Extreme vulnerability, openness, emotional engagement, and moment to moment responsiveness are some of my favorite things about working through the perspective of a clown. I work almost exclusively within the unpredictable space of the unknown, wherein I don’t script my performances and allow what happens to be driven by the living exchange of action and reaction between myself and the folks watching me. I leave space for embarrassing and emotional moments to arise out of the real-time exchange of energy. The pandemic has isolated us from each other in ways we could not have anticipated until we were faced with our new, and extremely lonely reality. Desperate for love, affection and attention, I stripped myself partially bare to accentuate and exaggerate the vulnerability and self-exposure of begging for love and acceptance from strangers.

“Pleeeze Luv Me.” was performed in a storefront in downtown Las Vegas, behind a glass window. To meet safety restrictions around COVID-19 exposure, I literally and figuratively isolated myself from the viewers by enclosing myself within a plastic tent I made from red gingham dollar store table cloths and repurposed golden streamers. I built a long arm and attached it to the ceiling and to my body, keeping me tethered to the space. I cobbled together a costume from party store circus tent table runners, and a t-shirt lopped off at the armpits to expose my breasts. My body was painted white with Wonderbread dots and I smeared my face with garish and grotesque clown makeup. I wore a collar of deflated balloons and a red yard balding wig. Lit from below, I stood for an hour and a half in the window, blowing up 150 balloons, twisting them into poodles and offering them to the viewers who could never accept them from the other side of the pane of glass. Over and over again, I made balloons until I started to become buried under them. While I twisted balloons, a soundtrack of overly romantic soft rock hits of the 70s and 80s played and I let every emotion rise up in me and come out as it needed to, in direct and immediate response to the faces, sounds, words and gestures given to me by the viewers. They were free to come and go as they pleased and interact with me in any way that they felt moved to do.