So how did this unique brand of psychedelic dancing clowns come to be? Well … Fou Fou Ha! came from an Iraqi/Israeli woman’s vision to take her international dance training and add in elements of drag and satire. FFH! was at first a bunch of friends who enjoyed dressing up, creating dance numbers, drinking bottom-shelf Bourbon and playing as fools and eventually became a known look, a national brand and a recognizable part of the San Francisco performance culture. Fou is now becoming its own culture, and it all boils down to this Middle Eastern woman’s desire to make people laugh, and sometimes cry. The good kind of cry … mostly.

Fou Fou Ha! was created by Maya Culbertson-Lane aka Mamafou in 2001 as part of a puppet supper theater ensemble at the Cell Space in San Francisco. The directive from the show’s creator was to develop a Commedia dell’arte crew of “dancing girls that would come in here and there and do little dance numbers”. They started with masks, then scrapped the masks and now, instead, have a really big lashes.

In Jungian psychology, the concept of the shadow holds a two-fold function: it hides our shameful and inadequate parts of self (dark shadow) and also our most magnificent self expressions (golden shadow). We unconsciously banish these parts as we assimilate into a socialized child and start learning beliefs such as “Don’t be weird or else you won’t fit in (dark shadow), and also don’t shine too bright because others will resent you (golden shadow).”

What Fou Fou Ha! aims at examining is owning these shadow bodies as well as all the other parts we yield in order to be a healthy human. By letting these parts out to act, play and be witnessed, perhaps they can be mastered rather than feared and shamed both internally and externally. We strive to own our imperfections and quirks, and we also strive to shine bright and celebrate our biggest self expressions!