The Political Clown Co-Lab Series

​A 5-week course, with a limited number of drop-in places
The Online Clown Academy welcomes you to a playful investigation into how to use clowning for political activism, through a series of masterclasses with expert clowns & activists on the ground.

Throughout the five week course, through discussion, play and reflection, we’ll be exploring a big bunch of questions including:
  • Can clowns be political?
  • How can clowns challenge authority?
  • What can we borrow from activists, protest art movements and theatre forms to increase our efficacy?
  • What can we learn from clown history and from the clowns who’ve dedicated their lives to playing on the front lines?
  • Is the clown equipped to deal with power and make real change?
Robyn Hambrook of The Online Clown Academy will be co-facilitating the whole series with special guest clowns joining her each week to help us explore the potential of the clown to transform the performer, people, places and power structures.

The facilitators

Robyn Hambrook is an activist and a clown. Over the past two years Robyn has been exploring the meeting point of her two passions through her Masters Research ‘Circus Acts of Resistance’, in Extinction Rebellion protests, and on the streets with the Bristol Rebel Clowns. Robyn has enlisted the help of four expert international practitioners to help us with our inquiry:
  • 2 February - Jay Jordan
    The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, France
  • 9 February - Nathaniel Justiniano
    Naked Empire Bouffon Company, USA
  • 16 February - Hilary Ramsden
    Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, Greece
  • 24 February - Sabine Choucair
    Clown Me In, Beirut

The format

  • Robyn will interview the guest expert to get an insight into their practice
  • Both facilitators will then co-facilitate practical exercises for you to have embodied experiences of their ways of working
  • At the end of each session, Robyn will facilitate a discussion where the group will get to apply their embodied learning to help them wrangle with the key questions
For those who book onto the full course, there is an extra session in the fifth week (2 March) where we will conclude our journey by reflecting on our learning and insights into clown activism. Participants will be able to share their ideas, suggest possible applications or begin building their own action or project.

Who is it for?

Clowns, theatre practitioners, circus and physical performers, dancers, musicians, visual artists, street performers and political activists and enthusiasts! Anyone interested in exploring new forms of activism or expanding their understanding of clowning as a form of political expression. And anyone who wants to use humour and laughter to change the world.

How it works

Places:
There are 12 spaces on the 5-week co-lab journey
There are also limited spaces to sign up for individual sessions

Dates & times:
Tuesdays 7-9pm (UK-time)
  • Political Clown Co-labs
    2, 9, 16 & 23 February
  • Reflection / future planning session
    2 March 2021
Venue:
This is an online course, held on Zoom

Cost:
5 WEEK COURSE
£150 standard / £125 low income / £100 no income (plus booking fee)

ONE-OFF SESSIONS
£40 standard / £30 low income / £20 no income (plus booking fee)
Bookings:
5-WEEK COURSE:
SOLD OUT
SINGLE SESSIONS:
A limited number of spaces still available. Book via Brown Paper.
2 February - Jay Jordan
9 February - Nathaniel Justiniano
16 February - Hilary Ramsden
23 February - Sabine Choucair

About the co-facilitatiors

Jay Jordan
​Labelled a 'Domestic Extremist' by the UK police, and 'a magician of rebellion' by the French press, Jay Jordan is the co-founder of the creative direct action movements the ‘Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army’ and ‘Reclaim the Streets’ and now works with the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, a collective that merges art, activism and permaculture. They have 25 years experience using creative forms of rebellion to address climate justice and they love betwixt and between spaces of all sorts, especially where creativity and resistance, culture and nature, the masculine and feminine entangle. www.labo.zone @labofii
Nathaniel Justiniano
Theatre-maker, educator, community advocate, and founding Artistic Director of Naked Empire Bouffon Company. Based in Boston, Nathaniel uses performance to subvert apathy. His company, devises and tours across North America with outrageous physical comedies that satirise society’s worst dysfunctions.
https://www.facebook.com/bouffonempire/
Hilary Ramsden
Hilary is a clown, researcher and lecturer in physical and visual theatre, street arts, rebel clown and a Dr. of Walking. She was a member of internationally acclaimed lesbian-feminist Siren Theatre Company and later co-artistic director of Walk & Squawk for 14 years in Michigan, USA. She was a co-founder of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (C.I.R.C.A), wearing red noses for revolution.
Sabine Choucair
Sabine is a Lebanese humanitarian clown, storyteller and performer. With qualifications in performing arts from London and social therapy from New York, she has been working with different communities around the world, finding real stories and transposing them on stage or in film. Sabine co-founded Clown Me In in Lebanon and Mexico, a group using the art of clowning to fight social injustice.
https://clownmein.com/
ABOUT ROBYN
Robyn is a Bristol-based director, teacher and performer. With over 20 years experience she is a passionate practitioner of clowning, physical theatre, circus and street arts. She has a MA in Circus Directing, a Diploma of Physical Theatre Practice and trained with a long line of inspiring teachers including Holly Stoppit, Peta Lily, Giovanni Fusetti, Jon Davison, Zuma Puma and Deanna Fleysha.
Robyn has collaborated with companies including Let’s Circus, The Sexual Health Circus and Whispering Wood Folk and performed with acclaimed physical theatre companies including, Derevo, Akhe, Oceanallover, and Gappad as well as her own award-winning company, Fun in the Oven Theatre.
During the pandemic in 2020, Robyn set up The Online Clown Academy with Holly Stoppit and developed a series of Zoom Clown Courses. Robyn’s research, started during her Masters, has been exploring the meeting point of clowning and activism, online, in the real world and with international collaborators. With this drive to explore political edges of her work she has also dived back into the world of the Bouffon; training with Jaime Mears, Bim Mason, Nathaniel Justiniano, Eric Davis, Tim Licata, Al Seed and the grand master Bouffon-himself; Philippe Gaulier. She has also set up the Laboratory of the Un-beautiful; a collaboration with Deborah Antoinette Bard, exploring the bouffon & grotesque with womxn theatre makers.