THE Q&A: SELENA McMAHAN, CLOWN

Selena McMahan’s life as an international clown began when she won the liberal-arts equivalent of an internship at Goldman Sachs: the Watson Fellowship, a no-strings-attached $25,000 grant to travel the world for a year pursuing, well, whatever. Soon after graduating from Bowdoin College in the summer of 2005, McMahan used her award to tour nine countries on four continents—putting on clown shows at every stop. (The Watson may offer little in terms of future earning power, but every year it gives some 40 students from America’s elite small colleges a lifetime’s worth of stories.)

Her Watson year marked the beginning of what has become a one-woman circus. Upon returning to New York City, where McMahan had lived before college, she began volunteering with the American chapter of Clowns Without Borders (CWB). McMahan’s first trip with the organisation was to the FEMA trailer parks of hurricane-devastated New Orleans in 2007. Most recently, she took her clown show on tour in Ethiopia. Shortly after returning from CWB's annual meeting of international chapters in Berlin, McMahan spoke with More Intelligent Life from her apartment in France, where she first studied the art of the clown and where she lives now. We discussed the perception and politics of clowning around the world.

More Intelligent Life: Is there a difference between the way clowns are viewed in America and Europe?

Selena McMahan: Clowning is something that is more respected in European theatre traditionally. In the States, it’s starting to change now. It didn’t used to be that way in the States. If you look at Charlie Chaplin, "I Love Lucy"—there’s been huge clowns in the US. But recently clowning has become more circus clown and birthday clown—something not very valued or artistic. In Europe that hasn’t happened, or not to the same extent.

MIL: You recently completed a two-year diploma programme in physical theatre. I get the sense that you do not have a very high opinion of the amateur clowns one might find at a children’s birthday party.

SM: Right. In America a lot of what’s happened with birthday clowning is really big make-up that’s designed to be seen in a circus tent of 7,000 people or more. People started dressing up like clowns in a circus, but in a birthday party in someone’s living room. A circus clown in a living room is scary. The make-up is not meant for that environment. I think that’s why a lot of people are afraid of clowns and we have a bad reputation now. It’s about finding a costume that goes with the clown suitable for that environment.

MIL: Like the blog that grew out of it, your Watson Fellowship project was called the Contemporary Clown Circuit. Can you explain what that phrase means?

SM: It felt to me that in this day and age the interesting place for clowns is in a real-life setting. It’s not in the theatre. It’s not on movies and TV. It’s in the world. The role of the clown is to be the person who can question the authority, who can question the status quo. That’s childlike but at the same time is extremely wise. By this balance of being extremely naïve and wise but with a different kind of logic, clowns have permission to do things that other people never could. A typical example is that a court jester can make fun of the king.

MIL: Can you give a contemporary example of clowns questioning authority or satirising political power?

SM: To my mind this work is political. But the clown’s role is not to effect concrete political change. It’s not like the clown can overthrow the government or something like that. But the clown can reveal things under the surface that are being ignored—can make connections happen that are not happening.

Very often CWB gets access to places where other [nongovernmental organisations] don’t. At a meeting I went to last weekend, the French CWB were talking about their work in Burma. It’s a really strict political situation there, so you have to be really careful about where you’re performing. Assemblies are not really allowed. But for clown shows [the Burmese junta] make these insane exceptions where 500 or 1,000 people, or more, gather to watch a clown show. It’s one of the very, very few exceptions where you can have huge gatherings, and the government approves of it because, well, it’s a clown show. It completely destroys the power structure while the play is going on. It’s a momentary suspension of the status quo.

MIL: You’ve done shows in Brazilian favelas, South African townships and in indigenous communities in Mexico. Yet you are a white girl from the Upper West Side of New York City. Are the race and class differences between you and your audiences difficult to overcome?

SM: Yes, and for me this is a really important issue. The history of CWB is very much the history of a European clown who went to the Balkans and did a show in the refugee camps. So it started with “I have a little extra time and some extra money. I’ll just go and give my show that here in Spain I would charge for.” But gradually over time the organisation and the mentality of humanitarian work has been changing. Also the kind of crisis situations where CWB works are more long-term. In Southern Africa, where I’ve done a lot of work, it’s the HIV pandemic, which is not where you just go and do a show for the refugee camp in the hope that it’s going to be over soon. Also, in some refugee camps it’s quite evident that they’re not short-term either. So the organisation has been moving towards working in the same places either repeatedly or long-term. It’s more of an exchange, and I think much more interesting, when it’s a collaboration between local artists and foreign artists.

MIL: As you mentioned, CWB got started by bringing smiles to refugee camps. It is also one of dozens of clown organisations around the world helping to cheer up children in hospital. Where else could you see a positive role for clowns in society?

SM: It would be pretty impressive if there were clowns working in government, actually. The way that clowns are now seen in hospitals—and taken seriously for their work—it would be amazing if you had clowns doing similar work in government. What a clown can bring to you somehow makes you healthier. The fact that clowns have begun to gravitate towards areas where you have pandemics, areas after natural disasters, is because there are people that need healing through humour and the relationship you can have with a clown.

MIL: Plenty of people might contend that there are already enough clowns in government. Why do you want to add more?

SM: Right. But the clowns that are in government don’t know that they’re clowns. [Laughter] There’s a huge difference between being conscious of making fun of yourself and everything around you and not being conscious that you’re doing that. If there were professional clowns whose job it was to give some perspective, I think that could be really interesting and could possibly make government more effective.

MIL: How are you still clowning around the world without the financial support of the Watson Fellowship? How do other clowns support themselves?

SM: I wasn’t for two years after the Louisiana trip. In CWB-USA the artists are involved in the fundraising, but when you’re on the trip you don’t pay anything. It’s a big debate because in the US it’s becoming more and more difficult to make a living as an artist—or more and more impossible. And in Europe it’s possible. That’s why I’m here.

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~ CORBIN HIAR