Dimitri (Clown)
Dimitri ( born September 18, 1935 in Ascona as Dimitri Jakob Müller ) is a Swiss clown. His real name is a name change since Jacob Dimitri.
Life
Dimitri spent his childhood in Ascona in the canton of Ticino. His father was the sculptor and architect Werner Jakob Mueller, his mother Maja was craftswoman; by the parents he met anthroposophy. When he the Swiss clown Andreff experienced at the age of seven years in the Circus Knie, he decided to be a clown. After ten years of schooling in Ticino and Zurich, he completed an apprentice potter at Margrit Linck in Zollikofen near Bern. During this time, he already took classes in drama, music, ballet and acrobatics. He played first comic roles to students stages and created first short clown and mime numbers.
After completion of the three -year apprenticeship, he moved in 1954 to Aix -en- Provence, and in 1955 to Paris; there he studied mime with Etienne Decroux, acrobatics and tightrope at the circus performers and learned to play guitar with flamenco players. It was followed by a short stay in Sweden, where he worked as a potter and simultaneously attended classes at a gymnast. Back in Paris, he was a pupil of Marcel Marceau in 1958, which soon took him for two Mimodramen in his troop. He then worked as a harlequin with the famous white clown Maiß at various galas, in a traveling circus in France, then at the Cirque Medrano in Paris.
In 1959 the premiere of his first solo program in Ascona took place. In Innsbruck he had his first engagement as a clown abroad, after which he played for three months in the Bernese Kleintheater Kramgasse 6 In the following years he created three more solo programs ( porteur, Teatro and Ritratto ). In addition, he drew and painted and sang folk songs. Thus, various plates and some of his books came out, and since 1990, we periodically hold exhibitions of his paintings and objects instead. 1970, 1973 and 1979 he was with the Circus Knie go. He toured through Europe, North and South America, China, Japan and Australia. Among other projects are Dimitri with his solo programs and the family show La Famiglia Dimitri currently more than 100 performances per year.
In 1961 he married Gunda Salgo ( b. 1934 ); In 1964, she settled down in Borgnone in the upper Cento Valli. Of their five children four are now within theater and circus act; known are particularly the tightrope walker David Dimitri and the acrobat Masha Dimitri. In 1971, Dimitri with Gunda a theater in Verscio and 1975 the Scuola Teatro Dimitri, now University of movement theater and theatrical creation. 1978 was the Compagnia Teatro Dimitri, for which he has created almost all of the pieces themselves ( Idea, direction, costumes, posters), 1981, the Fondazione Dimitri. In 2000 Dimitri founded together with Harald Szeemann the Museo Comico in Verscio. The community Verscio has bestowed on him in 2005 the honorary citizenship.
Dimitri is involved as an ambassador for the Christian Blind Mission in Switzerland.
Awards
Writings
- Dimitri: Dimitri - I. Benteli, Bern 1970.
- Dimitri: Dimitri album. Foreword by Max Frisch. Benteli, Bern 1973, ext. 1979 edition, ISBN 3-7165-0312-6.
- Dimitri: The loop clown. 81 stories. Benteli, Bern 1980.
- Dimitri: Dimitri paints Sauerland, Aarau, 1990, ISBN 3-7941-3308-0.
- Dimitri: My Humofant. Pro Juventute, Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-7152-0298- X.
- Dimitri: Humor. Talks about the comedy, the laughter and the fool. Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach 1995, ISBN 3-7235-0900-2.