Arnhemse Fools

 

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What is Fooling?
In daily life  our inner voices are fighting to prevail. For example, if I am waiting at the bakery to be served

  I am wondering what bread I want to buy ,

  I like the croissants,

  I think the croissants are too expensive,

  I find myself worry about budget,

  I feel attracted to the girl behind the counter,

  I worry that my girlfriend won't like me finding the girl attractive,

  I wonder why the girl is smiling at me kindly,

  I'm tired,

  I want to look energetic and funny,

  another customer who is in a  hurry, irritates me 

When it is finally my turn, I order a half wholemeal bread, and that's it. People would be surprised if they could hear my inner voices. But articulating all this would be mad and foolish!

Theater
Fooling is an improvisation method  where you deliberately express the inner voices. They can be manifested  physically, verbally, musically or as a character on the floor. All voices are allowed to exist, and may even initiate a dialogue with each other. A player can play his voices in a solo, or with other players. This creates a theater form with personal, original and imaginative themes and stories with  its own structure and form.

Masks
In fooling we call these voices 'masks'. You can also compare them with archetypes.  To become aware of  and play these masks it is important to:

be  open and receptive to what lives inside of  you ,

remain in the 'here and now',

be  aware of judgments,

feel safe to share this  with your fellow players and the audience,

have theatrical skills .

 To learn and practice all these skills, there are special fools workshops.

Fools training
The starting point of the training is learning the characteristics of the Fool archetype. The Fool can symbolizes, for example, confidence, spontaneity, non-judgment, openness and  childlikeness. These characteristics  and skills are needed to  improvise freely. During the training there is also much use of movement improvisation. The difference between being a player and being a spectator is also a subject that is studied during the training.

Franki Anderson
Fooling has been developed by Franki Anderson (UK). She has spent her life developing a way of working which can liberate and cultivate natural creativity in every human being. She has been researching the Fool for the last 30 years. Through this work she has transformed and promoted a deeper understanding of the archetype, and developed a contemporary art form. She started to teach her way of working throughout Europe. Participants of her workshops are developing  performance forms using her way of working.


Franki Anderson about Fooling:

The Fool is a part of ourselves which sees life  innocently  and is not afraid to say what it sees - like the child who declared "The emperor has no clothes" - as it is free from being bound by society's rules of self-censorship.

The Fool plays on the edge, with one foot on the solid ground of the know and the other hovering above the abyss of the unknown. The Fool plays solely for the sake the pleasure  of playing, utterly absorbed, with no concern for success or failure.

Often we stifle our inner Fool's voice for fear of ridicule, and so lose touch with the deep wisdom and the easy access to spontaneous creativity that it has to offer us.

 

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