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Clowns: In Conversation with Modern Masters is a groundbreaking collection of conversations with 20 of the greatest clowns on earth. In discussion with clown aficionados Ezra LeBank and David Bridel, these legends of comedy reveal the origins, inspirations, techniques, and philosophies that underpin their remarkable odysseys. Featuring incomparable artists, including Slava Polunin, Bill Irwin, David Shiner, Oleg Popov, Dimitri, Nola Rae, and many more, Clowns is a unique and definitive study on the art of clowning.

In Clowns, these 20 master artists speak candidly about their first encounters with clowning and circus, the crucial decisions that carved out the foundations of their style, and the role of teachers and mentors who shaped their development. Follow the twists and turns that changed the direction of their art and careers, explore the role of failure and originality in their lives and performances, and examine the development and evolution of the signature routines that became each clown’s trademark. The discussions culminate in meditations on the role of clowning in the modern world, as these great practitioners share their perspectives on the mysterious, elusive art of the clown. [editor summary]

Voici un ouvrage de Dickens à peu près ignoré en France. La vie du grand Joe, son aventureuse carrière, nous livre en effet quelques-uns des plus curieux aspects des mœurs britanniques, de la vie de ses théâtres et de ses bas-fonds. Le hasard, en semant bien des incidents étranges, des rencontres dramatiques, des péripéties bizarres dans l’existence de ce comédien, semble s’être complu à lui faire un sort extraordinaire, et à le désigner ainsi doublement à l’attention des biographes. Et par bien des aspects, Dickens vit sans doute en cet enfant prodige et en cet artiste au cœur pur une sorte de double de lui-même. [résumé de l'éditeur]

Footit et Chocolat, c'est le plus célèbre duo de clowns de la Belle Epoque qui a inventé la comédie clownesque centrée sur deux personnages, le clown blanc et l'Auguste. Leurs numéros mettaient en scène de façon comique les relations de domination entre blanc et noir. Amis des peintres vivants à Montmartre, les deux clowns ont été immortalisés par Toulouse-Lautrec et ont été les premiers acteurs du cinéma muet. Le clown Chocolat, esclave noir cubain ayant fui en Europe, fut le premier artiste noir à susciter un tel engouement populaire, célébré comme un " monument national ". L'affaire Dreyfus mettra brutalement un terme à ce succès, le rire provoqué par les clichés racistes étant devenu gênant. Malgré son talent, Chocolat se trouvera exclu du monde du spectacle et mourra dans la misère. [résumé de l'éditeur]

The Victorian Clown is a micro-history of mid-Victorian comedy, spun out of the life and work of two professional clowns. Their previously unpublished manuscripts - James Frowde's account of his young life with the famous Henglers' circus in the 1850s and Thomas Lawrence's 1871 gag book - offer unique, unmediated access to the grass roots of popular entertainment. Through them this book explores the role of the circus clown at the height of equestrian entertainment in Britain, when the comic managed audience attention for the riders and acrobats, parodying their skills in his own tumbling and contortionism, and also offered a running commentary on the times through his own 'wheezes' - stand-up comedy sets. Plays in the ring connect the circus to the stage, and both these men were also comic singers, giving a sharp insight into popular music just as it was being transformed by the new institution of music hall. [editor summary]

This book examines the way clown was transformed into a serious character in twentieth-century theater. Modernist theater practitioners recognized that clown's approach to performance is profoundly different from other modes of theatrical representation. The paradox of clown, a traditionally marginal, comic character thrust into center stage as the focus of the agon, provided a stimulating new way to renovate tragedy. Experiments with clown by Jean Cocteau, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, Giorgio Strehler, Dario Fo, and Roberto Benigni are examined as a means of exploring how and why clown became, in contemporary theater and film, a character from whom audiences expect philosophizing, angst, or political criticism as much as physical comedy and fractured language.[editor summary]

Figure emblématique, mythique, universelle des arts du spectacles dans ce second millénaire finissant, le clown n'en finit pas de porter beau. Il infléchit le discours de la dérision dans les domaines les plus variés de la tradition comme de la modernité. Investissant l'univers du social et du politique, il se décline de plus en plus souvent au féminin. Si le clown habite la conscience du citoyen, s'il contribue à la mise à distance de la vie quotidienne, il permet aussi la relecture du patrimoine culturel international. Le clown déstabilise pour mieux cimenter les humains par le rire. S'Il désacralise, c'est pour mieux permettre de structurer, d'affirmer priorités, valeurs individuelles et communautaires.

Circus celebrates the evolution of this gloriuos spectacle under the Big Top -- from its early days of Minoan horn-vaulting and medieval street performers through its heyday in Europe and North America with entrepreneurs such as P.T. Barnum and the Ringling family to the circus of today such as Cirque du Soleil. Illustrated with photographs, posters, paintings, and tickets from around the world, we are introduced to performers who have thrilled crowds with their daring and to world-famous clowns who have transformed comic routines into art. In this first comprehensive children's book on the subject, readers will discover the daily life of circus families, the music, training, and costumes, and the legends -- from Jumbo the elephant to the original "daring young man on the flying trapeze". Sidebars full of fascinating circus trivia about superstitions, "lot lingo", and circus inventions such as the leotard and pink lemonade, add to the fun. A fascinating inside look at one of the world's most daring and dazzling entertainments.[editor summary]

In a plodding academic study, Albrecht, who teaches English at Middlesex County College in New Jersey, tells the story of four modern circuses that evolved after the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus abandoned the big top in 1956. They are the Pickle Family Circus in San Francisco, the Big Apple Circus in New York City, Cirque du Soleil in Montreal and Circus Flora in St. Louis. Each offers one-ring productions in the European style, and each operates from a different home base. Albrecht maintains that, combining elements of the counterculture of the 1960s like street performances with those of legitimate theater and dance, these four represent a new brand of circus. Describing their histories, he summarizes the trials brought by economic crises, battles with animal-rights activists and the founding of circus schools, no longer a rarity in the U.S. While Albrecht distinguishes the "alternative circus" from its ancestors, the presence of trapeze artists, jugglers and clowns suggests that it's the same old material wrapped in new diction.

Slapstick! is the first book to draw together all the different strands of knockabout comedy and set them in a historical context. With the aid of a splendid array of illustrations, the highly entertaining text traces the roots and ramifications of visual comedy from its beginnings in primitive ritual, religious ceremonial, and court entertainment; through the melting-pot of the Italian Commedia dell' Arte ; to music-hall, vaudeville circus, film, radio, television and video. Tony Staveacre first chronicles the main events in two thousand years of slapstick: the rise and painful fall of the « top bananas » the shifting trends, the changing styles. He then examines in detail the living tradition in its different guises - the physical, the acrobatic, the shambolic, the eccentric, the salacious. He shows the slapstick baton pæsing from hand to hand: Harlequin, Pantaloon, John Rich, Grimaldi, Dan Leno, Fred Karno, Little Tich, Harry Tate, Charlie Chaplin, Grock, Jacques Tati, Stan Laurel, 0liver Hardy, the Crazy Gang, the Marx Brothers, Max Wall, Charlie Drake, the Goons (how did they get in here?), Peter Cook, John Cleese, Benny Hill, Woody Allen, Richard Pryor... [editor summary]

This is a monumental history of that universally trancing, international phenomenon-the circus. It is the most complete chronicle of circuses and circus lore ever written in the english language. No reader can fail to be impressed by the scope of its coverage and the vividness of its descriptions. No lover of circus wonders can remain unmoved while reading of the people and performances that illuminated circus life.

The author reveals the origins of circus acts among Greek and Roman acrobats and medieval minstrels, tracing their development through eighteenth-century
fairs where they were combined with displays of horse riding in a circular ring to form a new style of presentation. He then follows the evolution of circuses during the nineteenth century, showing how novel acts and exhibitions of animal training were introduced to produce the circus we know today.

Mr. Speaight demonstrates the special way in which the circus grew in the United States, where three-ring circuses were transported over vast distances by railroad; and he describes the Golden Age of the circus in Europe, when circus riders ranked with ballet stars in popular esteem. Finally, he provides an up-to-the-minute account of circuses in the world today.

The author's account is based on many years of research in unpublished manuscripts and museum collections, and he reverses some long.held errors of previous writers on the subject. His book contains exhaustive notes and an appendix, listing circus buildings in London, New york and paris, which brings together information never before printed, giving the book great value as a permanent work of reference. [editor summary]

A fascinating history of the clown in America, researched for over three years by the author, who tracked down and visisted many working and semi-retired clowns to get their stories in their own words. Filled with interesting details like descriptions of basic clown "types" (Auguste, both neat and grotesque, whiteface, and carpet). Most photographs were previously unpublished..Not for the coulrophobic.

Twenty-four page color section includes many reproductions of circus posters as well as photographs of real clowns in full make-up.