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Workshops
next clown courses Clown and Dance Introduction to Clown One-Month Professional Course
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These workshops serve both as an excellent introduction to clown, and as an opportunity to refine your clowning. They are also a taster for those considering studying on our longer courses at the Escola de Clown de Barcelona(the cost of a weekend includes the right to a 100€ discount on a one- or two-month residential course at the Escola de Clown). For two days we will live intensively the world of the clown, regaining the pleasure of play, learning to feel and enjoy our own ridiculousness. Converting our habitual fear of ridicule into pleasure of laughing at ourselves, we can use it to make others laugh and experience the freedom of the clown. When you really look, most things are ridiculous: our bodies, our movements, our ideas, our emotions, our words, our relationships, the universe. The only aim in clowning is to turn failure into success, fear into laughter, suffering into joy. We don’t need to change ourselves, just look at everything from another perspective. It’s a human thing to do, so anyone can do it. Although only a few will choose to dedicate their lives to it, anyone can experience the clown. The Escola de Clown de Barcelona offers a comprehensive clown training programme covering both practical and theoretical aspects of the clown arts. We offer in-depth and wide-ranging training, given by teachers of varying approaches who are active professionals, working as performers, teachers, directors, and researchers. Check our website for details of our one- and two-month Professional Clown courses. If you would like to organize a clown workshop near you, please send an email to jon@escoladeclown.eu |
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Escola de Clown de Barcelona Professional Clown Courses (One-Month and Two-Month
Next course dates: 2-month Professional Courses: 1-month Professional Courses:
Programme of Studies Play This course offers a broad training ranging from the pleasure of play, of life, which is the driving force of Clown, to the creation of Clown numbers in the final performance. We will work through the various stages of the Clown process: openness, pleasure, humility, freedom, craziness, ridiculousness, imbalance, status, generosity, the flop, intelligence and types of intelligence or stupidity, sharing with and giving to the audience, the mirror effect, the relationship with other clowns (solos/duos/trios/ensembles) and with the audience, admiration, sincerity, focus, surprise, energy, failure and success... How to speak as Clown? How to dress as Clown? How to think as Clown? Ways of creating a Clown number: from improvisation to a script, with text or without, traditional or contemporary, with or without music, with or without props. What is the difference between performing for adults and children, in the street and in the theatre? How to work from your own personality and knowledge in order to create a number. The rules of humour. The Clown and other disciplines (music, dance, circus, etc., according to the student’s interests), and theoretical studies (history, analysis, theory). There will be rehearsal space and time outside of the hours of class, and during the weekly free day. The course is designed as a whole, and the teachers work as team, meeting regularly to assess the development of the students as a group and individually. The classes are given by a team of teachers directed by the founders of the School, Clara Cenoz (Director) and Jon Davison. This is a course that offers the possibility of understanding the Clown from the initial stages up to what is the aim of all clowns who wish to work independently: the creation of one’s own numbers, which will provide a basis for beginning and continuing to work prfessionally. Our objective is for the student to complete the course with their own criteria on what is Clown, having experienced a variety of contexts and teachers of differing styles, and feeling able to generate their own work and adapt it to a range of professional demands, whether in theatre, street, hospital, etc., and to different types of audience. About Staying at Cal Clown The fact of living together with people that initially do not know each other but who have shared interests is, we believe, both an enriching experience and a challenge for the student, a challenge that we think is positive for anyone who wishes to live and know Clown. Students will be provided with all that is necessary to enable them to concentrate exclusively on their training. The cost of the course includes all expenses except drinks at the bar and any costs that students may want to incur on their free day if they choose to leave the school premises. There will be one free day per week when you can stay or leave the school. Those who wish to stay may use all the facilities and will have the usual 3 meals provided. Meals at Cal Clown are vegetarian. Admission Process Admission is by a short interview (by telephone if necessary) to get to know the student. The basic requirements are: the commitment and interest necessary to complete the course. No previous experience is necessary. The minimum age of students is 18. We admit up to 16 students to the course. How to register for the course Please send us an email indicating your interest. We will let you know if there are places available, and contact you for an interview. To reserve your place, you will then need to please pay a deposit of 300 Euros. The remainder must be paid before the beginning of the course. |
Clown Training I don’t subscribe to theories of clown as mask, as play, as physical theatre, as religion, as anything except what it is: clown. Clown is very simple. At most, it is an attitude. An attitude to life, to oneself, to the world. We don’t need techniques, or methods, or psychology, or safe environments, or anything except a desire to invert our habitual fear of ridicule into pleasure in self-ridicule, and to use it to make others laugh. I don’t like to use too many games, exercises, techniques. These are only ways of fooling us into thinking we are working hard. I prefer just to start. To relate. To look. To listen. To lead students along a path that lets them enjoy their own stupidity and exposing it to their friends. When you really look, most things are ridiculous: our bodies, our movements, our ideas, our emotions, our words, our relationships, the universe. The only aim is to turn failure into success, fear into laughter, suffering into joy. We don’t need to change ourselves, just look at it all with another perspective. It’s a human thing to do, so anyone can do it. Although only a few will choose to dedicate their lives to it, anyone can experience the clown. Clown Training often finds itself going in a completely different direction to orthodox concepts of what education is, such as the contemporary obsessions with aims and objectives, learning strategies and pathways, levels and units, achieving potential or acquiring skills. It’s more a kind of anti-education, blurring truth and pretence, intelligence and stupidity, knowledge and ignorance.
Central School of Speech and Drama (University of London) Diploma in Clown January 2011 will see the start of the Diploma in Clowning at Central, the first formal qualification in Clown on offer in Britain. The Diploma is a one year, part-time course (January to August), ideal for professional up-skilling, as well as for those new to clowning. The Clowning Diploma is a one year, part-time course (January to August) which develops clowning skills. This is an ideal course for professional up skilling, as well as for the ‘new’ clown. Dates: 9 May - 13 July 2011 25 July - 3 August 2011 Central School of Speech and Drama Diploma in Clown The School of Professional and Community Development provides world class speech and drama training that is innovative, socially responsive/responsible and tailored to the needs of the diverse client groups that live and work in our regional, national and global community. Through linking work with schools, voluntary and community organisations, the public sector and the business community, the school seeks to provide holistic programmes that enhance personal wellbeing and productivity at work. Our training is rooted in the specialist practice of speech and drama training provided by Central School of Speech and Drama and road-tested in the many different contexts we work within. We are committed to developing the people who work with us and for us to seek out new skills and achievements. This new practice based course provides a part time diploma in clowning covering the basic skills from play and the discovery of clown, to devising and rehearsing for clown, in the environment of a professional drama conservatoire. The tutors are all monitored externally to provide an excellent standard of teaching. The course will culminate in a production in one of our fully equipped studio spaces (Please note that this is not an industry showcase.) Who is this course for? : This is a practical part time clowning course suitable for those of you that:
This course is NOT:
How will we select participants? : You will be invited to interview at the School in front of a panel likely to include the Head of the School of Professional and Community Development, the Community Drama Officer and another experienced teacher. The interview is for us to assess how well we think you would be suited to the course, to find out how committed you are and a chance for you to get a feel for Central and the kind of work we do. We are looking for applicants that:
Course Assessment: In order for us to sustain quality throughout the diploma we have assessment criteria that you must follow in order to pass the units. We expect at least 80% attendance throughout the course and failure to achieve this will result in failing the course. However, 80% attendance or more is not all that we expect in order for you to pass. Engagement with the teaching is essential and we will expect you to keep a working journal detailing your process. These journals will be checked on a modular basis by the tutors and failure to produce a journal will result in failing the module. The journals are a measure of progression rather than attainment and it is this that will be assessed. You will also assess your own work and the work of your peers in order to promote self reflection, ensemble working and critical thinking. Diploma Content: Aims: Awakening the play-instinct, totally immersed and engaged in the game, we discover lightness and naivety, alert without effort, with pleasure. We will use simple games that encourage the spontaneous exteriorisation of impulses. In a state of readiness, concentrated in the present moment, we are vulnerable, open, spontaneous – ready to follow inner impulses and respond to outer stimuli, achieving soft and easy connection between emotion, breath, movement, imagination, voice, thought and the word. Indicative Schedule: 20 hours You may wish to read: Aim: To develop an awareness of the dynamics of the clown performing space and the relationships between performers and audience. Through the use of specialised exercises, you will become aware of the workings of complicity: both between performers, and between performer and audience. You will be introduced to the practice of the fixed point and how meaning is generated through stillness, movement and eye-contact. You will become accustomed to working in the two principle stage/audience set-ups: end-on and in-the-round. Indicative Schedule: 15 hours You may wish to read: Aim: To encounter and accept your own failure in front of an audience. We will use a series of clown exercises, including the use of the red nose, that stimulate failure and allow you the opportunity of accepting your own ridiculousness in front of an audience. You will learn how this dynamic forms the foundation for the clown’s relationship with the audience. Indicative Schedule: 20 hours You may wish to read: Aim: To introduce the wide range of possible forms that can be used to structure clown action, posing the question “what do clowns do?” This unit will explore the wide variety of forms of gags and numbers that can be used in clowning. You will work with the fundamental principles that generate clown action: wrongness, inappropiateness, problems, and rule-breaking. You will devise short pieces of action, gags and short numbers, working in trios, duos and solo. Indicative Schedule: 25 hours. You may wish to read: Aim: To bring your own clown to bear on clown roles. This unit explores the function of clown roles and their relationship to your own individual clown performer. Having learned how clowning relies heavily on the relationship between performer and audience, you will explore the balance between “being yourself” and “playing a role”. You will work on maintaining your own authentic ridiculousness whilst performing an established text or action-script, drawn from traditional and contemporary examples. Indicative Schedule: 20 hours. You may wish to read: Aim: To build a knowledge of clown performance history and critical approaches to clowning. You will analyse the structure of clowning by observing the work (live and on video/film) of clown performers, both contemporary and historical. You will begin to formulate a vocabulary for talking about and criticising clown and to ask the question “why is this funny?” Using a selection of texts and other sources, you will study the principle movements in clown history: the Shakespearean Clown and Fool; Commedia dell’arte and the Pantomime; the Clown and the Auguste in early circus; and the Realist Clown (Lecoq and Popov). Indicative Schedule: 10 hours. You may wish to read: Aim: To consolidate your clowning skills in the rehearsal and performance of a number (solo, duo or trio) in a performance showcase. You will use the performing and devising skills you have acquired to produce a performance in this challenging unit. This unit culminates in a showcase wherein you will have gone through a full devising and rehearsal process. The use of your skills will be evaluated in both the rehearsal process and final performance. You will be expected to be involved in sourcing your own showcase material. You will be expected to attend all rehearsals and also work on your piece in your own time. You will apply systems of devising and rehearsal to your work, use in depth gag analysis and be expected to take and adapt well to direction. You will perform the piece in front of an invited audience. Please note that this is NOT an ‘industry showcase’ and agents will not be invited. Indicative Schedule: 120 hours. You may also wish to read: |
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