PhysFestNYC Workshop: Theatrical Clown - an Intergenerational Approach with Jean E Taylor and Zoey Peacock-Jones

Theatrical Clown - an Intergenerational Approach with Jean E Taylor and Zoey Peacock-Jones

Clown requires us to embrace, through openness and humor, our unique ridiculousness. Accepting the less than perfect brings our humanity to the forefront, transforms restrictive habits into freer expression, and allows us to be fully present. We experience vulnerability and resilience in playful balance. We are “experts” and “know nothing” simultaneously. Clown essentials (such as isolating actions, interrupting your own pattern, singularity of focus, and building complicité with the publique) are foundational and reveal new possibilities about ourselves as artists and collaborators. An added component of this workshop is to invite participants to "come with your mother, father, grandmother or grandfather. Your child, your niece, your nephew. Your caregiver or the one for whom you care." One thing we know for sure, clowns working together are never undone by dilemma.

Teaching artist and director for Lincoln Center Education. Jean received LC’s Directors Emeriti Award, and represented LCE at the International Teaching Artist Conferences (ITAC) in Oslo, Brisbane, Edinburgh, New York, and Seoul. Jean teaches Clown and Accepting the Ridiculous for The New School’s College of Performing Arts and teaches Theatrical Clown/A Level of Theatre for The Barrow Group. As a performer, Jean is developing Great Small Moments and dreams of using her vintage tractor for Movable Stories along a country road. Jean piloted an Intergenerational Co-Mentoring project, with co-mentor Zoey Peacock Jones. They celebrate being experts and knowing nothing simultaneously.

Zoey Peacock-Jones, she/they. Zoey is a recent graduate of The New School for Drama who is passionate about clown, teaching artistry, and intergenerational work. For the past three years, Jean E. Taylor and Zoey have piloted an intergenerational-co- mentorship program, much of which was influenced by their shared love of clown. She will be co-teaching (with Jean) a new course on Intergenerational Co-mentorship at The New School, starting in January 2024.

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PhysFestNYC is a community-focused festival that celebrates, enriches, and envisions our field of physical theaters. As an annual gathering, provides space for practitioners, audiences, and the physical-theater-curious to share in presented works, diverse workshop offerings, and community-building events.

Broken Box Mime Theater's mission is to activate the imagination of our audiences, contemporize the art of mime, and remind us all of the power of simple storytelling.