Wheel ::: On Being Laughed At
[four photos of me, portrait-style, in a grid. I am wearing a stuffed lavender beanie hat with a bra on the enlarged forehead and a tiny crown on top.]
I've been really wanting to write a bit on my experience with clown, which I freaking LOVED. Oh my goodness! What a terrifying, hilarious, vulnerable, powerful, absurd, tender art form. I'm so lucky to have attended a weekend workshop with the incredible Aitor Basauri, and I'm now enamored with clown and super interested in pursuing it further. I learned (and am continuing to learn) so much from that experience. Soooo many thoughts to share!
One interesting thing to note is that I didn't feel comfortable clowning with my wheelchair. In general performing with stella is tough for me because I have very little practice with it – since most rehearsal studios and theatres are inaccessible and since my disability allows me to stand and walk, I often leave her outside. So I don't have much confidence or experience with using her in performance. But I think there are additional reasons why the idea of clowning with her was particularly difficult for me.
Three of the main lessons I got out of the workshop were:
you have to be able to laugh at yourself
you have to give up control and let the audience laugh at you before they can laugh with you
you have to trust that the audience will love you
!!!
Right?! Intense stuff! There are a lot of really interesting power dynamics here, which I haven't totally unpacked, but which became more clear to me when a friend asked me why I didn't use stella at all in the workshop. Clowning is very much about letting yourself be an idiot, and, I told her, the world already makes me feel like such an idiot just for moving through public space with wheels. (Especially because I'm still new to it). I am constantly navigating terrain that does not account for me – awkwardly carrying my chair up flights of stairs, trying to wheel up ramps that are too steep and rolling down backwards, misjudging gaps and tipping my chair (things exploding out of the pocket and rolling into the street), having to accept help when I don't need it, having to ask for help when I do need it and sometimes not getting it, negotiating crowds and nearly colliding with ogling children, trying not to notice people's double-takes when I stand up, knocking things off shelves in narrow supermarkets, being chased and/or barked at by overzealous dogs ... actually as I write this I'm realizing it has some serious comedic potential. But it's also painful: awkward, uncomfortable, embarrassing, and it draws a TON of unwanted attention.
I think the main reason that I couldn't bring myself to use stella in the workshop is that I'm simply not quite comfortable being laughed at in my wheelchair at this time. Right now it's just too new and vulnerable for me to put myself in that situation. I am open to this changing, and I'm excited about the possibility of it changing, but I have to be honest about where I am right now.
The premise of the workshop was 'share your flop' – trying to undo the training we all have to look at the ground, cover our faces, shift our bodies, etc. in moments of failure and instead look directly at the audience. It's mega hard! I'd like to experiment with this during my day-to-day wheelchair failures – often when somebody helps me out after an awkward flop I thank them but don't look at them because I'm so embarrassed. I'm going to see what happens when I look.
In other news, I was really surprised by how comfortable I was with being laughed at without my chair. For those of us self-conscious anxious humans, being laughed at (especially being laughed at because you freaking look funny) is an enormous fear, and I didn't expect to find myself whole-heartedly reveling in it! A couple of months ago I posted a photo of myself and the caption “Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean!) says that being funny-looking is a gift to the comedic performer ... we shall see!” Y'all, I think it's pretty true. I am slowly accepting that I'm a bit funny looking: I have a small head and glasses that are much too big, long wiry limbs and an asymmetrical, mischievous little face. Someone I met on the greyhound literally told me she thought I was an alien, and this isn't the first such comment I've gotten from a stranger. My body also has its own unusual vocabulary of movement, which I am becoming more confident in and learning to take advantage of: I can fling myself around stage in pretty goofy ways.
I NEVER expected myself to come to this realization; I'm surprising myself even as I write this. But yeah, I suppose it's a little moment in my imperfect journey to self-acceptance. Probably necessary for performance and such. Aitor told us:
“This is not about being good, this is about being yourself.” voila!
I think there's something about accepting this that changes the power dynamics of it a lot. Perhaps in accepting (and not only accepting, but really celebrating and reveling in) yourself and the many complicated intersecting qualities that make you funny, there is a sudden transition from being laughed at to being laughed with.
Hm. This reflecting plus my gently increasing homesickness is reminding me how privileged I am to have grown up in a family that laughs. A LOT. Hard-hitting, cackling, tear-streaming, hysterical, out-of-control laughs. At and with each other. And at ourselves. I grew up around adults that laughed at themselves! What an extraordinary gift! Wow. Friends who have come to our extended family dinners (especially the wild ones that involve cake, stories, charades, and Tarzan impersonations) have commented that I make more sense in the context of my family. If I accomplish anything in life I hope it is to continue this. I hope to be a part of creating environments where we laugh at each other, with each other, and at ourselves, knowing that we laugh out of affection, absurdity, and love.
