hello! hello!          
grandma_clown          
gin_guitar          
afghan          
nepal          
israel          
patch_knees          
patch_robin          
patch_legs          
salvo_gin_alex          
tom_chan          
tom_chan_husband          
the_group          
movies!          
sicily_01          
sicily_02          
funny_bones          
selena          
clown_here          
power          
selena_sandwich          
saint_raph          
clown_notes          
violent_imaginations          
redirect          
clown_doctors          
higher!          
more!          





how to wear a red nose:
student-clowns let loose in a child psych hospital!

















peter gayed
cohen mentorship program
22 feb 2011

































  1. peter gayed, 4th year, tell you about the my experiences clowning
  2. "i thought i would start with a story from when i first started clowning..."
  1. give elsie story here
  2. this italian clown is the ginevra sanguino [CLICK]
  1. gin is co-founder of clown one italia, a civic-clowning organization founded in 2000
  2. 10 days in sicily -- juvenille detention centers, psychiatric homes, homes for the disabled, orphanages, hospitals, and hospices
  3. QUOTE / TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN WITH HELP FROM GOOGLE We Ambassador of Smiles, we try to create a bridge of mutual love and care, not as a slogan or romantic ideal, but as a gesture, wherever we go. Being a clown is a trick to make the love more 'close and accessible': it is a tool to build that bridge. It is important to know that anyone can be a clown; you need not have any special skills, but only the desire to cross that bridge of love for every person you meet.
  4. ACTIVISM / Afghanistan, Cambodia, Palestine, Ivory Coast, Nepal. Sri Lanka after tsunami; others Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Africa."
















  1. In addition to clowning, Clown One Italia has also
  2. 1. raised funds to build a school for disabled children in cambodia
  3. 2. funded anti-retroviral tx for 20 cambodian HIV+ children for 5 years
  4. 3. funded 10 years of education for 10 nepali girls rescued from sex trafficking rings
  5. mind you, that Clown One Italia is two people -- gin and italo
  6. it was within this kind of environment and philosophy that i learned to clown...
  7. met gin via another well known activist-clown
  1. but better recognized as...
  1. but best remembered as...
  1. talk about patch
  2. first meeting: illinois, lectures every other year
  3. suggested i go clowning trip in sicily
  1. international clowns!
  2. from all over, e.g., ...
  1. japonayzee clowns!
  1. and husband
  2. sicilian kids love the marijuana leaf -- it's like addidas or nike; on everything

















































  1. permission, 'release of etiquette' that attracted me to clowning
  2. i wanted to be able to give sick patients and neglected persons affection they don't always receive
  3. the clown is not someone you have to take seriously; not someone who will judge you or have to feel embarrassed in front of; the clown is unassuming -- *they are the fool*
  4. read the drool story


























  1. wanted to bring this experience to my life at yale
  1. chapters at cornell and penn -- CHoP
  2. REQUIREMENTS OF CLOWNING / funny? no! imaginative? yes!
  3. starting clowning at st. raph's inpatient psych unit -- but i knew this was going to be different
  4. needed to re-prepare
  5. connected with selena!
  1. selena brief bio
  2. bowdoin college, 2005; "she won the liberal-arts equivalent of an internship at Goldman Sachs: the Watson Fellowship, a no-strings-attached $25,000 grant to travel the world for a year pursuing, well, whatever."
  3. in the Economist's 'more intelligent life' magazine, she was asked why she used her watson fellowship to clown in villages and cities, and not continue the more traditional theatrical work she did as an undergrad
  4. [CLICK]



"It felt to me that in this day and age the interesting place for clowns is in a real-life setting. It's not in the theatre. It's not on movies and TV. It's in the world. The role of the clown is to be the person who can question the authority, who can question the status quo."

—Selena































  1. and in the hospital, for patients the status quo is 'we do unto you what the doctors to do'
  2. as a hospital clown, selena wanted to flip this -- she doesn't mean she wants to undermine doctors, but intended to invert the power structure by offering herself, as a clown, as someone *the patient* could control



"A sick child in a hospital is someone with no power—she is small, she is sick, people are doing things to her body, and she cannot leave or tell them to stop. A clown arrives and suddenly there is someone in the hospital who will do what she asks."

—Selena































  1. and now time for exercises, folks!!
    1. 1st, be inducted -- take the clown oath
    2. 2nd, play You! and Vegetables!
    3. 3rd, pass the emotion
    4. talk about 'object actuation' -- how we never rely on props, just what's in the room
    5. talk about 'creating a reality' with the child that continues to exist even after we've left
  1. with that, off we went to st. raph's
























































  1. clown trip anyone?? :O)


more!