Get Serious About Clown School in 2009

We know what you want for Christmas: clown school! Who doesn't want clown school? Seriously, you should check out clown school.

The perfect clown school is back in session just after the New Year -- a series of workshops in the Bouffon style taught by master clown Eric Davis, also known as Red Bastard.

Bouffon clowns bill themselves as anti-clowns, using a technique in which the audience is the joke and parody is the theme. Bouffon clowns show no vulnerability, value intelligence and charm, celebrate contrast and paradox, both hate and flatter viewers, and are the ultimate manipulators.

In Bouffon school, participants will explore:

* Connecting with the audience      
* Creating complex physical characters  
* Playing upon contrasts of theme and rhythm
* Being 100 percent present and captivating
* Parodying societal maladies and hypocrisy

Davis is an award-winning director, performer, and teacher whose creations include Bouffon Glass Menajoree and Kill Me Loudly: A Clown Noir.

The workshops, eight sessions of three hours each, start Jan. 3, 2009 and run Feb. 1-March 22, Sundays, 1-4 p.m., in a location TBD in Manhattan, NYC. Fee is $300. Click here to sign up.

-- Anna Bengel