Harnessing the creative energy, fun and bold presence of Bouffon!
Bouffon is a powerful vehicle for getting audiences to sit up and pay attention. It has been described as the dark side of the clown.
If you’ve never practiced it, in this workshop we will be covering some of the foundational techniques so you can get a taste of this anarchic and deliciously wicked genre of performance and training. If you are familiar with Bouffon, you know its explosiveness and intensity require constant practice, so come try it out in a different way.
The Grotesque has been around for millennia, whether it was in ritual or performance, in comedy or tragedy. Bouffon characters will often pop up in plays, or films, or on our Instagram feeds: villains, or anarchic innocents who shock us, seduce us, can move us, and mostly wake us up to the absurdity or hypocrisy of the world around us. The madness and anarchy of Bouffon will occasionally visit us in the Clown state. For Bouffon, just as we do with Clown, we put on a mask (often distorting our whole body), shapeshifting in order to state shift.
Bouffons are uniquely positioned to make fun of everything and everyone, disrupting the status quo in a delightfully joyous way.
In this practical workshop you will:
⭐liberate reserves of energy through play and pushing boundaries
⭐ work with levels of parody from the subtle to the extreme
⭐ revel in the pleasure of mockery
⭐ experiment in Bouffon chorus
⭐ understand how physical transformation and the power of disguise allow exploration of the shadow aspect of our artistic expression
⭐ practice using sophisticated rhythms, manipulation and surprise in order to empower your Bouffon
⭐ try out storytelling and the beginning of devising in a Bouffon chorus
About the teacher
Jaime is a Churchill Fellow for excellence in the Performing Arts.
She has worked professionally in theatre, film and television both in Australia and in Portugal since 1999. She is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art NIDA in Sydney. In 2007 Jaime was awarded several arts grants including the Churchill Fellowship, a Mike Walsh grant and an Australia Council Arts development grant which took her to Paris, New York and the UK to pursue further training with Philippe Gaulier Anne Bogart and the SITI Company, Keith Johnstone and Complicité. She is a member of the SITI Extended Ensemble. She has taught Bouffon in the UK, USA, Canada, Russia, Australia, Hungary and Denmark as well as in Portugal where she has worked for Theatre schools such as ESMAE, ESTAL, Espaço EVOE, and Inimpetus. Jaime works as an actress and theatre maker for Companhia Caótica e Mente do Cão in Lisbon. She has been touring Duncan Macmillans’ Every Brilliant Thing in Portugal since 2022. In 2023 she created Secret Theatre Lisbon from which she produces small scale, interactive theatre events in English, in secret locations around the city. She works as a hospital Clown for Operação Nariz Vermelho since 2018 and regularly performs as an idiot, which she cites as an effective prevention against taking herself too seriously.
www.jaimemears.com
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