Notes from Students & Colleagues
There are many wonderful attributes within ronlin work as a teacher and performer that have influenced me as both a teacher of clown and a performer as well.. I have borrowed..the Vegetable exercise, The Stench, the use of obscure music to intensify a moment..so much…Ronlin has deeply influenced my art on all levels.. the true poetry of the Clown is still growing inside me. Thank you Ronlin Foreman!
In everything I do, I hear “be easy”. With every person I meet, I aim see them and not just look at them. And with each morning, I wake to actively discover how to be. I have Ronlin to thank for that.
In my everyday life I remember Ronlin’s teachings. I hear his voice in my head. In all that I create I strive for authenticity. I am reminded to risk, to be easy, to be buoyant, to go deeper. I remember the abyss and that I must stand at the precipice and fall, no, dive in with joy and a ferocious will and abandon and be changed. As I process my time at Dell’Arte and continue to let my life unfold I know that because of his teachings my voice has changed and is becoming stronger. I strive every day to strike the bell stronger and stronger so that my tone resonates with the world, and every day I feel myself appear. My color bolder, my mind wiser, my heart more open and willing to let the world in so that I can finally become a part of its creation.
I hear his voice in my head during certain parts of the creative process. It is less active when I am devising performance work, as he facilitated me in finding my own voice with which to guide myself. But oh, if you could only hear the Ronlin monologue in my head when I am sculpting masks or painting. See and respond. See and respond. See and respond. He’s the little cricket in my head that reminds me when my personal agenda is ruining my work. And then in my head he dances around, pretends to punch me, laughs and runs out the door before giving me any answers.
I really like to imagine Ronlin as a cricket. A particularly tickling thought.
I’d be nowhere without Ronlin Foreman.
Ronlin Foreman: The clown will devour the actor!!!!!!
During the abyss exercise, Ronlin got all worked up because we were ‘trying’ to be funny… He ran across the room at us, tripped on the mat, fell flat on his face, quickly stood up, brushed the hair from his face gaining composure and said ‘Class, THAT little event was NOT funny’… we all totally lost it.
My favorite quote by Ronlin: “I’m asking you for FIRE in the PELVIS! What you’re giving me is MICE IN THE UNDERPANTS!”
During a performance lab for melodrama, we were to write a monologue from our character’s point of view. I was feeling particularly lost and unconnected in the physical and the verbal. As I perform it I feel more lost. Ronlin finally gets up and joins me on stage. He grabs me by the top of my head, reminding me of Alexander technique principles. As I allow my body to hang, and relax, suddenly I feel a channel open up inside me. Phrases from the monologue come out of me, and I begin to feel physical impulses. The craziest part is, that as the impulse is happening, Ronlin whispers it in my ear – almost as if we are channeling the same energy and he is able to confirm, in the moment, that the impulse is true. I found something in that performance – the heart of that character, and a vulnerability that took my work in melodrama in a new direction.
I learned two things that day: relax so that I can be an open channel; and when the impulse strikes, I must allow it to move through me.