Événement

Bouffon Intensive with Naked Empire Bouffon Company's Nathaniel Justiniano

Naked Empire Bouffon Company

Artistic Director, Nathaniel Justiniano, is offering his award-winning, weekend-long Bouffon Intensive.

Friday, April 11th 6p - 10p
Saturday, April 12th 10a - 6p
Sunday, April 13th 10a - 6p

This intensive was named Best of the Bay by the SF Bay Guardian! Check out their description: http://www.sfbg.com/specials/best-bay-2011-best-romp-your-inner-psychopath

Bouffon is outrageous, grotesque satire. The bouffon uses mockery, wit, parody. They can dance beautifully and grovel annoyingly in the same breath. They are charmingly obscene and dangerously perceptive. The bouffon provokes laughter even amidst the darkest of subjects, and they do so by athletically, ecstatically, hilariously celebrating the underbelly of humanity. The appetite in the bouffon is singular the hunger to see and play with what society has to hide. The bouffon doesn't judge. They are a fun house mirror of us. Why? Because it's fun. Why practice bouffon? To undermine apathy. To acknowledge the tragedies we share, the shame we hide, and the beauty of acceptance.

This intensive is a crash course in bouffon performance with the only company in the United States exclusively dedicated to the research and performance of bouffon.

What you'll be learning and practicing:

* Finding your personal bouffon
* Entering into and creating within a state of ecstatic play
* Choral, movement-based improvization
* Mercurial acting techniques for shape-shifting between characters of heightened text and grace to those of base, groveling goblin prophets
* Audacious and confrontational status play with the audience
* Wielding stillness and silence like a scapel
* Parodying social maladies and hypocrisies
* Ramshackle techniques for on-the-fly costume creation

This is an athletic, intensely physical form of performance that demands the in-the-moment engagement of your intellect and imagination. We welcome performers of all skill levels and interests. Actors with limited experience in physical theater or devising are especially encouraged to participate, as this work has a powerful impact on one's freedom and creative imagination in the rehearsal room of more main stream, scripted theater. If this resonates with you, we would love to see you here.

About the Teacher:

Nathaniel Justiniano (Founder, Artistic Director) is a professional actor/creator, teacher and director. In 2007, under the direction of Master Teacher Giovanni Fusetti, he co-created Pax Americana, a satire of war as seen through the lens of United States history and EUOI!, a bouffon experiment in ecstatic ritual, inspired by the research of anthropologist, Barbara Ehrenreich. He has performed with The Thrillpeddlers in their mega-hit, Pearls Over Shanghai, as well as with WE Players in their epic, 5-hour, island-wide production of The Odyssey on Angel Island. He joined the SF Buffoons in their 2008 productions of The Hasheesh Eater and their premiere of Spunk, a satire of gold rush-era San Francisco. Most recently, he performed in Cutting Ball Theater's critically-acclaimed, extended production of Ubu Roi, directed by Wooly Mammoth's Yury Urnov. In 2009 he led the creation of Naked Empire's debut production, Shame! as a DIY Artist-in-Residence at Mama Calizo's Voice Factory, formerly one of San Francisco's most popular centers for queer and activist performance. His one-man show, Cousin Cruelty's Compulsion, addresses the use of institutional violence in society and was one of the offerings in the 2011 International Home Theatre Festival, as well as the subject of a feature column in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Last year, he co-created and performed in You Killed Hamlet, or Guilty Creatures Sitting At A Play, a satire about avoiding death which won critical acclaim, the San Francisco Best of the Fringe Award, the Vancouver/Plank Magazine Talk of the Fringe Award, a nomination for Vancouver's Georgia Straight Critic's Pick Award, and was an Official Selection of the Toronto Festival of Clowns. He teaches workshops nation-wide in bouffon for which he was honored with the SF Bay Guardian's BEST OF THE BAY AWARD for BEST ROMP WITH YOUR INNER PSYCHOPATH. He has served as the Director of Physical Comedy for the Sacramento Shakespeare Festival, Movement Designer for UC Berkeley's Theater Dept, and guest teacher of physical theatre at Sacramento City College and Kinetic Arts Center of Oakland. He is currently a senior faculty member of the new Clown Conservatory program at the San Francisco Circus Center where he teaches clown, games, status, mask performance and was the director of last year's 7-week Bouffon Intensive, the most comprehensive bouffon training ever offered in the United States. He holds an MFA in Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre from Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre.

CANCELLATION POLICY:

If, with at least 48 hours notice, you need to cancel your registration for any reason, please note that Naked Empire Bouffon Company will retain $50 of your original purchase as a non-refundable deposit. Cancellations made less than 48 hours before the first day of the intensive will not be refunded.