The Political Clown Co-Lab Series 4

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

This is the fourth season of this hugely popular course, with an all-new line-up of guest clown & activist facilitators. Our 2021 and 2022 courses sold out in days.

Welcome to our fourth co-lab series, which builds on Robyn Hambrook’s continued research and playful investigation into how to use clowning for political activism. Hosted by Robyn, joined 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 and The Bristol Rebel Clowns 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: The Yes Men, Sayda Trujillo, Bim Mason and Zuma Puma,

The facilitators

Robyn Hambrook is an activist and a clown. Over the past five 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 Clown Collective and in research residencies with The Trickster Laboratory and the Laboratory of the Un-beautiful. 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 thre Activist Clown Toolkit series in February & June 2021 and February 2022. Itching to get stuck in once again, Robyn has enlisted the help of four more expert international practitioners to help with her continued inquiry:

★ The Yes Men, USA
★ Sayda Trujillo, Sayda Teatrera, Guatemala/Canada
★ Bim Mason, Circomedia UK
★ Zuma Puma, Clownlife, Canada/UK

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:
Mondays 23 & 30 Jan, 6, 13 & 20Feb 2023
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:
“A workshop in standing up to power using humour and subversion. A whole new angle on non-violent resistance.“ 
Previous Participant

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

Course Structure

★ 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: 23 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.
“A bubbling cauldron of magic, mayhem, musings and mwisdom. Brilliant fun and very informative. Learned a lot from it and left inspired.”
Previous Participant

“A lot of hard work went into it. I appreciate Robyn’s effort, energy, enthusiasm. Also the variety of people she brought in to offer perspectives, share tools etc”
Previous Participant
“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.”
Previous Participant

“It was so inspiring to work with the guest facilitators for two hours and to feel that they really practice what they preach.”
Previous Participant

About the co-facilitators

The Yes Men
The Yes Men are a duo of American anti-neoliberal and environmental activists. Since 1996, Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos, better known under the pseudonyms Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, have been organising large-scale, high profile ‘political hoaxes’ to highlight the excesses of neoliberalism and capitalism and to denounce the large industrial groups, political leaders and financial giants who underpin these excesses. From impersonating prominent corporations (Dow takes responsibility), creating spoof websites (Worried about Climate Change?) and fake promotional campaigns (Shell Drills the Arctic) alongside a prolific body of hijinks projects, The Yes Men are considered specialists in the political hoax. With an ever-expanding and diverse group of co-conspirators they carry out regular actions around the world to mock and denounce big business and governments.
https://theyesmen.org/
Sayda Trujillo
Sayda (she/her) is a theatre artist specialising in voice and movement, as well as devising physical theatre performances. Born in Montreal and raised in Canada, Guatemala, and the United States, Sayda’s personal work is inspired by identity and storytelling, as well as collective work with actors and non-actors. Sayda has taught and performed in thirty-two countries including Guatemala, Ecuador, Chile, Singapore, Spain, Germany, Colombia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine with the Freedom Theatre, and India. Since 2005, Sayda has volunteered for Clowns Without Borders, performing for thousands of children in Latin America and the Middle East. Her education includes a BFA from CalArts, a graduate certificate from Dell’Arte, and an MA in voice studies from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Sayda's practical research and writing focuses on voice and identity, the integration of voice and movement, and decolonising actor training and pedagogy.
www.saydateatrera.com
Bim Mason
Bim Mason is the co-founder of Circomedia and has been performing popular and provocative work since the mid-1970s. He studied with Jacques Lecoq, who invented the bouffon style, and with Philippe Gaulier, who developed it. Bim’s teaching at Circomedia over 30 years has enabled him to develop a synthesis of the two approaches in combination with his background in popular, accessible arts - clowning, circus and street theatre. His PhD researched these areas and led to the publication of Provocation in Popular Performance (Routledge 2016). He was also asked to write the chapter on Bouffon for the Routledge Companion to Jacques Lecoq (2018). More recently he has been using his skills as a mask-maker to create living satirical cartoons, which have appeared at festivals and at protests for the G7 meeting in Cornwall and COP26.
https://www.bimmason.com/
Zuma Puma
Zuma Puma is a Canadian/British Clown, Comedian and Neuro Linguistic Programming Master Practitioner. Zuma founded Clownlife in early 2016 a program designed to encourage a happy life full of connection, laughter, self research/development through the vehicles of Clown, Improv, NLP life coaching, psycho magic and ritual. A life-long activist, Zuma has worked with internationally renowned political/environmental clown puppetry troupe Bread and Puppet and led the art team, creating installations, puppets and flashmobs, for Occupy San Francisco in 2011; until they got raided with pepper spray and industrial hoses. More recently her activism has shifted to encompass the meta crisis. Zuma believes that clowning and creativity has huge potential to awaken consciousness in humanity as well as offering resilience in difficult times.
www.clownlife.org
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.