Moving… Sudden and Suspended at HCIM

The room was full of bodies moving, of people responding to the cues I gave them. They moved eagerly, without reservation. They followed the cues I gave them, each person interpreting the instructions in their way. It was like a room full of people doing the same dance, yet each person had a unique version of the movement. At that moment, the concerns about Covid and the pandemic were secondary. We were suddenly moving together. Suspended in a moment where all that mattered was our movement. We moved, experienced, learned, and shared our experiences. 

These folks were in a workshop I presented at The Hague at the Healthcare Clown International Meeting, "HCIM," this past April. I was surprised at how full the room was. The workshop had a limit on how many could attend. More people showed up at the last minute. There was plenty of space in the room, so I was eager to have more people there.

I thought about how this experience was noticeably different from the work I've been doing over the past several weeks here in Atlanta. Recently I have done a lot of circus workshops with elementary school kids. I enjoy working with these youth. Youth filled with vitality and youthful reluctance are challenging to work with and more challenging to guide. There is a need to monitor their behavior. You have to find ways to maximize the good behavior and minimize the bad behavior.

 But that was not the case in this workshop at HCIM. In this workshop, we didn't have youthful reluctance. We had artistic collaboration. It was a refreshing change to have people eagerly respond to the cues I was giving them. It was also great to hear additional comments from people about the workshop. They were eager to share their ideas about artistic growth and ways of applying them from my workshop in their everyday clowning with their partners and clients. I brought up several ideas for movement in our work, including moving suddenly and working with a sustained sense of direction.

I've been thinking about our clown work and how our work offers some levity in a crisis. In these crises, our bodies get tense; our breathing becomes short and shallow. In this workshop, we talked about broadening our ideas of how we move and do our clowning work. The goal is to have a broader sense of what is possible with our artistic partner and our clients.

My second presentation at HCIM was for the Drive Forward Team. The Drive Forward team has been working in diversity and inclusivity for several years. I was touched by the vulnerability people offered in this workshop. There was a genuine sense of looking for understanding and a positive direction. I hope we can provide more of these workshops in the future.

I'm grateful the conference gave us a chance to be together. Several times someone came up to me and introduced themselves as someone I had previously met in a zoom meeting. It was refreshing to see people I knew from the Zoom meeting in real life. I saw a flesh and blood person, not a square on a screen. I could more easily see the smile on their face. I could read their body language. I could reach out to give them a hug!

In both of the workshops I led, people were eager to participate, ask questions, offer their ideas, and share more information. It was great to be in a community of people having these conversations. 

I'm grateful to the organizations Humorology Atlanta and Clowns Without Borders USA for their support at HCIM. I'm proud to be involved with these organizations.

A few days after the conference, I went to see a show at The Netherlands Dance Theater in The Hague. The name of the show was "Sudden and Suspended." This name got my attention. Days earlier, I used those same ideas "sudden and suspended" in my workshop last HCIM.  It was a great dance show!

The coincidence was noticeable. I thought about the people in the workshop moving, sometimes suddenly and sometimes in a slow, sustained matter.

Onward!

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