How to Engage Your Audience as a Clown

Video Transcript

"On behalf of Expert Village, my name is Paul Anderson from the ABC Circus here in Hollywood, Florida, and we are going to do "How to Be a Clown!" Hey, how do you know if you're funny? Here's a spinning ball, and I put it on a child's finger. Is it really funny? No, it's not funny at all. But, every child wants to have that ball balanced on their finger. It's funny: when I balance it on one child's finger, I'll look out in the audience and see all the other kids with their fingers sticking out like this. Because they, in a way, wish they could balance that ball on their finger. In fact, that's how I learned how to spin the ball on my finger. I was at a party and someone put it on my finger. I had so much fun, I wanted to learn how to do it too. Well, you don't really have to be funny, you just have to be engaging. The shortest distance between a performer and a child is a little rubber ball. I simply throw the ball to the child and they throw it back. Now we've engaged. And now the rest is up to you. If your heart is truly in it, and you love what you do, it doesn't really matter if you're all that funny, because the kids, and the adults, will like you."