One-Day Intro to Clown Workshop

One-Day Intro to Clown Workshop: For all levels of experience!

What is Clown?
You may know Clown as birthday party entertainers, jugglers, or Ronald McDonalds of the world, but the art of clowning is a personal, poetic, and highly responsive form for all actors to tap into. Above all, Clown asks actors: What is so funny about you? And how can we utilize it on the stage--and in life? This class will introduce Clown through both physical and emotional exercises to allow actors to become more present, and how to use playfulness as a stage tool to invite audiences in. Let's find your Clown, break down the fourth wall, and tap into the playful spirit of the Clown that invites curiosity, joy, and the beauty of risk!

Please note: This class will not focus on circus clown skills such as juggling, magic, acrobatics, etc. It will instead be theatrically, personally, and poetically oriented.

Just as every person has their own physical and emotional presence, your Clown will have its own rhythm, body, voice, costume, patterns, and emotions. Throughout the workshop, we will ask: what's so funny about me?

This workshop will introduce fundamental questions and a "cracking open" of the emotional actor. This will build towards skills such as:
-How to be more authentic, honest, and less in-your-head on stage.
-The ability to create characters based on the physical body.
-Tap into your own sense of play and be able to continue to carry it on stage.
-A basis of physical theater skills to create interesting stage pictures, rhythms, and relationships.
-Devising tools to develop solo and group material.

Of course, we won't get to everything in a single day, but this workshop is intended to give each student a taste of Clown so that they may decide to continue pursuing it, and in what way.

Who is this course for?
You do not have to have any experience in clown to join the class! This course is for anyone interested in Clown, theatre, comedy, improv, and more. You do not need to be a performing artist, but some exercises will be framed to support work on stage. Even if you have studied Clown before, this may be a new experience as there are many unique styles and types of Clown studies.

Cost and Class Details:
This workshop is PAY WHAT YOU CAN with a suggested donation of $30-80, but no payment is required.

Please plan to attend the entire time. Register on our Meetup page: www.meetup.com/boulder-clown-club

Pedagogy:
This course is taught by Soleil Kohl, founder of Boulder Clown Club, whose coursework pulls from many different styles and teachings, including Somatic Clown with Giovanni Fussetti, Principles of Eccentric Performance with Avner Eisenberg, Chris Bayes approach to Clown, neutral mask, mime, alt-clown styles emerging from New York and LA, as well as early childhood theories.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Spark A Performing Arts Community, 4847 Pearl Street, Boulder, United States