VAUDE_VISUALS

The Survivor

Presented at The International Clown-Theatre Congress, -1991

Bolek Polivka, who had presented the Queen and Jester at the 1988 International Movement Theatre Festival, delved into the dark loneliness of man as shaped by the Soviets in The Survivor. In Polivka’s own words, the work “is about solitude, the variations of solitude, the solitude of the mad person, the solitude of the prisoner, the solitude of the survivor on the island, the solitude of the handicap person; it is that kind of solitude I am crossing.”   The audience was enthralled with the complexity of Polivka’s clown who was in fact all of these things and more. They identified with man as survivor, going it mostly alone, but surviving all the same.

Defining the clown at a panel discussion, Polivka stated “To me the clown is a way of thinking; a way how to understand the world. As children are playing, they are playing for to understand our world. The clowns are playing for that reason; to test, to understand what the world is and to show it to other human beings.”

Michael Pedretti, Delighting the Senses, Unpublished Manuscript

Photograph of Polivka © 2008 Jim Moore – To see more of Polivka on YouTube.

Leo Bassi’s New Neronian is an aggressive thesis on violence and control. At one point Bassi locked all the theater doors and threatened to burn down the theater. A very nervous audience played along with him – some to a larger degree than others. Bassi poured what smelled and looked like gasoline over the stage floor and about the set, than lit a flaming torch. He moved anxiously and intensely over the stage encouraging the audience to believe they were in imminent danger. He came out to the audience, threatened to burn one of the audience members, selected one and then backed off with an apology.

He apologized, not for intimidating the audience member, but for not burning his shirt, for the poor audience member would not – much later in his life – be able to pick up the burned shirt and show it to his grandson telling him about the time he had gone to a live performance and this crazy man Leo Bassi from Italy burned a hole in his shirt. It would be a lost moment for the audience member with his grandson. Maybe the audience member would have been part of a club of people from all over the world who had had their shirts burned by Bassi. In his golden years he would be elected president of the club. Bassi’s failure to burn his shirt took away this opportunity of prestige in old age. And so the evening went, in fiery forward lurching rhythm with Bassi challenging the audience’s perspective of truth, tolerance and totalitarianism[i]. Most in the audience were totally mesmerized by the Neo Fascist [Neo-Conservative] Nero look-alike character that demanded faith and fear and realized that Bassi was angry and fearful of the worldwide trend toward strong-arm governments. Others hated the show; some thinking Bassi was worshiping the Nero character for he did indeed walk the finest line between. But everyone loved watching Leo, shoulder in a cast, lie on his back, struggle to get a piano onto his feet and then juggle it for the feat that had placed him in the Guinness World Book of Records.

Michael Pedretti, Delighting the Senses, (Yardley,PA: Busting Boundaries, 2009)

Photograph of Leo Bassi © 2009 Jim R Moore – Leo Bassi Official Site. http://www.leobassi.com

The February NY Downtown Clown Revue was GREAT! Lots of variety and enormous talent on stage.

We had Dave McKay from Toronto, Summer Shapiro from San Francisco and Peter Musante from the Blue Man Group. We had Claire Wedemeyer from Chicago and Rob Lok with his two estranged partners Christina Gelsome from Acrobuffos and Erin Schmahl.

If you click on the picture of the MC Christopher Lueck you can see all the photographs from the show.

Click on image for Gallery Launch!

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS © 2010 Jim Moore / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED