This is the sixth year that clowns have infiltrated the very core of the city of Aachen, bringing surreptitious surprise to the walking streets, the park near the cathedral and the Dom itself.

The journey starts 5 days earlier in the the German town of Herzogenrath .  15 clown trainees have gathered for a  workshop with  Heinz Jürgen Metzger , Zen Meister, and myself, Levity Meister. Our  conspiration culminates on the afternoon of the  5th day.  A journey that begins boarding a train at the Herzogenrath  station We are a bit late, rushing onto the train as the conductor looks out the window to see what is slowing him down. We find numerous opportunities  to engage passengers in humorous exchanges as the occasions  present themselves in the most common of moments…. Upon arrival in  Aachen, the group launches into an improvisational procession that takes us through the train station, into the huge courtyard outside the front entrance. I have a planned choreography involving a single-filed spiral of clowns moving quickly holding open plastic bags that catch  air. Eventually there is a spiraling crescendo whirl of  bodies and bags… but that grand design  gets hijacked by a small clan of horses …

After the train station, we take a bus to the center of the walking street /shopping district. Small subtle shenanigins do take place on the bus ride, to complicit grins.  Once in the center the group split into smaller entities that headed towards the famous cobblestoned streets of the Dom (oldest cathedral in Northern Europe, umpteen German kings and queens were coronated there), the nearby park,  cafe terraces, and the occasional fountain, where a certain lullaby wind-up found a new home.

More photo links in the weeks to come. The workshop will be happening again, next summer,  2012. check yoowho.org