Let’s face it: With a nearly tenfold increase in daily stressors in today’s high-stakes world, life can feel like a three-ring circus.
Maybe it’s the juggling act of competing demands, overwhelming anxiety akin to walking a tightrope, or the long silk-handkerchief-length list of grievances.
If life has popped your balloon, smacked you with a rubber chicken, or sprayed you in the face with seltzer, masking emotions, stomping around in exaggerated shoes, and wigging out may be the secret to restoring balance.
Or you can relax your mind, sit back, and groove with mimes, clowns, and dancers, at Church of Clown’s Ten Fold Physique: A Festival of New Works in Physical Theater (Fri/28-Sun/30 at Church of Clown, SF.)
The weekend-long celebration will feature 10 fizz-ical theater artists—Molly Shannon, Kendra Ferguson, JFarb, Juliana Frick, Isadora, Jonathan MacDonald, Wendi Wynazz, Jason DeGraff, Helen Park, and Carmen Aguilar—premiering new works at the organization’s community-supported Visitacion Valley performance and training center, founded by award-winning theatermaker, director, and instructor Dan Griffiths.
After teaching for over a decade (Academy of Art University, The San Francisco Circus Center’s Clown Conservatory, and ClownLab), Griffiths founded the educational and performance venue in 2022 to “teach resiliency through humor, find humility through service, and nurture inspiration through joy,” aided by Programs & Communication Director Sierra Camille, a fellow physical theater artist, aerialist, and clown whose Miss American Dream Show clinched Best of Fringe San Francisco last year.
Griffiths has demonstrated the healing power of clowning at ClownZero (a Medical Clowning unit in residence at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital) and during the pandemic when he taught the art to socially distanced community-starved clowns in parks across the city. Imagine just how magical the experience will feel for you.
I spoke to Church of Clown’s main support rings—Dan Griffiths and Sierra Camille—about Ten Fold Physique, fulfilling their organization’s mission one smile at a time, and centering delight, generosity, and humor during difficult times.
48 HILLS What is Church of Clown’s mission, and how do you fulfill it?
CHURCH OF CLOWN Church of Clown is a community-supported public organization whose purpose is to embolden humanity through community, teach resiliency through humor, find humility through service, and nurture inspiration through joy. To do all of this, we offer live, independent theatrical performances and training centered around physical theater and circus arts, i.e. clown, mime, mask, ensemble devising, and circus. We serve a large community circle that’s diverse in age, experience, ethnicity, physicality, and sexual orientation.
48 HILLS What did it take to open up Church of Clown, organizationally and financially?
CHURCH OF CLOWN What didn’t it take might be a better question! Like any start-up, we had a few initial donors who helped us get going. Additionally, Dan invested money he had accrued from teaching as ClownLab in San Francisco. We continue to operate largely on our income received from offering classes and additional programming.
We’re somewhat unique in the ratio of programs offered to the amount of funders and donations received. We’re hoping to grow our donor base this year so we can continue to offer scholarships and sustain our large amount of programming.
Additionally, we fully gutted and renovated the space, putting down a new floor, building out the beautiful stage we have, hanging lights, and most recently fixing and replacing the toilet! We are a DIY operation down to the last drop. You wouldn’t recognize Church of Clown as the same space it was upon our signing the lease; it has been fully transformed. All of this along with the support of clowns and community who were so hungry for a place like the Church to exist. We have many volunteers who have poured energy into everything from accounting to beautifying our space to bringing in heavy machinery to fix our toilet!
48 HILLS How did the two of you come together at Church of Clown? What makes your working relationship successful?
CHURCH OF CLOWN Dan and I have been working together since 2017. I came to a ClownLab class and never looked back. It wasn’t my first foray into studying clown and I found a home with Dan in our shared definitions and outlook on the highly contested word “clown.” It wasn’t long before I asked Dan to direct the one-woman show I was working on, The Miss American Dream Show, which has now gone on to win awards and most recently toured the West Coast this spring. Through this process, Dan and I found that our artistic visions are extremely well-aligned, we communicate easily together, and admittedly, we both can be hardworking to a fault.
When Church of Clown was but a wee little newborn, I was also going through some big life transitions. Dan knows I’m organized and love a good lookin’ spreadsheet—so he asked me to come onboard helping create said pretty spreadsheets that the Church needed to keep everything running smoothly. Running a small nonprofit arts organization with someone can be a fairly intimate relationship, just like creating a show together is. We’d already made a show together, so we knew this type of close work would go well for us.
48 HILLS How is Church of Clown distinctive from Circus Center and the Clown School of SF?
CHURCH OF CLOWN We have a specific focus on clown-based physical theater. We offer comprehensive physical theater training, from classes for beginners to the creation of and supporting of new work creation and even touring. Because we’re also a theater, we provide a gathering space for the community both within the Bay Area and also the international physical theater and clown community, offering festivals and opportunities to show touring work both brand new and established.
48 HILLS What can you tell me about Ten Fold Physique? What’s special about the participating artists?
CHURCH OF CLOWN Ten Fold Physique is a weekend-long celebration bringing together 10 physical theater artists, each presenting delightfully new performances. When you create something new, it can be hard to figure out where it fits in the performance world, feel bold enough to put it onstage, or even know if it’s going to work! We see so much incredible material being generated all the time and Ten Fold Physique is our festival dedicated to putting these works onstage. All of the artists involved are connected to the Church of Clown community in one way or another, with many of them studying consistently at the Church right now.
48 HILLS What else is coming up event-wise that you’re excited about?
CHURCH OF CLOWN We have four different Summer Intensives that offer students an opportunity to dive deep into an area of study: clown, mime, and bouffon, a specific style of clowning. These start on July 19. Then, in the fall, we’ll be holding Flop Fest for the second year in a row, starting on September 13 and running for six weeks with a different clown show each weekend.
48 HILLS With all the insanity going on in 2024, why is Church of Clown important? Why do audiences need an experience like this now?
CHURCH OF CLOWN Unlike many forms of theater, clown-based performance necessitates a dialog between the artist and the audience. It requires a level of reciprocity—and through that, community is created.
All of our shows are clown-based performances centering on delight, discovery, generosity, action, risk, and humor. They are live, meaning that the performers can see and interact with the audience directly. This work is rarely seen today but has its origin in all cultures.
Our shows offer opportunities for members of the audience to feel seen and be part of a community. That’s why we are Church of Clown. Clown is a sacred and integral part of all cultures worldwide. Our shows play with the audience. We engage humanity through relatable characters and humor.
TEN FOLD PHYSIQUE runs June 28-30 at Church of Clown, SF. For tickets and more info, go here.
