I leave in the hands of the readers everything I learned during forty years of teaching clowning and physical theater workshops. Here are my reflections on the art of teaching, my methods, and, especially, all the exercises I used throughout my life as a clown teacher. I’ve held nothing back.

This is a book about the use of improvisation in the teaching of clowning, in the pedagogy applied to the training of performers who want to dedicate themselves to clowning.

It is also a kind of testament.

Alongside my life on stage, I developed my role as a teacher. It was a slow and prolonged process that led me to create my own language and teaching style. As a teacher, I sought to train well-rounded actors and actresses, capable of revolutionizing the world of theater when we least expect it. I always strove to broaden horizons so that others could go further. Clowning is another step in that ambitious training.

I’ve been involved in theater for over fifty years. I’d been doing it for more than ten when I discovered the world of clowning. I experienced that encounter as a revelation and an end in itself. However, ten years later I felt that clowning was no longer enough to bring out what was inside me, what was struggling to express itself. So I left that world and explored other paths, other schools, other horizons. Another ten years passed, and I returned to clowning with a wealth of new theatrical experiences that enriched both the clown and his world.

That’s how I developed my pedagogy, which I share in this book.