Interruptions, Interventions, Interactions: a guide

The research in these pages focuses on three areas of practice-research in walking, clowning, and unlearning, and includes a combination of performance documentation and writings including posts, reflective blogs and scholarly articles.

The website pages weave together examples of practice, practice-research, and theory emerging from my research practice of ‘Interruptions, Interventions and Interactions’. The material is constructed in order to show my research process, including the issues being explored and the process of discovery, methods and methodology, as well as the creative and intellectual context which I draw upon in making the work. Posts and writings elaborate on creative outcomes and research insights as well as the time and manner in which the insights were shared (which vary from the moment of performance or workshop to the reflection beyond). This assemblage of material ensures a more holistic and three-dimensional representation of a contemporary embodied performance research practice and is well-suited to the nature of my practice and its dissemination.

The materials contributing to the three thematic areas within ‘Interruptions, Interventions and Interactions’ present investigations and developments of new and innovative methodologies which contribute to further scholarly understandings and practices within the fields of walking, clowning and un-learning.

Walking & loiterings with intent…: The practice-research documented in this section provides insights into the variety and ubiquity of the everyday practice of walking and reveals the depth and extent to which it contributes to understanding and interpreting our lifeworld.

Clowning: The practice-research documented in this section advances understandings and analyses of the ways in which the power of hegemonic forces can be subverted through play and improvisation.

Unlearning, Unmaking, Undoing: The practice-research documented in this section articulates and advances methods for dismantling white privilege through new and innovative practice-research methodologies, including clowning.

The three thematic areas appear in separate posts at the bottom of this page:

a. Walking & loiterings with intent…

b. Clowning

c. Unlearning, Unmaking, Undoing

Publications selection:

“Walking & talking: making strange encounters within the familiar”. Article in: Social and Cultural Geography, Volume 18, 2017, Issue 1 (2016).

“Clowns, buffoons and the killing laugh: An investigation of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army’s (CIRCA) power to disrupt and provoke through joy and humour”. Article in: European Journal of Humour Research 3 (2/3) 145–163 (2015)

“Understanding Grassroots Arts Groups and Practices in Communities”. Hilary Ramsden, Jane Milling and Robin Simpson Book chapter in: Community Groups in Context: Local Activities and Actions; Eds: Angus McCabe and Jenny Phillimore, Policy Press (2017)

All photos taken by Hilary Ramsden unless otherwise indicated.

INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH

Rather than focussing on one specific medium of aesthetic expression, my research practice develops from interrupting patterns and habits, expressed in a variety of media & methods. I create and convene all kinds of events: clown performances, public participatory Whatsapp Walks and collaborative Chip Walks, visual art installations and sound works, performative interventions in public space, activist performance trainings, workshops and classes in clowning and rebel clowning, all of which emerge from the notion of interrupting habits and patterns of behaviour, perception and attitude.

Photo right: *Walk this way…or that way….? Is this sign deliberately confusing?*

My approach focuses on creating a rupture, or interruption, in the physical habits of the body, creating corresponding interruptions in our habitual patterns of attitude and perception.
A physical approach to interruptions allows for a more embodied and layered reception of, and response to, changes on all levels of our being. If we experience shifts in perception of ourselves, then perhaps we can more easily experience shifts in our perception of things outside ourselves.

Photo left: *Clowns Angela de Castro (Why Not Institute) and Hilary Ramsden intervening in public space with Zebras Crossings, Cardiff, 2017*

Building on potential connections between the physical, spiritual, intellectual and sensual levels of being, and drawing on theorizings by Lefebvre, Walter Benjamin, Jane Bennett, Michel De Certeau, and Situationist thoughts and actions, I’ve built a research practice of interruptions, since 2007, which are expressed as interventions in public space and involve public participation.

Photo right: *Theory meets practice*

The interruptions also draw substantially on notions of **failure, mistakes and ‘wrong-ness’** (Halberstam, 2001; Davison, 2013).

Photo left: *Own design drawing for the Sit-U-ationist Sofa and icon for a Patron support level for the Furniture Factory. Used in publicity materials.*

**"Free your mind and your arse will follow!"** is how the hippie saying went. I prefer to switch it around: **"Free your arse and your mind will follow!”**
**body, movement and action** engender **thought, ideas and reflection**

Above: Students in rebel clowning workshop at the Kontextschule, Universitaet der Deutschen Künste (UdK), Berlin, 2015

Screenshot 2021-03-08 at 10.05.15.png — **practice = theory =**
**research = practice**

The impetus to employ interruptions derives from the movement work of Moshe Feldenkrais as used by Monika Pagneux at École Philippe Gaulier in Paris. Pagneux employed the Feldenkrais movement method to raise awareness of habitual body patterns so that as actors and performers, dancers and clowns we might change or interrupt these, using the understanding to create difference and nuance in characterization as well as for a more general awareness of body and embodiment.
**Feldenkrais’ method is founded on the premise that through movement and use of attention, dramatic shifts in our perception of ourselves and how we are perceived appear to be possible.**

Choosing movement as the most immediate level on which to enact changes in perception and behaviour my approach focusses on creating playful interruptions in the physical habits of the body that create corresponding interruptions in our habitual patterns of attitude and perception. I have built on the potential connections between the physical, spiritual, intellectual and sensual levels of being to create an original methodology which interweaves clowning, civil disobedience, improvisation, Situationist practices and feminist theories of gender and the body.

This has been rigorously crafted into an innovative research practice of everyday interruptions which are expressed as interventions in public space and involve public collaboration and participation. My research has been presented and experienced in the UK, Western Europe and the USA from 2014 to present.