Maryland Home Show 2007

Adelphi resident enjoys clowning around

Kate McGlynn recalled refusing to leave the stage after her jazz dance recital when she was 6. Instead of leaving with her classmates, she had her mother bring her lunch while she sat on the side of the stage. Years later she still enjoys entertaining audiences.

“I’ve always been really into physical expression. I can see, even back then, it was really the physical expression,” McGlynn said.

McGlynn, 42, has made her love of performing a career. The Adelphi resident has been a professional clown, known as Bee Bee the clown, since 1996.

“It’s part of me,” McGlynn said. “It fulfills my need to do something good in the world.”

Clowns are celebrated the first week of August during International Clown Week, after President Richard M. Nixon issued a 1971 proclamation to celebrate the week, according to www.internationalclown week.org.

To dress the part, McGlynn said she heads into “costume land” — the room in her home where she keeps six costumes, props and apparatus. Next, McGlynn said she focuses on her breathing to “get myself amped up.”

“It’s a lot of mental stuff. You’ve got to amp yourself up because kids want a lot of energy,” said McGlynn, who has as many as six children’s birthday parties each week. “There is no formula I take everywhere because it doesn’t make sense.”

It takes her a mere 15 minutes to apply her makeup — she paints her face white — something McGlynn said she learned how to do in circus school and is a ritual she performs in silence. She also learned how to ride a unicycle, juggle and do a handstand by watching performers on the street, self-teaching and at circus school, which she attended in Barcelona, Spain.

If McGlynn isn’t dressed in her clown costumes, she wears a black ninja outfit, which covers every part of her body in black except for her eyes.

McGlynn said her work as a clown “can put together all of the skills that I learned” — such as balloon twisting and acrobatics — while being able to provide a “healing element” to her audience.

“After the Japan earthquake [and tsunami in March], I had a gig right after. I painted hearts on kid’s faces and made an effort to be unaware of all the negative and focus on the positive,” McGlynn said.

McGlynn does face painting, makes balloon animals and plays games such as “Simon Says” with children.

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Martin Puryear