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Clown-A.R.T. (C.I.R.C.A.)

- Txus Parras
- Sarah Lum

“We can't start perfectly and beautifully. Don't be afraid of
being a fool; start as a fool.” — Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche

Roll up, roll up - ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends and foes -
welcome to the unparalleled, the unexpected, the perfectly paradoxical, the
grotesquely beautiful, the new-fangled world of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel
Clown Army (CIRCA).

We are clandestine because we refuse the spectacle of celebrity and we are
everyone. Because without real names, faces or noses, we show that our words,
dreams, and desires are more important than our biographies. Because we reject
the society of surveillance that watches, controls, spies upon, records and
checks our every move. Because by hiding our identity we recover the power of
our acts. Because with greasepaint we give resistance a funny face and become
visible once again.

We are insurgent because we have risen up from nowhere and are everywhere.
Because ideas can be ignored but not suppressed and an insurrection of the
imagination is irresistible. Because whenever we fall over we rise up again and
again and again, knowing that nothing is lost for history, that nothing is
final. Because history doesn't move in straight lines but surges like water,
sometimes swirling, sometimes dripping, flowing, flooding - always unknowable,
unexpected, uncertain. Because the key to insurgency is brilliant
improvisation, not perfect blueprints.

We are rebels because we love life and happiness more than 'revolution'.
Because no revolution is ever complete and rebellions continues forever.
Because we will dismantle the ghost-machine of abstraction with means that are
indistinguishable from ends. Because we don't want to change 'the' world, but
'our' world. Because we will always desert and disobey those who abuse and
accumulate power. Because rebels transform everything - the way they live,
create, love, eat, laugh, play, learn, trade, listen, think and most of all the
way they rebel.

We are clowns because what else can one be in such a stupid world. Because
inside everyone is a lawless clown trying to escape. Because nothing undermines
authority like holding it up to ridicule. Because since the beginning of time
tricksters have embraced life's contradictions, creating coherence through
confusion. Because fools are both fearsome and innocent, wise and stupid,
entertainers and dissenters, healers and laughing stocks, scapegoats and
subversives. Because buffoons always succeed in failing, always say yes, always
hope and always feel things deeply. Because a clown can survive everything and
get away with anything.

We are an army because we live on a planet in permanent war - a war of money
against life, of profit against dignity, of progress against the future.
Because a war that gorges itself on death and blood and shits money and toxins,
deserves an obscene body of deviant soldiers. Because only an army can declare
absurd war on absurd war. Because combat requires solidarity, discipline and
commitment. Because alone clowns are pathetic figures, but in groups and
gaggles, brigades and battalions, they are extremely dangerous. We are an army
because we are angry and where bombs fail we might succeed with mocking
laughter. And laughter needs an echo.

We are circa because we are approximate and ambivalent, neither here nor there,
but in the most powerful of all places, the place in-between order and chaos.

RUN AWAY FROM THE CIRCUS
JOIN THE FORCES OF THE CLANDESTINE INSURGENT REBEL CLOWN ARMY...........

"Clowns always speak of the same thing, they speak of hunger; hunger for food,
hunger for sex, but also hunger for dignity, hunger for identity, hunger for
power. In fact, they introduce questions about who commands, who protests."

CIRCA is reclaiming the art of Rebel Clowning, it's combatants don't pretend to
be clowns, they are clowns, real trained clowns. Clowns that have run away from
the anaemic safety of the circus and escaped the banality of kids parties,
Fools that have thrown away their sceptres and broken the chains that shackled
them to the throne.

CIRCA aims to make clowning dangerous again, to bring it back to the street,
restore its disobedience and give it back the social function it once had: its
ability to disrupt, critique and heal society. Since the beginning of time
tricksters (the mythological origin or all clowns) have embraced life's
paradoxes, creating coherence through confusion - adding disorder to the world
in order to expose its lies and speak the truth.

The rebel clowns that make up CIRCA embody life's contradictions, they are both
fearsome and innocent, wise and stupid, entertainers and dissenters, healers and
laughing stocks, scapegoats and subversives.

Rebel Clowns are trained by CIRCA recruiting officers, using a variety of
different exercises, training includes finding your inner clown, civil
disobedience tactics, learning to be spontaneous and playful, practicing clown
gaggle manoevers and last but not least marching and drilling.