WORKSHOPS
Location: All classes are at Circus Center, 755 Frederick St. San Francisco, CA 94117
Register: Contact Nancy at 415.759.8123 ext.*815 or email nancy@circuscenter.org

Workshop Registration Fees:
The registration fees for all workshops is an aditional $5.00 a day (unless otherwise stated in the workshop's descriptions), excepting students who have already paid the full $60.00 registration fee for the semester.

February 20 and 21: Dan Griffiths - "Metaphysical Storytelling"
Saturday: 11:30am – 6:30pm; Sunday: 11am – 4pm

Clown: Metaphysical Storytelling

In this two day workshop we will expand our awareness to include the audience and ourselves in the same breath. We will be responsible: able and willing to respond onstage in a state of true play and discovery. We will risk vulnerability, explore improvisation and discover realms of beauty and grotesquery while devising original characters and new material. You will learn to confront the audience, find your breath, discover your body and play.

Dan Griffiths is a performer, director and educator who has been devising original work since1988. Dan has served as faculty for The School for Mime Theater, Columbia College Chicago, Roosevelt University and Indiana University Northwest, and is a regular lecturer at The Academy of Art University and The San Francisco Clown Conservatory.

He has worked as a clown doctor and trainer for The Big Apple Circus’ Clown Care Unit in Chicago. Dan is a founder of KAPOOT Clown Theater, has performed with the Klown troupe Die Hanswurste, served as a director, performer and educator with Chicago’s 500 Clown, and Dan has studied with Marcel Marceau, Polish Mime master Stefan Niedzialkowski, and at The Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater. Dan holds an M.A. in Experimental Performance from New College of California and an M.F.A in Interdisciplinary Art from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION: $150 for the public; $75 for CIRCUS CENTER students and Professional Training Program alumni; $20 for Professional Training Program students.

March 13 & 14: Dominique Jando - "Classic Clown Entrées"
Saturday: 11:30am – 6:30pm; Sunday: 11am – 4pm

Clown: Classic Clown Entrees

Clown "entrées" (or scenes) are the common repertoire of European clowns, and some of them were even in the repertoire of medieval of fairgrounds comedians. In America, after the advent of the three-ring circus (1881) and the disappearance of the talking clown, this repertoire eventually found a new home in vaudeville and burlesque.

Entrées are short comic pieces with a dramatic structure. They resemble in many ways the "canvases" of the Commedia dell'Arte, with a major difference however: whereas Commedia deals with a cast of pre-set characters (Arlecchino, Pantalone, etc.), clown entrées are redefined each time by the specific clown that interprets them. In that, they are an excellent medium for character development.

Beside being "comedy classics" (in the sense of "classic theater"), and a very useful basic repertoire, the variety of situations entrées offer allows the student of comedy to better understand the mechanics of comedy and learn its techniques: what makes it work, the rules of working with partners, how to make the audience part of the game (and this has nothing to do with using them as "volunteers"!), how to let the story lead your character's actions, how to improvise within the constraints of an already existing story-line, how to keep focussed on the story...

DOMINIQUE JANDO began his involvement with the performing arts more than four decades ago, in his native France, when he first stepped into a circus ring as a clown at the legendary Cirque Medrano in Paris. In 1974, as General Secretary of the Paris Cultural Center, he participated with Alexis Gruss in the creation of France?s first professional circus school, and of Le Cirque à l?Ancienne, which eventually became the French National Circus and is considered the catalyst of the ?New Circus? movement.

He moved to New York in 1983 to join the Big Apple Circus, and served as its Associate Artistic Director for nineteen years. He then worked as Creative Director and Director of the San Francisco School of Circus Arts for Circus Center in San Francisco, from 2003-2004. He is now an independent circus arts consultant, writer, and is Vice-President and Artistic Director of Lone Star Circus Arts Center, a non-profit organization based in Dallas, Texas. He is also Curator of Circopedia.org, an international online circus archive project of the Big Apple Circus.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION: $150 for the public; $75 for CIRCUS CENTER students and Professional Training Program alumni; $20 for Professional Training Program students.

April 10 & 11: Joan Mankin - "Acting for Clowns"
Saturday: 11:30am – 6:30pm; Sunday: 11am – 4pm

Clown: Acting for Clowns

In this workshop, we'll work on timing and rhythm in movement and speech. Then we'll jump into rehearsing revue sketches from the 1950's and 60's which were produced on Broadway, written by the likes of W.C. Fields, George Kaufman and Mel Brooks, and starring such luminaries as Fanny Brice and Bert Lahr. Participants will be given scripts before the workshop begins, and be asked to memorize lines. Join us for a week-end of laughs.

JOAN MANKIN has been a Bay Area actress, director and teacher for thirty five years. She has performed at A.C.T.,the Ahmanson Theater in L.A., San Diego Repertory Theater, the Dell'Arte Players, The S.F. Mime Troupe, Theaterworks, Marin Theater Company, The Magic Theater, the Travelling Jewish Theater, and is an associate Artist at the California Shakespeare Theater. She worked as a clown with the Pickle Family Circus and make-A-Circus and as a juggler with the Bay City Reds. She has directed for the S.F. Shakespeare Festival, Bricks and Earth Circus in Calgary, Canada, Theaterworks in Colorado, and Make-A-Circus. She has an MA in theater and has taught at the A.C.T. Conservatory, Berkeley Repertory Theater School, U.C. Santa Cruz, San Francisco State university, and the Clown Conservatory.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION: $150 for the public; $75 for CIRCUS CENTER students and Professional Training Program alumni; $20 for Professional Training Program students.