Dimitri (clown)

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Dimitri performing in 1962
Dimitri in Ascona (1962)

Dimitri (born September 18, 1935 in Ascona as Dimitri Jakob Müller , † July 19, 2016 in Borgnone ) was a Swiss clown . His real name has been Jakob Dimitri since a name change .

Life

Dimitri spent his childhood in Ascona in the canton of Ticino . His father was the sculptor and architect Werner Jakob Müller , his mother Maja was an artisan; through his parents he encountered anthroposophy . When he saw the Swiss clown Andreff at Circus Knie at the age of seven , he decided to become a clown too. After ten school years in Ticino and Zurich , he completed a pottery apprenticeship with Margrit Linck in Zollikofen near Bern. During this time he was already taking lessons in acting, music, ballet and acrobatics . He played his first comic roles on student stages and created his first short clown and pantomime numbers.

After completing his three-year apprenticeship, he moved to Aix-en-Provence in 1954 and on to Paris in 1955; There he studied pantomime with Etienne Decroux , acrobatics and tight-rope dancing with circus artists and learned guitar with flamenco players. This was followed by a short stay in Sweden , where he worked as a potter and at the same time attended courses with an artistic gymnast. Back in Paris, he became a student of Marcel Marceau in 1958 , who soon accepted him into his troupe for two mimodramas . Then he worked as a stupid August with the white clown Maïss at various galas, in a traveling circus in France and finally in the Cirque Medrano in Paris.

Dimitri (2016)

In 1959 the world premiere of his first solo program took place in Ascona. He had his first engagement as a clown abroad in Innsbruck, after which he played for three months in the Bernese small theater Kramgasse 6 . In the following years he created three other solo programs ( Porteur , Teatro and Ritratto ). He also drew and painted and sang folk songs. Various records and books were published by him, and since 1990 there have been regular exhibitions of his pictures and objects. In 1970, 1973 and 1979 he was on the road with Circus Knie . Tours have taken him through Europe, North and South America, China, Japan and Australia. In addition to other projects, Dimitri recently gave more than 100 performances a year with his solo programs and the family show La Famiglia Dimitri .

In 1961 he married Gunda Salgo (1934-2020); In 1964 they settled in Borgnone in the upper Centovalli . Four of her five children have worked in the theater and circus area; Particularly well-known are the tightrope walker David Dimitri , the singer and actress Nina Dimitri and the acrobat Masha Dimitri. In 1971, Dimitri and his wife founded a theater in Verscio and in 1975 the Scuola Teatro Dimitri , today a college for movement theater and theater creation. In 1978 the Compagnia Teatro Dimitri was founded , for which he created almost all the pieces himself (idea, direction, costumes, posters), and in 1981 the Fondazione Dimitri . In 2000 Dimitri founded the Museo Comico in Verscio together with Harald Szeemann . The Verscio municipality made him honorary citizenship in 2005. Dimitri was an ambassador for the Christoffel Mission for the Blind in Switzerland. He died in July 2016 at the age of 80.

Awards

Fonts

  • Clown Dimitri - i. Benteli, Bern 1970.
  • Dimitri album. Foreword by Max Frisch . Benteli, Bern 1973; exp. 1979 edition, ISBN 3-7165-0312-6 .
  • The loop clown. 81 stories. Benteli, Bern 1980.
  • Dimitri malt. Sauerländer, Aarau 1990, ISBN 3-7941-3308-0 .
  • My humofant. Pro Juventute, Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-7152-0298-X .
  • Humor. Conversations about the comedy, the laughter and the fool. Edited by Corina Lanfranchi, Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach, by Corina Lanfranchi 1995, ISBN 3-7235-0900-2 .

literature

Filmography

  • Dimitri - clown. Documentary by Friedrich Kappeler . T&C Film, Zurich 2004.
  • The last interview about his role in the play Dreams of Another Life at the Teatro Monte Verità, July 16, 2016, art-tv.ch

Web links

Commons : Dimitri (clown)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clown Dimitri is dead. In: Tagesanzeiger. July 20, 2016. Retrieved July 20, 2016 .
  2. ^ Clown Dimitri: Honored. In: Schweizer Illustrierte . October 2, 2009. Retrieved April 26, 2011.
  3. ↑ Famiglia Dimitri - DimiTRIgenerations. In: Famiglia Dimitri. Retrieved July 20, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Dimitri's best videos in 20 minutes from July 20, 2016.
  5. ↑ Clown Dimitri is dead on SRF from July 20, 2016.
  6. ^ È morta Gunda Salgo, un'esistenza intera sul sentiero con Dimitri. The Giornale del Ticino. 17th May 2020.
  7. ↑ Masha Dimitri - Famiglia Dimitri. Retrieved July 20, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Dimitri
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Müller, Dimitri Jakob (maiden name); Dimitri, Jakob (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss clown
DATE OF BIRTH September 18, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Ascona , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH 19th July 2016
Place of death Borgnone , Switzerland