Props and Symbols - Eggs

Here are some of the actions, objects and stories we thought to use with eggs.

Objects

Cardboard trays

Wooden eggs

Plastic eggs

Bouncy eggs

Real eggs

Blown eggs

Actions

Throw eggs into your hat - blindfold the hat wearer/thrower - move around

Lay/shit an egg (after catching in hat (and digesting)

Egg races - rolling, spoon - get over the line - shove ha'penny - towards X as destination

Representation and Story

Eggs = people

Eggs = populations (maps and pie charts of migration)

Paint faces on eggs 

Paint the face of whoever you choose - family, enemy, neighbour, famous person, politician, fictional character

Painting the face humanises the object (cf. dehumanising of refugees, the other)

Look after the egg, incubate it in hands, pass it around - invests with empathy

The Unknown Egg 9soldier) - large egg without a face

Egg mask on person, draw, write, paint on it

Photograph your egg - passport, facial recognition technology

Gallery of photos of egg faces (the egg registry of clowns)

Gallery of painted eggs

White/brown eggs - separate/mix

Sponsor an egg

Pay extra so it gets in to lifebelt/dinghy

Rewards

Random consequences, sinks, gets stamped on

Plastic covering for eggbox boat

Egg tricks

Egg bag

Paper bag trick

Eggs in pocket and smash

Egg chair

Walking on egg shells (fakir)

A scenario

Clown: Do you want to paint a face on an egg?

Onlooker: Yes

C: Who is it?

O: My aunt

C: Important person?

O: Yes, she has xxx illness/difficulty

C drops egg (the real or fake one): Oh sorry

OR: C places egg very carefully in egg trays some distance away. Another clown throws things and breaks whole tray. Or tray goes on water and sinks.

O: Oh no, I unwittingly sent my aunt to her fate at the hands of capitalism's random cruelty.

Egg Labour - Materialist clowning?

Clowns doing real actions with real objects, but something is odd/wrong. What is wrong can be:

- sequence of actions

- place of object

- size of object

- use of object

- material of object

- behaviour of object

In holidays/festivities, normal (agricultural or urban) labour is suspended for certain days. But labour is intensive in the making and preparing prior to the celebrations. Perhaps lasting all year. This labour is amateur, unpaid, not part of the economy. The events re-enacted in rituals of the festivities sometimes represent normal things, but odd, or reversed, or masked. These actions are also labour, but not economically recompensed, and this labour does not produce 'goods' that have market value.  What doe sit produce? Community? Joy? Relief from the burden of meaning?