Tag: Spain

This excellent trio comedy acrobatic act by Barcelona’s Zahir Circo is a virtual encyclopedia of partner and table tricks. I’ve seen most of them at some point before, and done more than a few myself, but here they are crammed into a tight, fast-paced six minutes. A great vocabulary builder for anyone interested in (very) physical comedy!

These look great, especially that last one!

There’s a cabaret performance each of the four Saturday nights as part of the month-long curriculum at the Nouveau Clown Institute. I was involved in the first one and even shot some Flip camera video of it. Unfortunately, I later lost the camera with the second-half footage on it. Fortunately, the still photography shot by Manel Sala “Ulls” is extraordinary enough to ease my pain. Click here or on the image to go to his Picasa album of the first cabaret at the The Coco Loconuts Club.

It is my last night in Barcelona and Jango Edwards brought together for dinner all of the clown / circus /variety historians he could muster in the person of Raffaele De Ritis, whose blog, Novelties and Wonders, is indeed full of wonders; Pat Cashin, whose Clown Alley blog is the place to go for all things clown; Greg DeSanto, director of the International Clown Hall of Fame and Research Center; and yours truly. Or to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, there hasn’t been a greater concentration of clown knowledge at one table since Tristan Rémy dined alone.

If you spend your days in the United States, chances are you’ve never heard of the Catalonian physical comedy trio, Tricicle. In Europe, however, they’re a well-known brand name, almost a small industry, having performed extensively in major theatres and festivals for over thirty years, as well as on tv and in movies, and even as part of the opening ceremonies for the 1992 Olympics here in Barcelona. Founded by Joan Gracia, Paco Mir and Carles Sans in 1979, they expanded their international reach in 1988 by adding a second 3-man company (photo, right), known as Tricicle-2 or Clownic, which performs pieces from the by-now large Tricicle sketch repertory, and which is who I saw last night.

Greetings from Barcelona, I mean Barthelona, by many reports the coolest city in Europe. And arguably cooler now that it is the home of the b>Nouveau Clown Institute, an international clown school started just this past year by Jango Edwards, who is amazingly energetic for someone who may or may not be as old as me. I’m running away from administration and he’s starting a school. Go figure.

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My first book (1976)

My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.

My second book (2015)

Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.

“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin