Gilkey Wins Popularity Prizes With Skillful Clowning

By Bill Giduz, Editor

 

No one left a more indelible impression on IJA jugglers in Las Vegas than John

Gilkey... and he says the feeling was mutual. All it took was a single performance, just six or eight minutes as a competitor in the Individual Championships. He didn't perform at all after that, not in the Cascade Show nor on the Renegade Stage. But the spell that his lanky, goofy clown character cast over the audience with clever juggling of three balls, four clubs and balls with a hat rack was stunning.

 

The judges decided that the performance wasn't technical enough to warrant a medal, and many in the audience were not happy with that. But the public at large rewarded Gilkey in unprecedented fashion with both the People's Choice Award and The Founder's Trophy, as well as the affirmation he sought to give his career a needed boost.

 

"The reaction to the act has been pretty amazing," Gilkey said a few weeks later when contacted at his apartment in San Francisco. "The night and day after the competition people came up to me pretty much non-stop. Many of them were agents, or professional performers offering me the names of their agents. I sent out a lot of videos based on that information, and I've gotten a lot of calls since then from people interested in hiring me. It was an incredible experience. I can't stress that enough. And not just from the job standpoint, but on an emotional level as well. It was a wonderful validation of the work I'm doing."

 

Gilkey hadn't attended an IJA festival since 1986 in San Jose, when as a 19-year-old he competed and placed fifth in the US Nationals with some promising, but unpolished material that included juggling an umbrella, hat and coat to the tune, "Singing in the Rain."

 

In the nine-year interim, he has diligently pursued his art through formal training at arts academies and on-the-job experience in circuses and stage ensembles. Two years ago he returned from extended work with a troupe in Switzerland and decided to strike out on his own. But things weren't working out ideally. Gilkey explained, "For the past 18 months I was treading water, not sure about what direction my career would take. I had reached a point where I didn't have any work for a while and I thought I needed some exposure. Barry Bakalor, my friend and mentor all along, insisted that the IJA competition in Las Vegas would be the perfect place."

 

Gilkey presented the Las Vegas crowd with an endearing clown he privately calls "Tim." Throughout the act, Tim discovered things in hilariously haphazard fashion. But as in all true artistry, the creator did nothing haphazard in developing the act that appears so spontaneous to each new audience that sees it. The music, costuming, juggling tricks, expressions and movement were all carefully considered and developed in minute detail before they were presented in Las Vegas.

 

He picked clothing that accentuates his lanky frame, and simple, but arresting,

makeup that immediately marks him as a clown without hiding his face. It is high­lighted by a white line drawn under his lower lip that gives the appearance of a giant mouth when he opens it to laugh or gawk. The other primary makeup feature is his hair. He has shaved his head bald except for a shock of hair left standing just above his forehead.

 

Gilkey said that the haircut, which was strictly a gamble when he did it a year ago, helped everything else fall into place. "It gave rise to the whole character," he said. "I was working on the coat rack routine, I found the music and did the haircut all at about the same time, I remember looking at myself in the mirror and starting to giggle. That happens so rarely - rising above all the worry and work to literally laugh at my own creation - that I knew instantly I was on to something good."

 

Since his clown is mute, the music for the routine was a critical choice in defining character. Gilkey calls it the most important thing in the routine. He chose a "pelvic" song with a cha-cha beat by Peruvian singer Yma Sumac. "It's what makes my character come alive," he said. "All those lanky bones just take flight, it makes me move. Its guttural aspects and span of several octaves give me a lot of fun things to play with."

 

As the curtain rose, Gilkey stood with his back to the audience, pulling his underwear out of his butt. He turned around in embarassment as he noticed the audience, then he noticed his briefcase, which is not rectangular but has angular sides. One ball pops up as he opens the briefcase, causing another moment of wonderment and discovery. He then stands inside the slant-sided briefcase and is captured in a slanted world, leaning impossibly to one side. Gilkey conceded that move is made possible either by his extremely strong toes or straps around his feet!