ROBYN HAMBROOK
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  • Home
  • COURSES
    • Comedy Summer School
    • Clown Soup
  • PROJECTS
    • Clown Congress
    • Clown Congress Catering Manager
    • Nomadic Rebel Clown Academy
    • Sealine Confidential
    • The Trickster Laboratory
    • Sexual Health Circus
    • Street Art Porfolio
    • Rebel Clowns
    • Canary
    • Arthur's Odyssey
    • The Vampire Rabbit
    • Interactive Theatre
    • Youth & Social Circus
    • The Online Clown Academy
  • Training
  • Clowning & Activism Blog
    • Tools of the Activist Clown
ROBYN HAMBROOK
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The Bad & The Beautiful

​A 4-week Bouffon Course
Join Robyn Hambrook for a four-week deep dive into the intense, fun and liberating world of the bouffon.

The dark cousin of the clown, sharp and dangerous, Bouffon revel in parody, mockery and wit.

The Bouffon “... believe in nothing and make fun of everything” according to Jacques Lecoq.

And through breaking social conventions, the bouffon can access extreme levels of freedom, laughter, intelligence and emotion.

Over four weeks we will explore this fantastic comedic form through: Complicity, Bouffon Chorus, Emotional Freedom, Laughter, Bouffon position to the audience, and Parody. Participants will explore rhythms of a different, ‘fantastic’ body (grotesque, deformed, ugly).

The position of Bouffon can be an incredibly liberating and powerful experience for participants. It’s a physical form that trains presence, immediacy, improvisation and imagination.

This course is suitable for clowns, actors and performers interested in broadening their repertoire or exploring the political edges of their work. For non-actors the bouffon provides a safe place to let go, loosen up and feel free.

How it works

Dates & times:
Mondays 8, 15, 22, 29 November
8 – 10pm
Venue:
Space 238, 238 Stapleton Rd, Easton, Bristol BS5 0NT
Cost:
4 week course:
£125 standard / £100 low income / £80 no income

Due to Covid and the limitations on the space, places are limited. If you'd like to attend please email a few sentences about yourself and why you'd like to do this course to [email protected]
COVID 19 INFO
In accordance with the recommendations given in the Government Guidance for performing arts, there is limited capacity, considering the studio's volume. All participants will be asked to carry out a lateral flow test before joining the workshop, encouraged to use hand gel and windows will be open for ventilation.
ABOUT ROBYN
Robyn is a Bristol-based director, teacher and performer. With over 20 years experience she is 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, Giovanni Fusetti, Jon Davison, Zuma Puma, Deanna Fleysha, Igne Barkauskaite and Maggie Irving. 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, Nathaniel Justiniano, Tim Licata, Al Seed and the grand master Bouffon-himself; Philippe Gaulier.

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, Bim Mason, Jon Davison, Zuma Puma, Lucy Hopkins and John Wright.
Over the past five years she has been exploring the meeting point of clowning and a deep desire to address the injustices in the world. This specialism has developed through her Masters Research ‘Small Circus Acts of Resistance’, on the streets and in protests with the Bristol Rebel Clowns and in research residencies with The Trickster Laboratory.
Robyn’s Activist Clown research has led to collaborations with Jay Jordan (Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, France), Clown Me In (Beirut), LM Bogad (US), Hilary Ramsden (Greece) and international Tricksters; ‘The Yes Men’ (US).
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.
Keen to explore the intersection of clowning and politics, Robyn is driven to create collaborative, research spaces, testing and pushing the limits of the artform to create new knowledge and methodologies for her industry and strengthen partnerships for future work. Some of her most recent collaborations and teaching projects have included the Nomadic Rebel Clown Academy (5-day Activist Clown Training), The Laboratory of the Un-beautiful (Feminist Grotesque Bouffon Training for Womxn Theatre Makers) and the Clown Congress (annual gathering of clowns, activists & academics collectively exploring what it means to be a clown in this current era)
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Photo by HeardinLondon Photography