Workshops / Creating Clown Material

Aug 18 to Aug 24, 2024
All day event

Cost $1080

This workshop equips you with the tools to take your material from early conception through to production. 

Along the way, you will learn how to:

  • Create material from the smallest seed of an idea
  • Build a number or a scene 
  • Spot our greatest ideas, which are often right under our noses (if only we know how to look)
  • Keep the work fresh in performance. 

We investigate the fundamentals—such as the use of costumes, props, lighting, and sound—and we explore more advanced concepts, such as writing tools, devising games, group dynamics, dramatic structure, physicality, and music. 

The workshop attracts a wide range of artists—actors, directors, clowns, comedians, aerialists, and more. Regardless of your professional practice, you can apply the skills learned in this workshop in any kind of performance space, from purpose-built theaters and cabarets to variety stages, circus tents, and street corners. 



Cost

Workshop with standard double-occupancy room with early bird discount: $1,080

The early bird discount (10%) expires on April 2.

Workshop with single-occupancy room: $1,800

There is no early bird discount for single-occupancy rooms.

Note: A $400 deposit is required when you register for a double occupancy room. A $900 deposit is required for a single occupancy room. The remainder of your balance will be due upon your arrival at Celebration Barn.

Bursaries

No bursaries available for this workshop

For more information about our bursaries, please click here.

Course Leaders

Aitor Basauri

Joint Artistic Director & Performer

Founder, co-creator and performer of all Spymonkey shows to date. Performed in The Servant of Two Masters at Sheffield Crucible (1996), Axomate at the Seville Expo (1992), Eulenspiegel (1991) and in Karl’s Kuhne Gassenchau’s Grand Paradis and Stau in Zurich (1997 and 1998). Director of Little Prince for Donkey Productions (1997), Un Vento Impetuoso for La Canoppia (1996) and Meci Y Me Fui for Pez Enraya ( 1997). In 1999 he appeared in Circus Knie, the Swiss State Circus, and in 2000 formed his own company Punto Fijo, based in Bilbao. Appeared in Cirque Images’ 2003 series Solstrom for Bravo Cable Network. Appeared in Bertold Brecht’s Senor Carrera’s Rifles at the Young Vic, directed by Paul Hunter (2007).

Directing credits include: ‘Lily & Marlene’ for La Dinamica (Spain 2015); ’Looking for Duende’ for Teatro Entre Escombros (Spain 2015); ’Hondycops’ for Squadra Sua (Czech Republic 2015); ’Ferucchio Peru is Extraordinaire’ for Leebo Luby (UK 2015); Manifest Destiny (New York 2015); Fabulous Bäckström Brothers (Finland 2014); Entre Escobros ‘600 Teatro’ (Spain 2014); ‘Gloriator’ for Skipstick Productions (London 2013); ‘NMIIDP’ Simone Riccio, (London 2013); ‘Herr Ist Immer Der Natur’ for Die Drei Auf Den Baum (Berlin 2012); ‘Discombobulated’ for Publick Transport (Bristol & UK tour, 2011); ‘Ramshackadelicious’ (Bristol 2011); ‘Shake’ for The Last Baguette (Switzerland 2010). Director of physical comedy for Chichester Festival Theatre’s ‘Mack & Mabel’ (2015) starring Michael Ball. Co-director of Orpheus in the Underworld at Vienna Volksoper operahouse which opens in 2023.

Aitor is an acclaimed teacher of clown, regularly holding Spymonkey masterclasses in London, New York, Berlin, Los Angeles and around the world, and for the Clown Doctors organisation in Germany, Austria and France.