The Political Clown Co-Lab Series 3

Clowns, activists and researchers are coming together to explore how clowning can be a mechanism for political change! 

This is the third season of this hugely popular course, with an all-new line-up of guest clown & activist facilitators. Our February & June 2021 courses sold out in days. 

Hosted by Robyn Hambrook, participants will be using play, experimentation and discussion in a lively investigation. 
Welcome to our third co-lab series, which builds on Robyn Hambrook’s continued research and playful investigation into how to use clowning for political activism. Lead by guest facilitators, expert clowns and seasoned activists, this series of masterclasses will use discussion, play and experimentation to dive into some big questions, such as:
  • Can clowns be political?
  • How can clowns challenge authority?
  • What can we borrow from activists, 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 leads the whole series with a different guest clown/activist joining her each week. Together they will explore the potential of the clown to transform the performer, people, places and power structures. Each week Robyn will interview her guest about their work, followed by a co-facilitated workshop session, and a group discussion. This season, Robyn will be joined by a stellar line-up of experts including; L M Bogad, Samantha Holdsworth, Barnaby King and Lucy Hopkins.

The facilitators

Robyn Hambrook is an activist and a clown. Over the past four years she has been exploring the meeting point of her two passions in her Masters Research ‘Small Circus Acts of Resistance’, in Extinction Rebellion protests, on the streets with the Bristol Rebel Clowns and in research residencies with The Trickster Laboratory. During the pandemic Robyn took her work online, setting up The Online Clown Academy with Holly Stoppit and later developed (and sold out) the first two Activist Clown Toolkit series in February and June 2021. Itching to get stuck in again, Robyn has enlisted the help of four more expert international practitioners to help with her continued inquiry:
★ L M Bogad – CIRCA, Guggenheim, USA
★ Samantha Holden – Clowns without Borders, UK
★ Barnaby King – Clown Spirit, USA
★ Lucy Hopkins - Clever Idiot and Priestess, UK
 (scroll down for more info about the facilitators)

How it works

Places:
There are 20 spaces on the 5-week co-lab journey.
This course is booking on a first-come, first-served basis.

Dates & times:
Tuesdays 25 Jan, 1, 8, 15, 22 Feb 2022
18:30 - 21:00 (UK time)
  • Paris 19:30 - 22.00
  • New York /Toronto 13:30 - 16.00
  • San Francisco /Vancouver 10.30 - 13.00
Venue:
This is an online course, held on Zoom
Cost:
5 week course: £150 standard / £125 low income / £100 no income (plus booking fee)
Bookings:
5-WEEK COURSE:
Participants from ACT Series 1 & 2 have said:

“A workshop in standing up to power using humour and subversion. A whole new angle on non-violent resistance.“ 

“Be inspired by playful and real activists. Clowning on the edge.”

“A beginner's buffet of very prompting information regarding how to use one of the world's least understood art forms to help bring attention (and hopefully bring change) to any issue we face as a community, as a world, as a people.”

Course Structure

★ Following feedback and evaluation of our first two co-lab series, each session will last 2.5 hours to ensure we have enough time to learn, play & grapple with the issues. 
★ This will be a closed group for the whole 5 week course, to enable participants to connect, share and develop their skills and networks together. This will be a group journey so we ask that you commit to attending the whole course (as much as you can). 
★ Co-lab 1: 25 January
In the first session Robyn Hambrook will explore key concepts of clowning and activism from her research so far, introduce elements of clown play, ensemble work and improvisation and enable participants to get to know each other before launching into the rest of the course. 
★ Co-labs 2-5
  • Robyn will interview a guest expert each week, to get an insight into their practice
  • Together they will then co-facilitate practical exercises, allowing you to have an embodied experience 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.

Take-aways from the course

During this course you will develop:
  • Practice-based frameworks for applying clowning practice for personal, social or political transformation
  • Experience and insight into the work of practitioners in the areas of clowning, circus, art and activism
  • A toolbox of go-to exercises for facilitation, creation, rehearsal and performance of transformative clowning projects
  • Inspiration to start building your 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.

About the co-facilitatiors

L.M. Bogad
L.M. Bogad is a performance artist and scholar specialising in humor, imagination, and theatrics in progressive movement activism. Professor of political performance at U.C. Davis, he has authored the books Tactical Performance: The Theory and Practice of Serious Play, Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements, and Performing Truth: Works of Radical Memory for Times of Social Amnesia, and the plays ECONOMUSIC, HAYMARKET, SANTIAGO 9/11/1973, COINTELSHOW, and TAHRIR. He is creator/host of the podcast, THE PLAGUE.  Bogad’s Delivering Democracy, a troupe of dancing mailboxes and ballot boxes, entertained and informed voters in 2020, joyfully resisting authoritarian disinformation and voter repression.
www.lmbogad.com
Samantha Holdsworth
Sam Holdsworth is an award-winning clown, facilitator, producer and founder/director of Clowns Without Borders UK. WIth over twenty years experience, she is passionate about using a right-based approach to play and playfulness to support personal and social change. Sam specialises in working with marginalised communities and has co-developed arts-led programmes with young people affected by leprosy, young offenders and children permanently excluded from school.   Sam is currently dismantling "adultist" perspectives and organisational structures so that children can run Clowns Without Borders UK.
https://clownswithoutborders.org.uk
Barnaby King
​Barnaby King is an internationally recognised clown practitioner with twenty-five years’ experience as a professional performer, director, scholar, & teacher. His PhD on social clowning in South America, Ridicule and Resistance, was published as a book by Bloomsbury Methuen in 2017. In 2009 he founded the Clownencuentro, an international conference and festival of clowning in Colombia. He is also founder and Artistic Director of Clown Spirit, whose mission is to support and inspire clowns everywhere to unleash their clown power www.clown-spirit.com
Lucy Hopkins
​Lucy Hopkins is a graduate of the physical theatre schools of Jacques Lecoq (2005) and Philippe Gaulier (2007) and an award-winning clown, director, mentor, workshop leader and priestess. She has toured her genre-busting, interactive ceremonial performances around the UK, Europe and Australia to enthusiastic response and critical acclaim. (“Hopkins is fantastic” Lyn Gardner, Guardian. “Outstandingly original…” ToDoList). Her practice is based around the many uses of collective action and play: as a means of connection, as high quality artistic entertainment, for deep well-being, and as a portal into the Great Unknown. She hosts clowning workshops across Europe and the UK, including at Central School of Speech and Drama & The National Theatre in London, the Women’s International Networking Conference, the National Institute for Circus Arts, Melbourne and teaches clown on the Physical Theatre degree course at Essex University. Details of her work as a creator of performance activism has been included in the upcoming book ‘Play and Democracy’ (Routledge 2021). https://www.lucyhopkins.com/
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, Eric Davis, Nathaniel Justiniano, Tim Licata, Al Seed and the grand master Bouffon-himself; Philippe Gaulier.