave everyone a piece. Sharing food is special – real or imaginary. Alvin (the guitar player) said that we opened imaginary windows for the children. I had not created the drama program at Manitoba Developmental Center at that time. Alvin had worked with children with disabilities before, so he knew the value of warm, direct relationships. I could see the magic of non-verbal communication opening doors of expression and communication for these children.
Popcorn Philosophy
In 2004, Pat Holbrow and I started talking while we were in line for the Chip Truck at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival. After brief introductions, we realized that we were both interested in clowning. She had just finished a course with Jan Henderson in Edmonton and wanted to try out her new skills. I was thinking about starting a clown in the hospital program at St. Boniface Hospital through Manitoba Artists in Healthcare. We decided to give it a go. We began as volunteers and before long had found funding for the program that lasted over ten years. Here is one of our early reports:
Therapeutic Clown Program
Hospital: St. Boniface General Hospital, Winnipeg, MB
Program Start Date: October 1, 2004
Therapeutic Clown: Maude (Sue Proctor with volunteer clown trainee and substitute, Dr. Sunny Soleil, Pat Holbrow)
Program Objectives for 2006
Objectives are to develop and continue the program. We would like to expand to two clown days a week and continue to:
Enhance the experience of children coming for Outpatient care
Alleviate anxiety and stress in the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic
Provide a humanizing element for the environment of the General Hospital
Bring humour, comfort and solace to seniors with long stays in the hospital
Overall Assessment of the Program
The program has been successful. We have contributed to the care and enhanced treatment for children and families visiting the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic, as well as positively introduced the staff to the presence of hospital clowns. We have also visited and received a warm reception on the Geriatric floors.
Our program is unique because sometimes we work in the style of Dr. Clown, in pairs and sometimes we work solo with individuals and groups in the style of the therapeutic clowns. Maude is the principal clown while Dr. S Soleil is a volunteer, trainee and substitute. She regularly clowns Tuesday afternoons, while Maude clowns Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. When the two clowns are in the halls or on the elevator, they make quite a splash. In the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic, sometimes two clowns are too much, so one of us will go to a different part of the hospital while one stays and engages with the children.
The hospital is undergoing renovations this year so the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic has been moved to a temporary location on the Sixth floor, which is not ideal. The Doctors, staff and families were concerned that the clowns would be able to follow them to these cramped quarters. Everyone is adjusting to the space and many are glad the clowns are still there to keep people smiling.
Children who visit the Clinic weekly expect to see the clowns. They come ready to play and enthusiastically enter the waiting room. Often, we will wait for a child to come back from seeing the doctor because he or she was not ready to say goodbye. Some of the parents get involved in the play which is fun for everyone in the room. After immunization, the babies will become calm and happy while watching the clowns blowing bubbles. Children with disabilities will engage with the clowns and practice their communication skills. One boy with hearing aids on each ear and difficulties with speech made every effort to communicate with the clown. Maude repeated his words back to him to make sure she understood and they became immersed in some very serious, but funny, play. The child’s relationship to the clown is magical.
Comments:
"You made my day!"
"Are you our clown?"
"Would you be my best friend?"
“We take you with us when we go and think about you when we lie on our beds.”
“There will be angels waiting for you.”
Odds & Ends - St. Boniface Clown Notes
Funny things happen when you’re a clown! The other clowns and I used to get changed out of our street clothes and costumes at the end of a long tunnel underneath the hospital. As I walked down the hallway towards the pediatric clinic in my costume, I would try to find a sense of the clown character in my mind. I had read somewhere that the clown lives in the non-rational part of the brain, so I would consciously try to shift the energy of my mind to the non-thinking part of my brain and put all my daily worries on a shelf at the back of my mind to be picked up later. By the time I had clowned with the children, their families and the nurses for a few hours, my clown consciousness had usually taken over my mind and my body. On the way back down the tunnel one day I had my prop – a sort of wand that made a Bloop-bloop sound every time I turned it over. So, Maude, my clown, was walking along turning the wand over in rhythm to my steps. As Maude came past an office, the secretaries were staring out the door at her. “We couldn’t figure out what was making that sound!” they laughed, surprised to see the clown ‘Maude’ in their corridor.
References:
Proctor, Sue. The Archetypal Role of the Clown as a Catalyst for Individual and Societal Transformation. https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/977096/