Clowning in Dystopia
Weekend Workshop with Bim Mason

This is an exploratory workshop for those who have already done some clowning but who want to put it into the context of current global situation. It is less about individualism and more about what we share humans as the world falls apart around us.

Playful, light and deep all at the same time!"

This workshop explores clowns as survivors, using their optimism, their invention and imagination to adapt to the incomprehensible changes around them. Like the rest of humanity but more intensely, the clowns are confused, lost, angry, impotent, ridiculous in their denial, despairing and sad as they try to make sense among the dissolving fragments of a past way of life, witnessing disaster and searching for clues.

Cultural reference points are Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful, the hurricane sequence in Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill and the Mad Max films.

Exercises:

• Teetering between three different emotions - joy in hope and connection, pain at personal and other’s suffering, and confusion at cruelty and disconnection
  
• Journeys of survival – being lost, in place, in time, in identity
• Re-creation -using imagination to patch up a semblance of an extinguished world
• Problems with objects and the body

Who's this for?

This course is suitable for those with some previous clown training, including actors, circus & physical performers. It would suit those who are interested in broadening their repertoire or exploring the political edges of their work.

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.

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★ "My biggest take away in the immediate aftermath was renewed gratitude for all the wonderful things that we currently have. It also gave me so many sparks for characters and devices that could be folded into creating clown shows and comedy characters." Participant, Clowning in Dystopia 2024

★ "more power to address the current goings on with a sense of lightness and playfulness, and the incentive to understand the bigger picture more deeply"
Participant, Clowning in Dystopia 2024

How it works

Dates & times:
Saturday 15 & Sunday 16 March 2025
10am - 5pm

Venue:
The Spark Space, 138a Church Road, Redfield
Bristol, BS5 9HH

Application & investment:
To apply please fill in this form:
https://forms.gle/YwFxGoPyxwmMVZRUA
Once invited; the course investment is:
£190 - Supporter/ High earner
£175- Full Price
£150 - Concession (low/no income, student)
EARLYBIRD DEAL: get £20 off if you pay before 14 February

Apply to take part

★ " As a performer I have tools I can take away and apply to my performances. As a teacher I have some helpful tips and strategies to support my students."
Participant, Clowning in Dystopia 2024

★ "A new angle on the terrifying directions that the world of today seem to be aiming for. So much information! As well as teaching his class with great mastery Bim also takes the time to coach each individual student in the right direction."
Participant, Clowning in Dystopia 2024

★ "I feel a strong sense of empowerment after the course. I feel ready to take action with some of the more bigger topics we covered over the workshop."
Participant, Clowning in Dystopia 2024

About the facilitator

Bim Mason is the co-founder of Circomedia and has been performing popular and provocative work since the mid-1970s. He studied with Jacques Lecoq, who invented the bouffon style, and with Philippe Gaulier, who developed it. Bim’s teaching at Circomedia over 30 years has enabled him to develop a synthesis of the two approaches in combination with his background in popular, accessible arts - clowning, circus and street theatre. His PhD researched these areas and led to the publication of Provocation in Popular Performance (Routledge 2016). He was also asked to write the chapter on Bouffon for the Routledge Companion to Jacques Lecoq (2018). More recently he has been using his skills as a mask-maker to create living satirical cartoons, which have appeared at festivals and at protests for the G7 meeting in Cornwall and COP26.