Laughter Is Life: The Award-Winning Japanese Clown Duo Rone and Gigi

Always Looking for Laughter

A duo for 34 years, two Japanese clowns are in complete unison on the stage as well as off it. They agree on what gives them the greatest satisfaction from their profession:

“When we see the audience in front of us smile and laugh,” says Gigi.

“We know that some of them might be having a difficult situation, but when they laugh and look happy then all their worries are washed away,” echoes Rone.

“With the exception of our big theater shows, the places where we perform are not very large—and, at the beginning, most people in the audience do not know each other and it can even be a little tense,” says Gigi. “But by the end of the show, the atmosphere has completely changed and it is as if they are a family having a get-together. That, to me, is the best part of what we do.”

Today, the giggles begin even before the curtain comes up, with Gigi bustling about in a pinafore and maid’s bonnet and armed with a feather duster. She peers around through glasses with bottle-bottom lenses and dusts a microphone stand, the stage, and a strategically located box of tricks for the performance that is to come.

Gigi pantomimes vigorously wiping the windows, to the crowd’s growing amusement. (© Benjamin Parks)

She segues seamlessly into a clever performance depicting a humorous romantic liaison with a standing coatrack wearing formal dress and a bowler hat before switching into a straw boater and a red-and-white striped waistcoat and being joined on stage by her partner in laughter, Rone.

Gigi romances a debonair coatrack during her opening act. (© Benjamin Parks)

They perform a series of perfectly choreographed routines involving juggling clubs and a saucepan, their exaggerated moves and facial expressions hallmarks of generations of clowns. There is, inevitably, audience participation and an unwitting onlooker is cajoled on stage to sway her hips, catch juggling balls, and try to avoid getting the saucepan in her face.

It is joyous in all its slapstick, bottom-kicking chaos, with plain silk kerchiefs transformed into a riot of color with the deftest sleight of hand and, of course, audience members rewarded for their contributions with crowns fashioned from balloons.

The on-stage chemistry is clear, with the entire performance the result of decades of practice that has built teamwork and the ability to spark off each other.

The pair display their juggling chops. (© Benjamin Parks)

A Global Past for the Japanese Clown Duo

Rone and Gigi teamed up in 1990, after both completed courses conducted by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College Japan. Widely regarded as one of the leading circus schools in the world, this program required them to earn a place through exacting auditions, as each class had a maximum of 10 students. The head college in the United States trained around 1,400 clowns in the “Ringling style” between its founding in 1968 and its closure in 1997.

As both had extensive experience in the theater and Rone’s father was a kabuki performer also trained in the shingeki “new drama” style of modern realism, they admit they both anticipated returning to the theater once they had completed their clown studies. When they discovered how well they complemented each other, though, they decided to make clowning their career, attracted by the charm of the craft, its entertainment value, and the value it places on free expression and care for others. Then they created Japan Theater Clown Company Open Sesame, with Gigi taking on the responsibilities of artistic director and Rone the business manager.

The balls move almost too quickly to follow, but the pair are effortless in their teamwork. (© Benjamin Parks)

To broaden their knowledge as performers, Rone and Gigi decided to travel to Moscow in the geopolitically challenging days of 1991 to learn the traditions of Russian-style clowning. They look back on the experience with fondness, even though they hardly spoke a word of Russian and they had to queue for basic foods like bread. Inspired to further broaden their horizons by Mimicrech, a six-strong troupe from Ukraine, in the following year they travelled to Kyiv, where they studied at what is now the National Circus of Ukraine. They subsequently spent time in Britain, honing their craft under the close watch of the famous clown and mime artist Nola Rae, all the while performing to fund their ongoing development.

In 1997, they attended the University of Wisconsin Clown training program for the first time, becoming instructors for the event for the next 13 years. Rone and Gigi have also taken part in Clown Camp programs elsewhere in the United States, as well as in England, Scotland, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore, where they took part in the 2004 Clown Around the World Festival and performed in front of President S. R. Nathan.

They were also among the headliner group at the 2005 World Clown Festival in Nagoya.

Their considerable achievements have been recognized by the clowning community over the years, with the duo crowned Best Clowns by Clowns International in 2002, coming in second in the 2003 International Clown Festival in Monte Carlo, and winning the Best Clowns and People’s Choice Awards in 2004 at Angel Ocasio’s Comedifest.

A performance generally ends with something veering into full-on spoken comedy. (© Benjamin Parks)

Springs of Creativity

Gigi’s ever-inventive mind has come up with an array of characters to populate their performances, from a fat old man called Zsa Zsa, the Russian for grandfather, to a duo with huge protruding ears attached to skull-caps, and even to children, which they perform with kids’ shoes strapped to their knees while shuffling around the stage. Gigi has even built her own body suit to create a number of chubbier characters.

Rone and Gigi’s “Big Ears” act is especially popular among children in their audiences. (© JTCC Open Sesame, Rone & Gigi)

The Freedom of Being Clowns

Part of the duo’s desire to clown around stems from the lack of a clowning culture in Japan, where they are often—but inaccurately—described as piero, a Japanese term deriving from pierrot, an evolution from street performers in late-seventeenth-century Italy. Rone and Gigi also say that the Japanese term daidōgei, or street performer, is also not quite accurate.

“Japan does not have a clown culture, and whenever we travel in the United States, Europe, or even other parts of Asia, people are surprised when we tell them that,” says Rone. “One of the reasons I became a clown is because they do not exist here. I also love Charlie Chaplin, and for Japanese people, his way of performing is very easy to understand. When I think of what a clown is, I think of Chaplin.”

Prestidigitation is also part of the act. (© Benjamine Parks)

Rone says she “feels comfortable” when in her clown attire because she is freer than in the more formal setting of Japanese entertainment forms. Clowns shine a positive light on negative situations and turn them into laughter. Unlike in many other schools of the creative arts, harsh reprimands are not associated with clowns. Everything from Japan’s martial arts to the artistic pastimes of music, flower arranging, and traditional theater follow strict rules and criteria, she says, but “a clown is free.”

The life of a clown is not all laughter and smiles, however, with the profession not well paid and competing with countless other forms of entertainment. With clowns relatively unknown in Japan, the economic opportunities are limited. Rone recalls that in the earlier years of their collaboration, word-of-mouth recommendations meant that they would regularly perform at shopping malls and festivals, but they opted to focus more on stage performances, even if they became less frequent.

Gigi is the creative brains behind performances, saying she can be inspired by anything that she sees. “I can get moved by a book or when I read a newspaper and feel that I want to send a message to the world through a performance,” she says. “When images and ideas fill my head, I just want to create our art.”

Spreading Clown Culture from Japan

After more than three decades of entertaining others, Rone and Gigi are also keen to pass on their stage skills and knowledge to a new generation of Japanese clowns. Their Open Sesame Clown School has been in operation for 30 years. Students meet up typically once a week to practice, with one student—now 79 years old—in constant attendance since the school opened.

These are the people—young and old, professional and amateur alike—that Rone and Gigi believe are spreading the word about clowning in Japan and are the future of the art form.

Rone (left) and Gigi have been putting smiles on faces for 34 years as a clown duo. (© Benjamin Parks)

(Originally written in English. Banner photo: The clown duo in action. © Rone and Gigi/Open Sesame.)