In 2016 I directed and co-produced The Vampire Rabbit. Funded by Arts Council England and as part of Juice Festival, it was a newly devised production and artist development project with Circus Central. The core ethos of the project was to offer eight emerging North East-based performing artists paid placements as cast and band members, as well as giving them training in specialised skills and tackling issues around self-employment as an artist. A wider professional creative team and Circus Central’s youth circus supported production through a collaboration merging circus, puppetry, physical theatre, original live music, ambitious technical theatre, and visceral storytelling.
The sell-out gothic horror immersive promenade production in The Mining Institute pushed the boundaries of audience involvement, used all four stories of the building, and offered two versions – one for younger children and one for older spectators. The two outdoor park performances (also sell-out) partnered with Let’s Circus, Stockton Council and Durham Council to deliver evenings of spectacle, using elements from The Mining Institute show in a different context. |
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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. |