Bonts International Clownschool - Clown Studies

CLOWN STUDIES

The most important objective in the study of Clowns at BONT´s is trying to discover your self within an atmosphere of great humanity, the heart and spirit of the Clown. Starting with everyone’s “personal baggage”: outward appearance, movement, motor system, peculiarities, voice, fantasy, humour, inner madness, sensibility, rhythm and timing. We will start with your own originality and we will be looking for your own unique Clown, who can make people laugh and cry.

In these courses we will work as follows.

Preparation of the actor. Basic necessities
-	Training to stimulate your alertness, disposition, lightness, presence, timing, rhythm and to feel comfortable on the stage
-	Training to make you aware of your physical possibilities and limitations
-	Training to stimulate your (sense of) freedom and fun in playing
-	Voice expression
-	Singing and making music
-	Contact with the audience. What do you really share with the audience? Ping-Pong! Look and see
-	Finding the balance between your interior and exterior

CLOWNS

-	Learning to think and act as a Clown: imitating, boasting, being curious, naive, surprised, taking things literally, vocabulary, the relationship with the authority, admiration, the poetry of the Clown
-	Improvisations individually, in duos, in trios and with the whole group
-	Clowns choirs and Clowns orchestras
-	Clowns combats (duels)
-	Themes: Clowns Love, God, Death and Sex
-	Clowns and attributes. Situations: Clowns dinner, Clowns funeral, Clowns wedding, Clowns football match, etc.
-	Acting in the streets. And finally creating your own Clowns act


In the beginning you will only use a red nose. During the course we will try to find a fitting and suitable Clowns costume and a name for your Clown. At times we will explore the buffoons, just for a short while and then come back to the Clowns again.
Watching videos of Clown numbers and shows. Every Monday there will be a presentation for your own group, either in the theatre with a real audience, an open lesson, a street performance, etc.

Requisites Clothes: jackets, hats, shoes, trousers, suits, uniforms, dresses, skirts, etc., too big or too small. Extras: trunks, umbrellas, handbags, spectacles, headphones, telephones, etc. If you have videos or literature of Clowns or Comic theatre, please bring them with you.

CLOWN GOD AND DEATH

This is a very short, intense and special course, for people who already have a good knowledge about the concept of clown. In this study we will profound your clown thinking and clown logic, how he stands in this world in relation with big themes of our life: God and Death.
-	Which image has your clown from God?
-	How is his relation with him or her?
-	How does he communicate with the source, the super being, the divine energy?
-	How your clown does confront himself with death? How does he say goodbye to a beloved one, animal or object?
-	The clown! Is religious or spiritual?
-	This course is a profound investigation of your own clown.

In this course you also are going to create your own clown grave with a clown ritual, related with the theme of the course. Our garden of the school will change in a very unique cemetery. We will finish the study with a presentation for the people of Ibiza in our peculiar grave yard.

CLOWN CHOIRS AND CLOWNORCHESTRAS
(the most enjoyable workshop of the year !!!!!!!!!!)

A special study to find your Clown from another starting point.

Making music and singing in different settings: solos, duos, trios, quartets, choirs, light orchestras, big bands, brass bands, and in different styles: classic, pop, opera, jazz, flamenco etc. The combinations of singing and making music are infinite.
What is the special ‘colour’ of your Clowns singing? To make your own clowns instrument.

The course is designed for people who are working as clowns and who want to sing and make music and in addition for singers and musicians who want to develop their Clown. For this course you must play an instrument or sing very well.

The presentation will be a concert.

CLOWNS & HOSPITAL introduction

A special introduction course for Clowns who want to work in hospitals.
-	All the aspects of this work will be introduced and worked out in this course.
-	You will have a general Clown training and a specific one dedicated to the work of a Clown in hospitals.
-	Eric de Bont is trained the Clowns from Pupaclown Murcia, Sonrisa Medica Mallorca, Cliniclowns and Pleisterclowns Holland and was involved in the development of Pallapupas in Barcelona.
-	Pepa Astillero is Artistic Director of the foundation Pupaclown in Murcia and teaches the second week of the course.
-	Encarna de las Heras teaches energy-work guided to hospital situations.

CLOWN AND OPERA

Maurice Willems and Eric de Bont have accepted the challenge to organize a totally new course in the school: Clown and Opera
-	The clown wants to imitate an opera, and his tragedy is, that he fails there, where he wants to be successful.
-	The objective of this study is to create in two weeks a clown opera and present it two times in the theatre of our school.
-	This special project is dedicated to persons who are clowns and also have qualities to sing or make music, but also to singers and musicians, who want to develop their clown in creating an opera.
-	We can create this opera, based on a real one, or take a well known story and perform it in opera style, or invent our own unique opera.
-	Like in a normal opera we need, clown musicians, clown soloists, clown choir and clown technical crew.

CLOWN AND FENCING

Teachers in this particular study are two “ flying Dutchmen”, Warjo van Galen, actor, clown and ex champion fencing of the Netherlands and participant in the Olympic fencing team of Holland and Eric de Bont, artistic director of Bont´s International Clownschool.
-	This course is for everybody, you do not have to be an actor or a sportsman, but the study has his focus at theatrical combat.
-	The method of learning to fence is open and active, the participants are discovering fencing in a very play full way. Always very active!
-	There will be a lot of exercises as well individually and collective, to receive basic information and explication how to practice fencing.
-	Preparation of your clown, creating conditions to fence, to be alert in every moment, concentration, tactiques, intuition, precision, physical condition and being responsible of your own security and for the others.
-	After the fencing traing, the big challenge is, how to make fencing Clown!!!!!
-	At the last day of the course we will prepare a clown fencing presentation for the people of Ibiza in our theatre of the school or in nature, beach, wood or mountain!

CLOWN Y FLAMENCO

The investigation in this study is to discover clown moments in the world of Flamenco, dance, rhythm and singing and prologue your clown thinking from this so special style.
-	The study is for clowns who have a great affinity with flamenco and also have qualities in singing, dancing and making music, or for singers, dancers and musicians who want to develop their clown based at flamenco
-	In 2005 we organized with a lot of success a short clown and flamenco course. During the last years we had a lot of demand, if we could repeat this course, but longer and more profound. So we put it on the program again for 07/08.
-	At the end of the course we will prepare a great flamenco clown performance in the theatre of our school!

BUFFOON STUDY

As there is a Clown hidden within each of us, so there also slumbers the Buffoon.
-	The audience laughs at the Clown, because he is naive, innocent and clumsy. The Buffoon, however, laughs at the audience because he ridicules the world of the common man with cynicism and irony.
-	The Buffoons, also called Fools, descend directly from the hazy depth of time; their most favourite pastime is in acting out people’s lives.
-	The Buffoon is totally absorbed in exaggerated extravagance; his power is situated between heaven and earth, at the cross-roads of a timeless past and a future seen through the magnifying glass of cruelty and tragedy.
-	Their physical deformities and abnormal social manners turn the Buffoons into outsiders, who cannot but show maladjusted behaviour. But it is the Buffoon who speaks the truth in his follies; a truth that nobody dares pronounce. We allow him to do so; to ignore taboos and expose abuses, and why? Because we think he is mad anyway.
-	The Buffoons live together in an organised society, different from ours.

	Requisites
-	All kinds of materials to deform your body. Enlarged bellies, enormous buttocks, shortened or super-long limbs. We will look at the modern Buffoons of these times.

STORY TELLING PROGRAM

The studies story telling also have an international character.

But only open for people who are native Spanish speakers, or who can express themselves really well in Spanish.
In the Spanish part of our website you will find the content of the study.

THE CLOWN LABORATORY………………CLOWNSLAB!!!!!!!!!
Adventures in Clown Art

In the last years, so many people called us with the question to help them create their own clown work (solo, duo, trio and groups).

To help them in creating a story or a script, to show their work and receive a constructive critic, to clean up a number or play, improve rhythm and timing, have a look at the dramaturgy, improve the quality of the clown, or receive a final direction.

It was always very difficult for us to respond at this demand, because we did not have the conditions and a lack of time. But now with our new clown school and a change of activities we can offer you some very interesting possibilities!!!!!!


WE PRESENT YOU CLOWNSLAB !!!!!

-	you can come to our school, during the Winter, Spring and Summer academy (you can also see every Monday the presentations in the school and connect yourself with the students from all over the world)
-	one week or two weeks (Monday till Friday)
-	we let you our Sancho Panza space for the whole day to work (Monday till Friday)

-	You can rehearse intensively, peacefully, quietly and concentrated in the campsite in a really theatrical and clown atmosphere !


Eric de Bont comes in the afternoon to work two hours in private with you( or with your group) to:
-	help you in creating a script
-	watch your work and giving it a constructive critic and new impulses
-	clean up your number or play
-	improve timing and rhythm
-	improve the quality of the clown
-	help you with the dramaturgy
-	give you a final direction
-	or a mixture of these possibilities, really we focus the work at your needs


At the end of the working period there is a possibility to present your work in the theatre of the school:
-	exclusive for the students of our school or
-	for a big audience, in Ibiza the people are always hungry to see clowns!
-	we can help you to find lodging at the island

If you want more information contact our secretary by e-mail bontsibiza@vianwe.com