JestersPlayground

Jestervolution in Progress….Now!

~HOW TO ENTER THE JESTERS PLAYGROUND~

~HOW TO GESTATE A JESTER~

Jesters at Play at the Warehouse Art Gallery in Luray, Va. Photo by Ben Somberg

In the Jesters Playground, I help to hatch new Jesters who go through the process of conceiving their own character who embodies the sacred gift they choose to bring to the world. I do not sell Jester costumes. This is my sacred work, as midwife to a new way, where Love is Free and Life is Play.

I have been fermenting this idea for many years and it is slowly unfolding. This page will become my portal for the Playground, where one can meet and explore various characters who have emerged. Once a Jester has hatched from the Cosmic Egg, and merges in symbiosis with its human host, it can offer its sacred gift to the other players on the chessboard of SpaceTime.

(Above: A few of the kids from my Dreamtime Jesters act….some of whom several years later were also in Jestervolution act. The two photos at the end are action shots from each act. These kids are amazing, and so much fun, and it is so fulfilling to see my Vision spring to life because they actual ‘feel’ it and embody the essence especially after they receive their jester costumes….)

I have been absolutely blessed to work with the Childrens Circus of Middletown for 6 years, and it has given me so much Joy as well as a Space to develop my creative passions. It is a magical program and I am truly honored to have been invited into the tribe of other artists and the children and teens who make up the circus year after year. My Jestervolution started there, on the Loom of creating shows with my classes, having the opportunity to teach stiltwalking to two groups of 20+ students each summer, and finishing with a 5+minute show for each group, that fit in with the other circus Acts. Challenging, Intense, whacky, and so beautiful, the experience has thus far been absolutely vital to my evolving creative expressions and confidence. Being the obsessively compulsive and perfectionist creatrix that I am, with single-minded loyalty to my own artistic vision, I took on my own costuming as well as teaching each day all day 5 days a week for 5 weeks. Childrens Circus is like a drug, and the ecstasy of the journey as well as the crash afterward, somewhat addictive. Summer 2020 of course came with all its chaos and changes to the System, and the program managed to run a Virtual Circus….! And lo and behold, even though it was NOTHING like the in-person Journey, it turned out to be amazing in its own right. The kids come first, always, and the team I am so honored to work with year after year have my utmost respect and adoration, I watch this group pull something together out of Nothing, time and time again. The synergy of what we managed to create even whilst being quarantined at home in our own little reality bubbles, was really quite inspiring. It was a real success, creatively. My personal little pet projected in this virtual circus was my one long-running ‘class’ called JEsters Playground, where I got to put my ideas into practice and experiment with my process with the small group of kids who stuck with it and created and some amazing things. Technically, other than my own ever shifting SelfSpawned Jester character aliases, these 7 Jesters who hatched are the first of their kind, and I want to honor them here as well as give them their own little corner of the WovenWeb to share their own journeys through Jesterhood.

Since then, a few more have hatched and I have helped to midwife into the Reality. Much of this Play happens at my favorite place…the Warehouse Art Gallery. As Time plays its fiddle and the C(h)ords are Woven round the spindle, more will take their place on the chessboard and offer their gifts to humanity.

Below Are a Collection of Childrens Circus Videos!!!!! Please give them a peak and see some of the magic of my Journey with this program. Some are my final Circus Show acts as part of the larger circus, and some are montage videos that I made of various aspects of the amazing adventures that took place year to year. There are also videos I made as part of The Virtual Childrens Circus last year, such as the hatch welcomings, and my own weird intro to the program.

The crazy train Jester and the Rainbow Jester at play in the Warehouse Art Gallery

One of my favorite playful activities is making weird videos of the Jesters and other characters….especially when others come play with me. I use iMovie on my ancient and broken iphone, one day I will learn a nice video editing software and evolve what i can do. Below are some of my Invitations to Play. Everything I do is spontaneous and improv, and one-take.

And of course, (almost)Every time a new Jester hatches, when I have finished a costume and am ready to introduce to the world, I make a little video. Here are a collection of various Jesters, in their birth order... (not including the Jester King and Jester Queen…very elaborate costumes that were birthed for two other people, and which I will be creating a proper video soon!)