PERFECT BEASTS: BOUFFON FUNDAMENTALS WORKSHOP
SUNDAY, APRIL 26TH, 2:00-9:00 PM, WITH A DINNER BREAK FROM 6:00-7:00 PM
TICKETS: $100
This one-day workshop led by Jay Dunn, Stephen Daytime, and Joshua Kilcoyne will provide an introduction to the art of Bouffon for performers of all stripes, with any level of training and experience. Beginners are welcome. Adults 18+ only.
Bouffon is a form of modern clown and physical theater rooted in the art of satire and mockery. Bouffons are voracious, lustful, mischievous creatures to whom nothing and no one is sacred. They are seductive mimics and shameless provocateurs who revel in taking the piss out of everyone and everything around them.
Compared to the more widely known "red-nose" style of clown, Bouffon is more pointed, mysterious, and masked. A Clown charms an audience with their ineptitude and vulnerability. Bouffons don't charm so much as they seduce: they are shape-shifting tricksters and manipulators, always looking for the next rug to pull. They may play at foolishness or failure, but only as a means to an end. The audience laughs at the Clown - the Bouffon laughs at the audience. The point of commonality is play. Though they occupy a darker realm of the taboo and grotesque, Bouffons are relentlessly playful and pleasure-seeking, conjuring delight from the deepest of shadows.
This workshop is being presented in conjunction with performances by Stephen Daytime & Joshua Kilcoyne on Friday, April 24 & Saturday, April 25. Workshop students will be granted free admission to the show. More information on those performances is available here!
About the instructors: Jay Dunn is an actor, director, writer and teacher based in New York who has performed internationally, Off-Broadway and regionally. Based in Brooklyn, NY, Stephen Daytime is a playwright, puppeteer, clown and actor based in Montreal. Joshua Kilcoyne is an interdisciplinary performance artist currently based in the Catskills. He is a graduate of Hampshire College, where a DVD of his Div III clown film "No Fortunate One" remains available for loan from the campus library.