Written by @loretosocorro
When I was a child, seeing clowns on TV or in a circus was pure daydreaming. Years later, here I am: with a clown and a clown, in Valsequillo (Gran Canaria). They are a couple who fascinate people big and small, live.
Luis Monzón, the Chincheta clown, receives us at the venue while we wait for Aroa Santana, clown. Together with Aitana Monzón Santana and Candela Monzón Santana they form Timbiriqui Teatro.
Luis, since when do you make people laugh?
I started as a professional in 89 and did all kinds of events: schools, parties, town halls, council. A few years earlier, in 85, Timbirique started. In the Canary Islands there was none of this.
So, did you have to leave the islands to train?
I went to Barcelona and studied in private schools. I lived there for three years, almost four; then I was in Madrid. About the years 87-88, I was already doing some things. Then I came here and entered the current Escuela de Actores de Canarias, when they began their first training. I came back years later and trained as an actor and performer and chose the branch of clown, Of the circus.
Why be a clown?
Inspired, perhaps by my mother, by my sister – my sister had health problems. Especially my mother's mood, those women from before who suffered so much and who always had that joy of living and transmitted it. And also because I always liked clowns.
Tell us your memories and which clowns you admired.
A circus never came to Valsequillo, so I rather watched and enjoyed them on TV. For me a reference was Charlie Rivel.
When did you discover it?
Already grown up, 18 years old, but when I was 14 something very nice happened to me: in a summer school that was held in Valsequillo, of corporal expression, I participated and then I went on stage with two friends. We burst out laughing that day and then the bug bit me. I understood then that my way of being was to be like that: very extroverted.
Luis Monzón speaks slowly and conveys to us that affection he has for his profession. Does Luis from day to day change a lot when you wear a red nose?
Sure, the nose is a mask. It is the smallest mask in the world and, when you put it on, you stop being yourself…
On the way, Luis takes out a foam nose and puts it on: we are experiencing a radical transformation. He's still serious, but the effect he causes sparks something in our minds and we can't help but smile and laugh.
What moves this in you?
It's easy, if you stop being yourself to become someone who has something, that you don't normally wear, it makes you think and be different. The same would happen if you put a cast on your hand and then, somehow, you are not the same person without a cast or with a cast; even with a crutch… the mask, in this case the nose, influences because it is visual, it is characterized.
I see that it also influences me, that I'm not wearing anything, just to see you with a red nose.
That is the magic of the clown, which can transmit -he pauses as if savoring thousands of moments enjoyed with a red nose- Without speaking. Magic only with that image, that feeling that she has.
Why are clowns usually sad characters who suffer and take blows?
Because clowns are born from those people who were the drunk on duty, the one who lived on a platform... humble people who had little. Their cheeks and noses turned red when they drank wine, they stained the rest of their faces with soot, and they were funny.
Are they born from marginal sites and forms of life?
From that humility and with that feeling is born. From there and from failure too.
Of failure?
The clown's success is failure. The clown stumbles and is failing. That makes people laugh and succeed. He picks up something and falls, people laugh at each other's weaknesses; the human being is like that.
What differentiates a clown from a comedian, in this sense?
The comedian makes jokes about third parties and the clown laughs at himself. You will never hear a clown say: "a fat man was going, a drunk was going... he tripped, he hit a pop". The clown speaks in the first person: "I'm fatter than hell, I was walking down the street and tripped and tram... look what happened to me", and people laugh
The purest and truest humor is to laugh at oneself.
Is it therapeutic to laugh?
Sure, laughter heals. In fact, I verified it when I did “Hospital Clowns”, for different foundations, in the Maternal and Child Hospital.
Apart from the world of laughter, would you like to play other genres or combine them with humor?
I did theater, with Prophets of the Mueble Bar, but always -don't ask me why-, I wanted to shoot for this branch, for the clown, humor and, in general, for comedy and within all this, without a doubt, for the clown.
Would you make a tragedy?
I haven't had the opportunity to do tragedy or any other kind of genre. I'm not ruling it out, but I'm not looking for it either. What I have done is that I have mixed tragedy with humor: tragicomedy; works that we have produced ourselves from Timbiriqui Producciones. I am comfortable with what I do and I am not looking for other things.
¿clown and clown is the same?
Clown is English and more recent. He arrives hand in hand with Philippe Gaulier, where he takes the clown to the theater and that is how the clown begins to tell stories. Before, the clown was just the funny character in the circus and they practically didn't talk. The clown is a contemporary clown. I do classic clown
Aroa Santana, life and professional partner enters the premises. Her cheerful voice, her jiribilla movements among the tools and her splendid smile reveal to us a very special clown woman.
How did you become clown Aroa?
I started when Timbiriqui Producciones was formed. I got on board with that project and we decided to set up the theater company.
Where did you come from?
I used to teach, I am a child educator, although my vocation was always to act. I did workshops, not at a professional level, but I had that concern and I got involved with workshops. As a result of that, it was how I met Luis, at Bar Timbiriqui, which was a cocktail and plaster bar in the town of Valsequillo.
Luis is El Payaso Chincheta, what is your stage name Aroa?
My clown depends a bit on the theme: I have a character who is “La Guira”, a foreigner, but from the Canary Islands, who is tacky and is impressed with everything she sees around her and, of course, in the Canarian environment. "La Guira" freaks out in colors because she comes from the conchinchina...
Another clown that I have is the character "Chipude" and it came about as a result of working in La Gomera: she is a more folksy clown, she values the Canarian idiosyncrasy and speaks with that accent all the time.
I have also made puppets with children: puppet constructions, hand puppets...
I imagine you as a teacher and you must have been very funny in class...
That's what my daughters tell me. It was a good stage: I spent ten years, even with children with motor disabilities
From your experience with girls and boys, what gives laughter that other things don't?
Honestly, the main spark is put by the children. They give to us, and all you do is let yourself go.
They provoke laughter from naturalness, simplicity, harmony and I think that both through the children and also through the grandparents themselves, it was where I discovered my own clown.
How is a clown built?
As a result of the experiences, the experiences throughout my life and in all the areas that I have been. The clown feeds on everything around her.
Aroa, tell me some endearing memory of your performances
Memories about the family because «Chipude», what values the family is, not losing our customs. I play with people, I interact with them and on one occasion I brought grandfather, grandmother, mother, sons and daughters to the stage to remember and rescue what life was like
You look passionate, dynamic and wanting to involve all the people who come to see you. How do you prepare to clown?
I am very improvisational. It's how I flow best. You play it many times, because it depends on what the public is giving you. My secret is that when I act or, even during production, I try to form a family: with festivals and meetings, I try to work in the here and now, feel close, share and then, each one carry out their disciplines .
Talking about the productions with Luis and Aroa, we discover that they play various styles, apart from being clowns and clowns.
We have done clown/clown workshops, but more than teaching we are apprentices. What we are trying to do is externalize what we know, I do not consider myself a teacher of the clown – Aroa speaks– Not at all, I share what I know.
Other productions that you have created is “Three Days of Farándula”, a clown production, right?
Yes, we have been doing it for fifteen years now, in Valsequillo.
We can see all the posters, one after another, on the wall of the premises. Did it start in 2003, Luis?
It started in 2003 and is a festival related to the clown. It is a street festival, where we move the artists through different areas, in this case Valsequillo, but at the same time, we also do the extensions of the festival that we call “Get on the show bus”
What are the extensions?
The artists that we bring to the festival, we take them to prisons, health centers, residences... we try to reach all areas and, furthermore, that the town where it is celebrated knows that something is happening.
Between photo and photo we are seeing photos, memories of montages in scenes, costumes...
Aroa complains between laughs about the "kilopo" that he has mounted ...
We store everything here: some things we do ourselves, even in workshops with children, others we entrust to professionals, for the sets. There have been stagings that have been filmed and have worked well and others that we have eaten with potatoes.
You have many “Vintage” clothes…
I have a lot of my family, my grandmother, neighbors who take clothes and give them to me. I am in that process of seeing what I have… look look… -Aroa shows us a beautiful white clown suit – This classic clown costume is all handmade by a seamstress here.
The next event where they will be performing?
with the thumbtack -Aroa speaks-, we are going to Extremadura on November 20. We will be in the Tarajano room, in Mérida. I play the little music and we hire a technician for the lights. Then we go to Madrid, also around that time.
Among the performances of the clown Thumbtack is the Thumbtack Baby, La Percha del Amor...
Depending on whether we have shot it several times or not, so that the message is different and also that the dynamics vary.
Luis and Aroa tell us about the project "Women with noses"
It emerged five years ago, to make the clown woman visible. It is an international meeting of clowns, of women in the clown, and takes place in Parque Doramas.
How did they come up with it?
Because we are artists. We are always inventing and creating spaces for the development of culture and our gender. We have been able to give life to and maintain festivals that are already consecrated: the Villa Mágica, in San Sebastián de la Gomera, which is a meeting of magic and humor, Tres Días de Farándula and now we have a shot at holding a world music festival. We are seeing if we mix concerts with street theater. We are also going to hold a comedy festival, for the first time, in San Juan de La Rambla in Tenerife.
Aroa, is there something that is like a dream to do?
Having our own school to be able to exchange with other professionals in the guild, as we have done many years ago. That is to say: bring us very powerful clowns and try to create a school for that clown, for his way of being and seeing the world.
Would this be an activity for professional clowns only?them?
No not at all. The idea is that it be offered to the general public. To everyone who comes: amateurs, professionals who want to get to know the artist first-hand, people who just flirt or are curious about this world. The objective is to get to know the variety of clowns and the different ways of making people laugh.
We could continue the whole day sharing with this couple of clowns who have an incredible human background. We encourage them to write their experiences and travels around the world and Aroa tells us about a letter that she has saved.
After making us laugh, we get letters where they tell us so many nice things and also that we have awakened in them that clown that we all have inside. how important it is to play Aroa continues, we grow old by stopping playing and laughing.
A girl dressed as a unicorn asks her mother to bring her closer because she sees the clowns posing for photos. Ron and Jelly Bean (her dogs) run around the park. This day he will not forget the little girl.
Chincheta and la Guira perform on stage for the report, for the first time together. Perhaps now Aroa will once again remember the sweetness of the “Aunt Claudina” jams, which Luis gave him, just before Timbirique began to sweeten our lives. El Chincheta and La Guira have a lot of chemistry together, although they don't fully understand each other because of the languages... If the show lasts a little longer: here's a great show in sight.
We want to say goodbye with a phrase from Luis Monzón's character, the clown Chincheta: "Between crying and laughing, the only thing we have is the nose"
