In the Spymonkey Intro to Clown Master Class, you will learn to discover what makes you funny, hone your skills, and practice making an audience belly laugh. Through clear and specific instruction, Aitor will support you to develop and fine tune your comedic skills in a safe and fun environment. This positive group dynamic will allow you to focus on following your impulse, being adventurous, taking risks and learning to trust your spontaneous self. In this highly enjoyable workshop we will teach you technically how to make people laugh through status play-offs, parody, improvisation and many more games and exercises developing trust and complicity with the group. In this atmosphere of discovery and revelation, you will be developing and showing new material. Be prepared to find the pleasure in your own ridiculousness, stay optimistic, discover your funny, and get ready to laugh until your face hurts.
AGE
18 and up
SUITABLE FOR
Professional actors, performers,
and complete novices.
GROUP SIZE
20 participants
TUITION
$250
For information on booking this workshop please contact CB[at]GrackleJack.com
​Spymonkey, is the UK's leading physical comedy company known for their dark and edgy aesthetic that is rooted ‘somewhere between Monty Python, the Marx Brothers, and Samuel Beckett’ (The Houston Chronicle). With over 15 years of experience in creating devised shows with leading directors: Cal McCrystal (Mighty Boosh, Peepolykus, National Theatre’s One Man Two Guvnors), Jos Houben (Theatre du Complicite, The Right Size, École Jacques Lecoq Paris), Emma Rice (artistic director of Kneehigh) and Paul Hunter (artistic director of Told By An Idiot), Spymonkey has proved to be a truly international phenomenon, enjoyed by and accessible to a wide range of international audiences.
Aitor Basauri, Spymonkey’s Joint Artistic Director, is one of the most sought after and leading teachers of clown and physical comedy in the world. He regularly runs Spymonkey masterclasses in London, Brighton and New York, is a staff tutor at Cirque du Soleil Las Vegas, and teaches at Ecole Phillipe Gaulier. Aitor studied at the Centro Andaluz de Teatro in Seville and at the Philippe Gaulier School in London. He 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). He directed 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. He also appeared in Cirque Images’ 2003 series Solstrom for Bravo Cable Network, performed in Zumanity – Another Side of Cirque du Soleil at the New York New York Hotel Casino, Las Vegas, 2003-05, and in Bertold Brecht’s Senor Carrera’s Rifles at the Young Vic, directed by Paul Hunter (2007).
Aitor Talks About Clown​
“I do theatre because it is fun because it makes me live life twice and I love life! The clown lives in a fantastic theatrical world. For an actor the clown stimulates a fresh immediacy full of pleasure and mischief. It is this brimming pleasure that fills the performer and touches an audience. The audience in turn feel they are watching something very special and unique because the clown is generous, sharing with them their most intimate vulnerability, fun and unique personality.
“The performer who dares to stand before a crowd, unafraid to make mistakes and find pleasure in being wonderfully silly will reap fruitful rewards. In Spymonkey we strongly believe that it is in this moment that the seed for the best performances can begin. Once up there in front of the audience, that pleasure will take you from one funny mistake to the next, always happy, always optimistic o be playing in front of the audience. By being joyful, playful, curious, mischievous and full of fantasy you will find funny opportunities. ”