Get your Bouff' on! 6-week course

get your bouff'on

6-week Bouffon Course in Bristol

Join Robyn Hambrook for a six-week wild romp and deep dive into the intense, fun and liberating world of the Bouffon.

The dark cousin of the clown, sharp and dangerous, the Bouffon revel in parody, mockery and wit. The Bouffon “... believe in nothing and make fun of everything” according to Jacques Lecoq. Through breaking social conventions, the bouffon can access extreme levels of freedom, laughter, intelligence and emotion.

Over the six-weeks we will create a playful, brave space to explore this fantastic comedic form through:

Complicity and connection
the Bouffon chorus and collective movement
Emotional and embodied freedom
Laughter and subversive humour
the Bouffons unique position to the audience
The rhythms of a different, ‘fantastic’ body (grotesque, distorted and abstract)
As well as Politics, Provocation, Parody and Play.

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.

“A must for anyone wanting to take their connection with and ideas for theatre work a little closer to a devilish cutting edge.” Participant - Laboratory of The Un-Beautiful Weekend Intensive

How it works

Dates & times:
Wednesdays
18, 25 Feb, 4, 11, 18 Mar & 1 Apr (no workshop 25 Mar)
7 - 9pm
The Spark Space, Redfield, Bristol, BS5 9HH

Cost:
(12 hours training)
£180 - Full price
£160 - Concession (low/no income, student)

EARLYBIRD discount: £20 off if you pay before 15 January
Payment will be requested via paypal or BACs

apply to join

"An amazing exploration of physicality, tapping into ugliness and taboo. Really affirming and beautiful connections, questioning and mocking constructions of gender and what it is to be pretty, good, or acceptable. A great starting point for understanding bouffon and what it can be. Heaps of fun!" Participant - Laboratory of The Un-Beautiful Online

"Robyn's unique blend of directing and shaping play through quick wit and a caring yet urgent tone - sets the tone and pace beautifully." Participant - Activist Clown Weekend Intensive

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 eight years she has been exploring the meeting point of clowning, activism 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