Loonisee on the Prairies
Where do socks come from? They’re grown like grain on the prairies near where I live.
The Loonisee shows were wild and wonderful. Clown premise – you start in the here and now. Have the audience buy in. Here are foolish clowns on the West End stage. From there take the audience into the ridiculous and the more ridiculous. Thinking of Lucille Ball and Mr. Bean. Once you break out of the expected reality, anything can happen and anything is plausible.
Loonisee on the Prairies
Gardening and farming are a big part of my life on the prairies. Loonisee Clown Troupe created a piece to perform at the West End Cultural Centre about growing socks. Guitar player James Meagher wrote a song about growing socks in the fields and all the different kind of socks that can be grown. I remember one was argyle socks and I remember the image of socks waving in the breeze like prairie grasses. At that time, we didn’t record things, take pictures, or even document much, so the song has disappeared.
James contracted ALS that year and his health slowly deteriorated. By February he was performing in a wheelchair, and by the spring he asked Alvin Kaskie to replace him. James played a red electric guitar, he called it a mean Strat, and improvised or made up songs for every show. Robert McCaig (Rockbert) sang to James’ back-up and in the early days David Langdon did beautiful songs on the mandolin and Jeff Olson played the banjo. At the very beginning Jake Chenier helped us out. The music set the pace and rhythm to the shows. Although the shows weren’t musicals, they always included music. By the next September James died, making us all so sad.
In the show the clown Minnie runs a sock farm helped by Pierrot. The shows all had a musical introduction where James played, Rockbert sang and the clowns were clowning around. Pierrot usually got overly animated and fell down. The audience would cheer her to get up again.
I wrote stories based on the show with the intention of turning them into children’s picture books and I’m still looking for a publisher. In the stories I used Agnes, because Agnes is my current storytelling clown, but she wasn’t around when we did the shows.
This show began with Pierrot putting on the sad sock and moping at the front of the stage. Minnie who was busy and energetic and talked a lot was getting miffed at Pierrot for sitting around until she realized what had happened. In a panic, Minnie grabbed the singing sock for Pierrot, but that made things worse because Pierrot was so sad about not being able to sing.
Popcorn Philosophy - Clowning for Connection
The development of therapeutic clowning in the hospitals grew as I began my clowning. Karen Ridd, who came to me for mime lessons, convinced me to come clowning with her. Years later I co-founded a small clown program at the St. Boniface hospital. In the next few weeks, I’ll introduce you to some of the programs and the clowns that I’ve had the pleasure to interview.
Karen Ridd (Robo)
Karen Ridd grew up in Winnipeg and obtained her B.A. (Honours) in English at the University of Winnipeg. She attended a “Clowning for Peace” workshop organized by a local church. During the workshop, Karen, who was a basketball star and had never done theatre, discovered Robo the clown in her imagination, sitting on a bench, waiting for her. Thus, she created the clown character Robo. Karen Ridd was my first partner in Loonisee. Karen soon started the first Hospital Clown program in Canada at the Winnipeg Children’s Hospital, and went on to establish a program and train clowns at the SickKids Hospital in Toronto.
From personal interview with Karen Ridd, October 2011.
“Often when I was clowning, I was in an altered state of sort of expanded consciousness. Before the workshop, I had clowned once or twice. I think that I was the world’s worst clown. I gave out candies to children. I was really serious. I was a sad person a lot of the time. I had a streak of the trickster in me but I didn’t express that streak very often. The workshop and connecting with the clown within me radically transformed me. Now when I clown I feel like there is this incredible pouring through me of love into the world.
I remember I stepped onto the stage and it was like every single head swiveled to look at me. I hadn’t said anything. I hadn’t done anything, there was this incredible power emanating from me. People just caught this incredible power of this character, and I remember after the play I didn’t want to come out of character. I was entirely hooked, at that point. How could you not be hooked with this feeling of integration of the self and this incredible feeling of love and being loved?
I realized that clowning could be incredibly powerful. It could be a tool that could re-empower or open up space for people who have been disempowered to feel more powerful. Clearly one of the disempowered segments of our population is hospitalized children.
For me, clowning was always an intensely spiritual journey. I would meditate, and imagine an opening at the top of my head and gold light entering into me and then coming out of my chest. Only when I was feeling the gold light coming through me and out of my chest would I step out the doors and start clowning.
I would play with the space. One of the wonderful challenges about hospital clowning is the lack of props. You can bring a few props with you—some clowns bring more than others—but I just had my pockets. I could never manage a bag. There’s a few things you have to have, like bubbles, which are incredibly helpful for little ones. I used to have a horn, too, so there wasn’t much room in my pockets.
So much of clowning is being present in the moment, which is part of the spiritual activity. That’s the meditative practice, present in the moment to what is in the space in front of you. Toys are there that you can use with permission, and then there’s the physical space. The clown is always trying to play with those things. The curtain around the bed becomes something that you can hide around, but it makes a noise and the noise scares the clown. All of these things are in the child’s environment that the child knows, but the clown, evidently week after week, never retains that information.
There was one child who was virtually immobilized by some form of brittle bone disease, so he virtually couldn’t move in bed. He was a bright child, a little guy, four-ish. I would play with him for hours. I would play games with him scaring me, and there were only a few things he could do to scare me. There were very few things he could do. One of them was, I would do a trick with those streamers. I would pull them out of my sleeve. He would rustle the streamers. He couldn’t do much more than that, so he would rustle the streamers and scare me. I would jump back and hide behind the curtain, and then the curtain would scare me. He’d rustle and I’d jump back: “Augh!” I thought, how little physical agency does that child have, and how incredibly powerful he feels because Robo’s big. That was an extreme case, but so many children feel so disempowered.” (To be cont’d.)
Odds & Ends
The Sock Farm
Hello! My name is Agnes.
This is my friend Pierrot. Pierrot does not talk because she is a mime clown.
One day Pierrot came to help Minnie with the harvesting on Minnie’s Sock Farm. On this farm we grew all kinds of socks: argyle socks, plaid socks, wool socks, cotton socks, singing socks, laughing socks, sad socks, and many more.
Minnie went inside to get some Sockaide to drink and left Pierrot in the garden by herself.
Pierrot decided to try on a lovely black and white sock. She became very sad.
When Minnie brought the drinks back Pierrot did not look up. She was holding her head in her hands and looking at the ground.
Minnie said “Come and have a cool drink of Sockaide!”
Pierrot did not answer, so Minnie said, “Not thirsty? Then help me move these socks.”
Pierrot sighed.
Minnie started to feel angry. “Why won’t you help me?” she demanded.
Pierrot sighed again.
Minnie was going to stamp her foot when she noticed the sock. “Oh no! It’s the Sad Sock!!” she yelled.
Quickly she grabbed the hot pink Singing Sock. She took the Sad Sock off of Pierrot’s foot and put the Singing Sock on.
Pierrot brightened right away, but then she tried to sing. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. “Try higher,” Minnie said. Pierrot stood on her toes, but still no sound came out.
“Lower,” Minnie suggested. Pierrot knelt down, but still no sound came out.
Pierrot was very sad.
Minnie ran around the farm looking at the socks. I came to visit and saw the problem right away. “Minnie,” I asked, “Do you have a Dancing Sock? Pierrot is happy when she dances.”
Minnie looked under the raspberry bushes and found the sparkling blue Dancing Sock. She took the Singing Sock off of Pierrot’s foot and put on the Dancing Sock.
Pierrot jumped up and started to dance. She looked very happy. She danced and danced.
Pierrot managed to drink her Sockaide while she danced and did not even spill!
I was so glad to see how things turned out. Minnie let me wear the Singing Sock. I could sing like a bird! But I could not drink and sing at the same time!
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/