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Collaboration
with Didier Danthois and Dillwyn Smith
Directed and edited by David Bickerstaff
Double screen silent video | 2 x 4:3 | 11 minutes
Didier Danthois is the founder of the Fool
at Heart School of Sacred Clowning and teaches, performs, &
directs internationally. The video installation, Sacred Clown, came
out of a discussion between Didier and the artist Dillwyn Smith
about the emotional and spiritual aspects of each others practice.
Didier agreed to be filmed performing over a period
of an afternoon in Dillwyn's studio, surrounded by his paintings.
David Bickerstaff was invited to film the process with a view to
producing an installation, which would include video and painting
in the same space. The idea was to observe the live ineteraction
between the clown and the paintings. As Didier says, "A story
unfolds, where every object speaks, where everybody contributes,
where there is an invisible link between all things and all people.
Enchanted, he becomes an instrument being played, in service of
the unseen. This is Magic. This is Sacred Art. This is the Sacred
Clown."
At the end of the session, David and Dillwyn asked
Didier to perform one more time, but this time he was asked to be
seated with the camera in a close-up on his face. Didier was asked
to recall the paintings in his mind and access them internally.
The idea was to experiment with the camera's ability to amplify
thought and see through to the inner, emotional self. To enhance
the physical movement brought on by the recollection and internal
meditation, the footage was digitally
slowed down and the sound was stripped away.
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