ABSTRACT
The Disgruntled was the very first clown dance I ever made up. Although I usually think of my clown characters as “it/’ I shall, for simplicity’s sake, use the pronoun “he.” He was born in my studio in Dresden. I remember laughing myself silly when he appeared, but I doubted that anybody else would find him funny. I have no idea which corner of my fantasy he came from, but he became sort of my trademark for many years. I must have danced him more than a thousand times. He is an abstraction, a mood. Different audiences have seen him as a symbol of different concerns; some political ones as rebellion against whatever; children’s groups as a sort of Poltergeist; and, I was told, that he became the pinup-picture of an English squadron in World War II. For me he was none of that in particular. He was just angry. Nonsense angry. I thought that nonsense-angry is funny. Stupid is funny. It can be laughed away.
