Photo credit: Jimmy P Davis
James Crawley is a clown, performance artist, director, producer and consultant working across theatre, festivals, live music, cabaret, film, street performance, documentary, music video and podcasting.
I got into clowning about ten years ago now after training with an award-winning clown-bouffon group from Ecole Philippe Gaulier called Teattro Pomedero. I went to as many workshops as possible before eventually starting to perform alongside them at immersive club events with The Kazimier Collective in Liverpool, the most amazing parties you could possibly begin to imagine. My work took me to Bristol where I started training in the street and site specific performance, under the guidance of many other teachers, mentors and collaborators. I organised D.I.Y cabaret fundraisers in squats, community centres and other more anarchist spaces. In 2017 I clowned my way through the occupation of a coal mine in West Germany at anti-coal mining action Ende Gelende. Combining arts and activism I raised into the hundreds of thousands of pounds for organisations working within the climate justice movement. I did a one year Diploma in Community Organising with Friends of The Earth, and then another diploma in Montessori Pedagogy & Philosophy, Early Years Education and Care. I moved with it. I cried with it. I laughed with it. All of it informed my art and my career in ways I never planned nor expected, just following my passion and curiosity.
I started picking up freelance work from other artists and creatives, landing myself as Executive Communications Assistant to Roger Griffith MBE CEO of a community radio station he founded called Ujima Radio, doing social media marketing, building websites, all things I picked up from my artistic practice and my activism suddenly getting paid work from it. This allowed me to self-fund artist residencies in places such as Leon, Cornwall, Evia Island, Berlin.
In my twenties I wanted to live with a courageous yes to life. Yes, I’ll live in South Korea. Yes, I’ll cycle to Germany and Occupy a Coal Mine. Yes, I’ll come for coffee. Yes, I can lead that workshop. Yes, I’ll do a performance via the telephone. Yes I’ll do a four hour durational clown performance in a museum about handing over your data to an anonymous stranger with a splendid suit and a charming smile. Yes, I’ll co-found a new Montessori school in Bristol. Yes, I will read my Father’s Eulogy hidden within a world of Grief unseen by all yet on full display to many. Yes, I’ll go to Paris to train with the Master of Clown see what it’s all about. Yes, I’ll reach out to Dr. Jane Goodall for an interview. Yes, I’ll host if the host can’t do it for an audience of 1000 people at the festival even though I only planned a five minute act. Yes, I’ll do it in drag then, give me a fag, go on give me a wig but don’t touch my moustache coz I like aving that atm make me feel sexy- dya know what I mean??
In 2020 I went to Ecole Philippe Gaulier for the first year actor & clown training and upon my return home I arrived as AstroZenica, mother of The House of Savalon.
BIG
GAY
PARTIES\
Thanks to the World Government’s Free Vaccine Programme Everybody on Planet Earth Has Been Given A Double Dose of Wealth! Opulence! You Own Everything! [We’d been locked down too long. It was time to have some fun. I ripped my heart from my chest and I smeared it across the walls of Bristol, across the tunnels in The Loco Klub, every surface of the Queenshilling, it’s still dripping there to this day, because I love people and I wanted people to come together and to start having some fun again. Savalon was to be crazy. It was a love letter to the city that helped give me so much belonging, purpose and hope. A city that helped build me up and shape me into a decent human being.]
Lobsters playing the piano, Ferraro Roshay upon arrival, a Bat Pig making cocktails from an aerial hoop, the Glory Hole Of Desire On Demand, ooooo those lemons needed squeezing and those dates needed pruning and it needed to happen with you starring at me through a hole in the wall while I’m barely wearing any underwear!
The shows were amazing. So many moving parts. Puppets. Performances in the toilets . Harpist at the door. Stilt walking Aphrodite with a 12 inch **** in your face. Always a red carpet (vote Trump). A flying pole because SEX. A pig in a paddling pool you could massage in baby oil then wrestle. The Choir of Savalon. Huge ensemble openings to the shows that would have people talking about in antiicpation for weeks before and with amazement for weeks after. Entire audiences fully dressed up in costumes they’d spend weeks making. The Colour Purple. Blasting through space. Discovering gender. Discovering Sex. Discovering discovery, still so much to be discovered…..
It was at this time I worked as the Executive Assistant for a High-networth individual, supporting her in her award winning work across Documentary film and other short film making. The Gay PA. Working from a computer on projects with insane budgets while our gorgeous Savalon studio at The Island was full of community spirit, people coming together making costumes, sets, offeering mutual support for the challenges of life, sharing laiughter, rehearsing for Savalon’s next big show. When making those events I imagined people to look back in years to come when they were old saying, “wow those were the best moments of my life, the best parties I ever went to…” It truly was a miracle, a time and a moment, and how much lives on thanks to that Friends of The Earth Community Organising Course…I did a load of my solo shows and cabaret at the same time, hosting the cabaret at The Rabbit Hole in Glastonbury for two years. It was a whirlwind time, I was happy to stop performing so much and focus on writing again, going to parties as a punter and not as a producer, a host or a director.
There is loads more to my career I haven’t included, I’ve mostly just followed the pleasure and the passion, falling in love with process and trusting the rest will fall into place. So far so good ! The life of a clown is a great gift. When it’s time to move on, it’s time to move on, and now it feels like it’s time for film.