Clowning: Finding What’s Funny About You

A fun and playful 4-week course that aims to develop your stage presence and help you discover how to generate comedy by just being your ridiculous self.

What Is Clowning?

Clowning is a form of physical theatre that emphasises playfulness, exploration and following your creative impulses. The form often involves making bold choices, whether scripted or improvised. Improv is a big part of clowning too, as clowns will react honestly to the world around them and embrace failures as they go.

What you’ll be doing in this Clowning Course

You’ll be looking at a few fundamental skills and practices that are crucial to having great stage presence. You will also spend some time learning about building a connection with your audience and adjusting your performance to their reactions. We’ll look at how these skills can be applied to improvisation, and how they can be brought together to enable you to be your most playful and comedic self in front of an audience. Some concepts that you’ll spend time with include:

• Breath and connection with the audience
• Body tension
• Status
• Playfulness

Who Should Attend?

Improvisors and actors who want to improve their stage presence and become a more engaging performer. Performers who want to be more dynamic and comedic. Those who want to get more in to clowning and physical theatre.

You don’t have to have any clowning experience, but some stage experience (improv or acting courses, being in performances and/or showcases) is recommended.

Teacher: Simone Tani

Simone Tani graduated at Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Paris where he studied Theatre, Clown and Bouffon. Recently founded the award winning company “Teatro Pomodoro” and performed at Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2014, Camden Fringe 2015, Physical Fest 2016 and 2017, Brighton Fringe 2017 and 2018.

Earlier, he studied improvisation with Keith Johnstone, Shawn Kinley and Dennis Cahill at Loose Moose theater in Calgary, clown and physical comedy at Second City Theater in Chicago and in London with Mark Bell, John Wright and Peta Lily (Dark clown), trance and full masks with Steve Jarand (Calgary), commedia dell’arte with Carlo Boso and Onda D’Urto Teatro in Rome, mask making and wood carving in with Anom Ida Bagus in Bali.

He’s one of the founder members of the improvisation company i Bugiardini in Rome (Winner of sellout award at Edinburgh Fringe 2017) and performs and teaches improvisation, trance masks, clown and bouffon. His workshops have been selected also by Finland International Improvisation Festival, New Zealand Impro Festival and several other international festivals. Simone also worked as a lecturer for Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, University of Chester, Malaya University in Kuala Lumpur and National Taiwan University of Arts.

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Payment Terms

We can be flexible with payment and so if you’d rather not pay in full now, you can pay a deposit to lock in your place and pay the rest later. Payment must be completed before or at the first session of the course.