Sean Fagan spent part of Wednesday morning teaching three Morse Elementary fifth grade students how to hit him with wooden boards.
It was important, he told them, that each of the students make contact in a different way and that it all look accidental. That’s how you get the biggest laugh from the room.
“As you go by, find a creative way to bonk me,” Fagan said. “Put it up on your shoulder and keep it flat. You’re going to miss me if you’re crooked.”
Of course, this wasn’t part of the normal daily curriculum. The wooden boards were actually made of foam. And the subject Fagan was teaching Wednesday morning was clowning.
For the last eight school days, roughly 100 Morse fifth grade students have been practicing skills like juggling, balancing, tumbling and, yes, clowning. It’s an annual unit that will culminate with a performance at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House 6 p.m. Thursday. Admission is free; there is a $6 suggested donation.
Fagan – who the kids know by his stage name of Seano – has brought his Seano’s Circus Theatricks program to Poughkeepsie elementary schools for a quarter of a century and, for the last decade, to Morse.
The idea is for every fifth grade student to gain confidence that they can learn a skill foreign to them in a matter of days, and then take the stage in front of friends and family to perform it.
Each class specializes in a different group of circus skills, though there is some overlap, so the students experience more than one area. The clowning instruction includes some tumbling and acrobatics, while the balancing unit offers several apparatuses to try, from stilts to a giant ball. Fagan gets a feel for each student’s comfort and ability levels during the opening days of the unit to direct them to a skill they can learn and feel a sense of accomplishment. For the more skilled students, he increases the difficulty as the session goes on. He tries to find at least one thing every student can do and perform.
Every year’s group and show are different, Fagan said. This year, he noted, a class of students with exceptionalities is taking part. He’s incorporating a plate-spinning skill for them into the show, in which they not only try to pass the plates from one student to the next but also place them onto a wooden cactus, among other tricks. “It’s just fun,” he said. “It’s a lovely group of kids. They’re very sweet. They hug me at the end of class.”
The clowning class Wednesday practices routines in which a student chases another dressed in a giant pie costume, one student douses another dressed as a firefighter with water, and a construction skit that, yes, involves those foam planks. The students were practicing catching the planks in such a way that their exaggerated reactions cause their hard hats to come off.
“The fact that the hat pops off, that’s going to make every second grader in the audience laugh,” Fagan explained. “That’s what funny is, bringing joy.”
Tickets for the show are available at the Bardavon box office, at 35 Market St. More information is available at Bardavon.org.
Morse Circus Theatricks
Where: The Bardavon 1869 Opera House, 35 Market Street
When: Thursday, May 15, 6 p.m.
Cost: Free (suggested donation $6)
