Image credit: Image: Jeremy Fennel
The Online Clown Academy is delighted to present the Clowns In Crisis Conference, 6 - 8 November 2020.
We are asking: How Can Clowning Help You and How Can Clowns Help Others In Times Of Crisis?
Clowns have long-since left the circus ring and spilled out into many different environments. These days you'll find clowns in hospitals, offering comfort and release to poorly children and their families, you'll find them in areas of recovery from war and natural disaster, offering laughter and play, you'll find them in dementia care settings, offering gentle connection and you'll find them on the streets, protesting.
Clowns appear throughout history and across cultures, as the fool, the buffoon, the idiot that speaks truth to power. It is from this unique position in society that the clown can critique and disrupt the status quo. The form allows us to explore political, social and environmental issues through play, parody and humour while releasing subversive powers within each individual.
As clown teachers, we're increasingly finding people coming to our workshops not because they want to be clowns, but because the clown archetype offers lightness, release, play, connection and a completely different way of viewing the world.
The Clowns In Crisis Conference offers opportunities to explore the personal and political applications of clowning.
We have a mix of free / donations-based events and paid-for workshops. All events are ticketed as places are limited, please click on the individual links beneath each event for more info and tickets.
We are asking: How Can Clowning Help You and How Can Clowns Help Others In Times Of Crisis?
Clowns have long-since left the circus ring and spilled out into many different environments. These days you'll find clowns in hospitals, offering comfort and release to poorly children and their families, you'll find them in areas of recovery from war and natural disaster, offering laughter and play, you'll find them in dementia care settings, offering gentle connection and you'll find them on the streets, protesting.
Clowns appear throughout history and across cultures, as the fool, the buffoon, the idiot that speaks truth to power. It is from this unique position in society that the clown can critique and disrupt the status quo. The form allows us to explore political, social and environmental issues through play, parody and humour while releasing subversive powers within each individual.
As clown teachers, we're increasingly finding people coming to our workshops not because they want to be clowns, but because the clown archetype offers lightness, release, play, connection and a completely different way of viewing the world.
The Clowns In Crisis Conference offers opportunities to explore the personal and political applications of clowning.
We have a mix of free / donations-based events and paid-for workshops. All events are ticketed as places are limited, please click on the individual links beneath each event for more info and tickets.
The Programme
The Personal and Political Clown Cabaret
Friday 6th November 8-9.30pm (UK time)
Holly and Robyn welcome you to the culmination of our six week Zoom Clown course; Personal and Political Clown Performance. We have been guiding a group of international clowns through an exploration of how to create clown theatre from personal experiences and / or with political intent and here's the result!
Free / donations
Ticket link here.
Holly and Robyn welcome you to the culmination of our six week Zoom Clown course; Personal and Political Clown Performance. We have been guiding a group of international clowns through an exploration of how to create clown theatre from personal experiences and / or with political intent and here's the result!
Free / donations
Ticket link here.
What Can Your Clown Do For You?
Saturday 7th November 3-5.30pm (UK time)
A practical investigation of how clowning can help you in times of crisis. Drawing on her MA dissertation research, which brought together clown skills training, mindfulness and dramatherapy to create Clown-o-therapy, Holly will lead you through an exploration of how clowning can be of benefit to your mental health.
To find out more about Holly’s work and to see her Bristol TEDx talk, have a browse through this website.
£20-£60 pay what you can
Ticket link here.
A practical investigation of how clowning can help you in times of crisis. Drawing on her MA dissertation research, which brought together clown skills training, mindfulness and dramatherapy to create Clown-o-therapy, Holly will lead you through an exploration of how clowning can be of benefit to your mental health.
To find out more about Holly’s work and to see her Bristol TEDx talk, have a browse through this website.
£20-£60 pay what you can
Ticket link here.
Panel Discussion - Clowns in Crisis
Saturday 7th November 7.30 – 9pm (UK time)
We'll be joined by panelists who specialise in both personal and political applications of clowning for a hearty discussion. Panelist to be announced.
Free / donations
Ticket link here.
We'll be joined by panelists who specialise in both personal and political applications of clowning for a hearty discussion. Panelist to be announced.
Free / donations
Ticket link here.
What Can Your Clown Do For The World?
Sunday 8th November 2.30-5pm (UK time)
In this exciting co-lab Robyn Hambrook (Bristol Rebel Clowns, The Online Clown Academy) is joined by Hilary Ramsden (Clandestine Rebel Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, UK) and Sabine Choucair (Clown Me In, Beirut). Three rebel clowns lead a practical exploration of the role of the clown in times of crisis and the political applications of clowning.
£20-£60 pay what you can.
ticket link here.
In this exciting co-lab Robyn Hambrook (Bristol Rebel Clowns, The Online Clown Academy) is joined by Hilary Ramsden (Clandestine Rebel Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, UK) and Sabine Choucair (Clown Me In, Beirut). Three rebel clowns lead a practical exploration of the role of the clown in times of crisis and the political applications of clowning.
£20-£60 pay what you can.
ticket link here.
Open Space Session
Sunday 8th November 6.30 - 9pm (UK time)
The Online Clown Academy invite everyone who is called to discuss clowning and crisis to come together in an Open Space Session. Open space is a wonderful organic conferencing system where whoever turns up sets the agenda. After an introduction to Open Space Technology, we’ll be opening the Zoom breakout rooms, so that you can have a chance to split into small groups and explore whatever feels most relevant to you, personally or professionally.
Free / donations
Ticket link here.
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) |
Photo by HeardinLondon Photography
|