Butoh Clown
3 hour Explorative Workshop

Join Robyn Hambrook for a playful and deeply moving physical workshop combining of art of Butoh and Clowning.

The combining of butoh and clowning aims to explore the world and the profound issues of our time through the process of image dancing.

Expressing the world through our interior landscapes allows us to locate the 'political' in the body arriving at a deeper connection to the world we are living in and a part of. The addition of the clown plays, moves and transforms complex emotions bringing new understandings and lightness.

The clown also allows deeper, direct connection with the spectator; moving, activating and transforming them too.

Please wear comfortable clothes, bring a bottle of water and be ready to be physically active.

Who's this for?

It is for clowns, physical performers, dancers, musicians, visual artists, street performers and political activists and the curious. And anyone interested in exploring new forms of creative activism or expanding their understanding of clowning as a form of political expression.

If you’re not sure if your level of experience would support you to join this workshop, please email [email protected] and we will be happy to help identify if the workshop would be right for you.

What is the Political Clown Series?

The Political Clown Series is part of Robyn Hambrook’s ongoing research at the intersection of clowning and activism. Her work explores the potential of clowning to transform the performer, audiences, public space and power!

How it works

Dates & times:
Tuesday 16 April
6.30 - 9.30pm

Venue:
St Werburghs Community Centre
Horley Rd
St Werburgh's
Bristol
BS2 9TJ

Investment:
Sliding Scale £18 - £25

Contact Robyn directly to arrange booking & payment [email protected]

i want to join

★"everyone seemed tenderly open, touched deeply, and physically moved - literally well stretched by the play, and also well pushed in a very safe way by the prompts, I think everyone benefited from the small safe and gentle prompts to nudge us all learning and observing more and more. Honestly loved it.” Participant, ‘Rebel Clown NZ’

★ "Robyn's unique blend of directing and shaping play through quick wit and caring yet urgent tone - sets tone and pace beautifully." Participant, 'The Activist Clown Weekend'

About the facilitator

Robyn Hambrook is a Bristol-based director, teacher and performer. With over 20 years experience she is a passionate practitioner of clowning, physical theatre, circus and street arts. She has a MA in Circus Directing, a Diploma of Physical Theatre Practice and trained with a long line of inspiring teachers including Holly Stoppit, Peta Lily, Giovanni Fusetti, Bim Mason, Jon Davison, Zuma Puma, Lucy Hopkins and John Wright.

Over the past five years she has been exploring the meeting point of clowning and a deep desire to address the injustices in the world. This specialism has developed through her Masters Research ‘Small Circus Acts of Resistance’, on the streets and in protests with the Bristol Rebel Clowns and in research residencies with The Trickster Laboratory.

Robyn’s Activist Clown research has led to collaborations with Jay Jordan (Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, France), Clown Me In (Beirut), LM Bogad (US), Hilary Ramsden (Greece) and international Tricksters; ‘The Yes Men’ (US).

During the pandemic in 2020, Robyn set up The Online Clown Academy with Holly Stoppit and developed a series of Zoom Clown Courses. Robyn’s research, started during her Masters, has been exploring the meeting point of clowning and activism, online, in the real world and with international collaborators. With this drive to explore political edges of her work she has also dived back into the world of the Bouffon; training with Jaime Mears, Bim Mason, Nathaniel Justiniano, Eric Davis, Tim Licata, Al Seed and the grand master Bouffon-himself; Philippe Gaulier. 
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Keen to explore the intersection of clowning and politics, Robyn is driven to create collaborative, research spaces, testing and pushing the limits of the artform to create new knowledge and methodologies for her industry and strengthen partnerships for future work. Some of her most recent collaborations and teaching projects have included the Nomadic Rebel Clown Academy (5-day Activist Clown Training), The Laboratory of the Un-beautiful (Feminist Grotesque Bouffon Training for Womxn Theatre Makers) and the Clown Congress (annual gathering of clowns, activists & academics collectively exploring what it means to be a clown in this current era).

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