The early bird pricing for the 5 Day Clown Workshop with international performer and teacher Jon Davison is fast approaching! Register before August 6th and get a discount price for this amazing workshop.
5-Day Clown Workshop with Jon Davison
September 9-13th from 9:00am – 5:00pm
@ The Pumphouse Theatre
As part of the Calgary Clown Festival, we will be hosting a 5 day introductory intensive workshop with International performer and teacher, Jon Davison.
This workshop starts with a look at the fundamental dynamics of clowning, how to make yourself and your friends look stupid so we will love and laugh at you. Converting our habitual fear of ridicule into the pleasure of laughing at ourselves, we can use it to make others laugh and experience the freedom of the clown. The workshop will also be looking at some of the countless practical ways of devising material appropriate for your clowning. By the end of the week, we will aim to bring together your own particular way of clowning (your stupidity and craziness) with careful crafting and composition of performance material, and how to make sure the material you create really works for you.
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. Clowning is sometimes shrouded in mystery but in reality it’s a very simple mode of performance. This workshop uses simple exercises rooted in laughter response in order to access clowning in the most direct manner possible.
Jon Davison has been a clown performer, teacher, director and writer for the last 30 years. He taught clown, improvisation and acting at the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona from 1996 – 2006, when he became a co-founder of the Escola de Clown de Barcelona. From 2007 – 2010 he was a Research Fellow investigating contemporary clown/actor training at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where he obtained his PhD in Clown Performance Practice and is now Visiting Lecturer. He has performed at festivals, theatres, tents, streets and bars throughout Europe, and is currently produces the monthly clown performance Friday Flop. He has published two books, Clown: Readings in Theatre Practice (2013) and Clown Training – a practical guide (2015), both with Palgrave Macmillan. He runs the London Clown School, providing regular clown workshops in the UK, and teaches regularly around the world.
Registration:
$500.00 + fees EARLY BIRD (register before August 6th)
$650.00 + fees REGULAR
Times:
September 9th through 13th from 9:00am – 5:00pm
The workshop will take place at the Victor Mitchell Theatre at the Pumphouse Theatres (2140 Pumphouse Ave SW)
For more information and to register visit tickets.pumphousetheatre.ca or contact clown@pumphousetheatre.ca or 403-263-0079 ext 100.
