Friday 27 February 2015

Weekly Clown Workshop in London taught by Jon Davison


Dates: from 13th April until 29th June 2015
Time: Mondays 6.30 – 8.30pm
Venue: Apiary Studios, 458 Hackney Road, London E2 9EG http://www.apiarystudios.org 
Cost: £15 per class; or £60 for five classes paid in advance

How to register and pay for the course: please send an email to info@jondavison.net indicating your interest and to know if there are places available.
This course is suitable for anyone interested in exploring clowning, with or without experience.
Maximum number of students: 16

These classes will start by looking at the fundamentals of clowning, learning to feel and enjoy our own ridiculousness. 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.

We will also look at ways of devising material for performance, forming and structuring your individual clown idiosyncrasies into clown numbers as well as learning from the classics.

Most things are ridiculous when you really look: 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.
Jon Davison is a clown performer, teacher, director, researcher, writer and musician with 30 years experience. Co-founder in 1993 of Companyia d’Idiotes, he has toured festivals, theatres, tents, streets and bars throughout Europe from Sicily to the Arctic. He trained at the École Philippe Gaulier and Fool Time Circus School (Bristol). As well as performing solo, he is part of the four-person clown/circus/pantomime company, Stupididity, currently touring Not A Real Horse.

He was co-founder of the Escola de Clown de Barcelona, one of the world’s leading centres offering comprehensive clown training programmes covering both practical and theoretical aspects of the clown arts. He previously taught clown, impro, and acting at the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona from 1996-2006, and was a Research Fellow investigating clown training at Central School of Speech and Drama (University of London), where he is now a visiting lecturer as well as working towards his PhD on clown performance.

He is the author of Clown Readings in Theatre Practice published by Palgrave Macmillan, a rich collection of readings offering a wide-ranging and authoritative survey of clown practices, history and theory, from the origins of the word clown through to contemporary clowning. His second book, Clown Training, a practical guide for teachers and students, is due out later in 2015.

For more information about Jon Davison and clown courses in London: