Clown Course

Service Description

Clowning is a way to cherish life. To connect with each other. To recognise and celebrate our imperfections, which are an essential part of being human. Improvisation-based and interactive, sometimes whimsical and sometimes provocative, clowns exist in almost every culture in the world and have down throughout history. They play an important social function and are as needed as ever. Come and find out for yourself how you clown! This course will provide some background to the practice of clowning, sharing different forms of clown, but is mostly based on providing ways of practicing clowning through games and exercises, watching each other and giving and receiving feedback. At the end of it, there are opportunities to put your skills into practice in a performance setting, in clown cabaret and potentially other settings. Clowning practice can: - Boost our performance skills, especially improvisation and confidently interacting with audiences - Support expressive freedom be a tool in activism helps us sit with uncertainty buoys us in the face of challenges, whether global or local/personal/everyday. You don't need any previous performance experience to join this course. It can work as a drop in, if you can't make all the sessions, but you will get the most out of it by attending as many of the sessions as you can. Tuesdays, 6:30-9pm (with a decent break to have some snacks and rest) 6 sessions with 2 bonus sessions for those who want to perform in the Cabaret! *The most commonly represented image/ type of clowning is linked to racist history and connotations. This is not the kind of clowning we practice at The Good Name Clown school, and we aim to act with responsibility to raise awareness of this history and use of clown, to have conversations in our courses and in our public outputs which acknowledge and problematise these associations, and to encourage ethical clowning practice. As we have stated, clowning exists in almost every culture in the world, and we recognise and celebrate the many beautiful traditions in whose footsteps we walk. If anyone has any questions or concerns in relation to this, please feel free to get in touch.