Fun at Mooseburger Clown Camp

Have you ever wanted to run away with the circus? Clown around?  A summer Mooseburger Clown Camp will help satisfy that wish. Some students do it for fun or to use locally and some have even gone on to clowning with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus!

From their website:

Mooseburger Clown Arts Camp is a 6-day intensive training program designed to meet the needs of people who want to learn to be "real" clowns. We teach ALL aspects of Clown Arts, including hospital/caring clowning, birthday parties, parades, magic, balloons, puppetry, face painting, and everything in between. Our marvelous teaching staff meets you at the performance level you are at now, and challenges you to be the best clown that YOU can be!

Tricia Manuel (a.k.a. Pricilla Mooseburger - in center of above photo) founded the camp. It is held each summer at Christ the King Retreat Center in Buffalo, Minnesota. Next year's camp will be held July 23-28 during International Clown Week. You choose from a number of classes, depending on your interest and experience. The week culminates with the All Star Clown Show, open to guests and the public. It sounds like a hoot! Pictured are the clowns (left) and the staff (right) from 2011.

You can choose a complete package that also includes food and lodging. Or you can stay elsewhere like in an RV park and commute. You will also get a clown workbook plus a personal consultation with Pricilla Mooseburger to formulate your goals for the camp. Here are more photos from the All Star Clown Show.

Mooseburger also puts on a Clown Convention in Las Vegas, has a Moose Camp Caravan that will come to your location and do a mini-camp, plus sells and rents costumes for clowns, holidays, cartoon and historical figures.

RVers could find opportunities to share their clowning skills as they travel. Our friend, the late Gerry Courtney, did clown routines at the Escapee RV Club's Escapade for a number of years. Gerry and Myrna's large extended family had lots of costumes from participating in parades in Grass Valley, CA where they lived. Each year a number of Boomers would get duded up in those costumes and participate in Gerry's funny gags and routines. I was lucky enough to be a clown two different times and George once (before we met). What fun! (I'm pretty sure Gerry and one of his daughters attended Mooseburger Clown Camp.)

In addition to RV events, think nursing homes and hospitals, local parades, and perhaps even work for pay for a company that delivers signing telegrams or who supplies characters for children's birthday parties.

There's something magical about being in a clown costume with a painted face. Inhibitions disappear and you can act wild and crazy. Sometime, for the heck of it, head your RV to Minnesota and the Mooseburger Clown Camp. Maybe George and I will join you! Jaimie Hall Bruzenak

Photos provided by Mooseburger Clown Camp, photographer Deb Rickkets of Phoenix, Arizona

Comments

[CoolJudy]

I forwarded a copy of your Mooseburger Clown Camp article to Myrna. She confirmed that Gerry had attended Clown Camp. I am sorry I never got to meet Gerry.

[Jaimie Hall Bruzenak]

I checked with Myrna but she didn't get back to me. Thanks for forwarding it to her. Gerry was "Snappy" and a natural-born clown if I ever saw one. He was SO fun, dressed as a clown or not. He could tell a story like no one else.

Jaimie