Bouffon Intensive
Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2023
Time: 10am to 4pm
Location: Morpheus Theatre Rehearsal Centre (3512 – 5th Ave. NW)
Cost:
- Register before April 30: $550 + GST
- Register after April 30: $600 + GST
To register, email elaine@maskandpuppet.com.
Registration will be done with e-transfer to avoid additional tix fees.
About the Intensive
Naked Empire Bouffon Company is offering their award-winning, week-long Bouffon Intensive, led by artistic director, Nathaniel Justiniano. This is a crash course in bouffon performance with the only company in the United States exclusively dedicated to the research and performance of bouffon.
The appetite of the bouffon is singular: To play with what society has to hide. The bouffon doesn’t judge. With a no-holds-barred relationship with the audience, they are a dangerously perceptive fun house mirror of us all. Why? Because it’s fun. The bouffon uses mockery, wit and parody. They dance beautifully and are grotesquely obscene in the same moment.
About the Teacher
Nathaniel Justiniano is an actor/creator and teacher, as well as the founder of Naked Empire Bouffon Company. His satirical performances are outrageous comedies derived from today’s tragedies. 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. In 2009 he led the creation of SHAME!, Naked Empire’s skewering of the San Francisco queer community.
Most recently, he co-created and performed DO WHAT YOU LOVE, a one-person bouffon show celebrating privilege. He teaches bouffon workshops in the US and Canada for which he was honoured with the SF Bay Guardian’s Best of the Bay award for best romp with your inner psychopath. He was on the faculty of the Clown Conservatory of San Francisco and was the director of the 7-week Bouffon Intensive, the most comprehensive bouffon training ever offered in the United States. Up next, he will be teaching physical comedy full-time at Emerson College’s first-in-the-nation BFA program in Comedic Arts. He holds a BFA in Theatre Performance from Chapman University and an MFA in Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre from Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre.
