{"id":16045,"date":"2025-02-03T08:06:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=16045"},"modified":"2025-02-03T11:36:12","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T16:36:12","slug":"a-contemporary-clown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2025\/02\/03\/a-contemporary-clown\/","title":{"rendered":"A Contemporary Clown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From his circus roots to fame in France, Bernie Collins \u201978 has built a career by bringing the laughs.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"Illustration

Illustration by Oliver Weiss<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For a professional clown with more than 40 years of experience, Bernie Collins \u201978 is surprisingly subdued. With bright blue eyes and a relaxed demeanor (no red nose or floppy shoes in sight), the real-life Collins is a far cry from the frenetic, bespectacled character he plays as one half of BP Zoom, the clown comedy duo he created with partner Phillipe Martz in the early 1990s. Their act, hailed as \u201ca wonderful piece of contemporary clowning [with] timeless appeal\u201d by Total Theatre Magazine<\/em>, has earned Collins \u2014 who has lived in France since 1989 \u2014 a host of international comedy awards. BP Zoom continues to entertain audiences of children and adults at cabarets and festivals throughout France, Latin America, Singapore, China, and Japan. In a recent chat with Collins, Colgate Magazine<\/em> learned these five facts about his long career in clowning:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. During his Colgate years, he (almost) ran off and joined the circus.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In between his first and second years at Colgate, Collins took a summer gig with a traveling circus. Along with setting up tents and rigging high wires, Collins negotiated his way into the clown act, where he tried his hand at performing and discovered he had a knack for a clown\u2019s brand of emotive, physical comedy. If it weren\u2019t for an injury he sustained during a tent blowdown, his life, most likely, would have followed a very different path. \u201cI was ready to stay with the circus full-time,\u201d he says. \u201cBut after my injury, the people I was working with really encouraged me to go back to Colgate in the fall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. He discovered his passion in Colgate\u2019s London Study Group.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

An English major, Collins chose to study vaudeville during his time abroad. As part of his research, he took in a performance of The Moving Picture Mime Show, an avant-garde trio of mimes. \u201cSomething clicked,\u201d he remembers. \u201cI walked out of the theater knowing that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.\u201d When he learned that the group\u2019s members had just graduated from the Jacques Lecoq Theater School in Paris, he was determined to enroll himself \u2014 and he did years later, after earning his degree from Colgate and learning basic French.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. He\u2019s his own muse.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, Collins has cultivated a character based on his own personality, leaning heavily on his flaws. \u201cAs a clown, you\u2019re theatricalizing your faults,\u201d says Collins. \u201cThat\u2019s where the humor is.\u201d He compares his onstage rapport with his BP Zoom partner to that of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, with Collins playing the \u201crigid, controlling straight man\u201d to his partner\u2019s affable fool. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly exaggerated, but that need for order is a real part of my personality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. He\u2019s learned that some gags don\u2019t translate.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

According to Collins, clowns have endured because slapstick comedy is universal. But in touring the world with BP Zoom, he has also observed how humor can vary based on a culture\u2019s customs. In Japan, recalls Collins, a scene in which his partner suddenly falls off the stage was met with covered-mouth silence. \u201cOur interpreter explained that culturally, the Japanese will not laugh at a foreigner who has embarrassed himself in public,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s considered deeply impolite.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, a joke that involved launching a pretend hot-air balloon by tossing out a sack of potatoes didn\u2019t seem to land with audiences in Brazil. \u201cWe realized that, to them, potatoes just weren\u2019t funny,\u201d he says. The duo visited a Brazilian market and asked around in search of a \u201cheavy, comical food\u201d that would help audiences get the joke. The unlikely solution? A large mackerel. They featured the fish in the next Brazilian show and left the audience in stitches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. He brings laughter to kids when they need it most.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For more than 30 years, Collins has worked with Le Rire Medecin, a French nonprofit that trains clowns to work in pediatric hospitals, performing and accompanying children during medical procedures to reduce fear and anxiety. \u201cThat kind of interaction is simple,\u201d he says, \u201cbut it has proved to be so beneficial.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From his circus roots to fame in France, Bernie Collins \u201978 has built a career by bringing the laughs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":16369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2495,2497,2503,2504,652,2505,2494,2501,2499,2493,2496,2500,2492,2502,2498],"coauthors":[1720],"class_list":["post-16045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-endeavor","tag-bernie-collins","tag-bp-zoom","tag-circus","tag-clowning","tag-comedy","tag-french-comedy","tag-hospital-clowns","tag-international-comedy-awards","tag-jacques-lecoq-theater-school","tag-laughter-therapy","tag-le-rire-medecin","tag-phillipe-martz","tag-physical-comedy","tag-professional-clown","tag-vaudeville"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-4aN","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/02\/mag-endeavor-hero-clown.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16045"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16937,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16045\/revisions\/16937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16045"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}