Jon the Clown

Jon Davison is both a clown and the owner of The London Clown School. As an academic, he is writing his third book on clowning, alongside teaching students. We discover what Jon loves about being a clown and the motivations behind his work.
1000 LONDONERS
This film is part of 1000 Londoners, a ten-year digital project which aims to create a digital portrait of a city through 1000 of the people who identify themselves with it. The profile contains a 3 minute film that gives an insight into the life of the Londoner, as well as their personal photos of London and some answers to crucial questions about their views on London life. Over the course of the project we aim to reveal as many facets of the capital as possible, seeing city life from 1000 points of view.
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1000 Londoners is produced by South London based film production company and social enterprise, Chocolate Films. The filmmakers from Chocolate Films will be both producing the films and providing opportunities to young people and community groups to make their own short documentaries, which will contribute to the 1000 films. Visit www.chocolatefilms.com
TRANSCRIPT
My name is Jon, Jon Davison. I am a clown. For me performing as a clown is just one of the most amazing feelings I can experience. Just the feeling of; yes this is the right place to be everything feels right and everybody's fine, the world is good, everything is just right, there's just this feeling of 'yeah!' and it's very joyful when it's working. When it works it's like this real, full on kind of joy. I think that's why I do it. I'm guessing people would be surprised to think that clowns do a lot of thinking, but what you are when you perform to convince people that you are that stupid, is difficult, you know, you need to work on it. There's a constant experimentation, which involves thinking, reflecting, trying, testing. It's hard work. So that's the swozzle, it needs spit. I run the London Clown School and teach regular weekly classes. And I'm also writing my third book. That's called The Clowning Workbook. For me, teaching is a way of thinking. If I sit on my own at home, my thinking is completely different. But if I have 12 people to move around, push around, I'm in a clown class, then that enables my thinking to be completely different so academia is about challenging my own assumptions. And others', but my own and I love doing that. Albert Fatterine pretty much came up with the look of the clown that lots of people would say oh yeah that's what a clown looks like. And that's what people think of as clowns still now. Hugely effective. Clowning I think comes from, you're put up there in front of a group of people, who are looking at you and finding you ridiculous, and they're gonna laugh at you, it's one of the nightmare scenarios for most people. Yeah, it's like it's what you don't want to happen to be mocked, made fun of, to be ridiculed. It's what we fear, and that's where it comes from and when you start to enjoy it, and make it something positive, it's amazing. What makes me happy? Clowns make me happy. Clowns make me happy, even ones that are not funny. Just because they're clowns.