To devoted practitioners of the art, clowning is not a laughing matter.

asap met up with some clowns who gathered at the Brick Theater in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn during the recent New York Clown Theatre Festival and found that these actors work hard, take themselves seriously, wear their flaws on their sleeves and consider their shows an indefinite work-in-progress.

An artful style of clowning (professionals in the field tend to knock off the "ing" to call the act Clown) has gained popularity recently, as shows like Cirque du Soleil and Slava's Snowshow garner attention and strike a notably different tone from their less serious, but perhaps better-known counterparts at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.

Sue Morrison, a clown instructor based in Toronto, led four of her students — Eric Davis, 33; Erin Bouvy, 33; Anne Goldmann, 34; and Barnaby King, 31 — in a small group practice to demonstrate for asap a method called Clown Through Mask.

Clown Through Mask is based on the pioneering work of a man named Richard Pochinko and outlines ways to determine your "personal mythology" from which you can develop your very own clown persona.

Morrison combines European and Native American clowning techniques to form her own unique (and costly) style. A six- to eight-week workshop with her in Toronto costs $1,100.

For that amount of money, asap is glad to know there's more to the art than packed cars and banana peels.

Watch this asap video to learn how clowns work.

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Hillary Rhodes is an asap reporter in New York and Ray Zablocki is an asap audio visual newsperson.

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