Helikos Downunder Summer School 2027
February 8th → March 7th , 2027
Melbourne, Victoria
AUSTRALIA
BOUFFON INTENSIVE
Bouffon Intensive, Boulder (USA), 2024
Welcome to a new edition of the Bouffon Intensive
A wild ride in the world of mocking and grotesque theatre
A radical call for anyone who wishes to develop their satirical mind and body
and feed their poetic world
with the irresistible folly
of the ecstasy of mocking
The Bouffons are buzzing with jubilation
ready to mock the exquisite insanity of human race
It’s Time for Satyric Timing !
Stage picture from the Show We Too Us Too Me Too Too Too, Melbourne 2022
WHO ARE THE BOUFFONS?
The word Bouffon comes from a latin verb: buffare, to puff, to fill the cheeks with air, to deform oneself, to swell in order to provoke laughter. It appears to be a very old human practice. In fact, bouffons are direct descendants of the Satyrs from Ancient Greek Satyric Drama, whose task was to balance the Tragic Space through mockery and grotesque play. The actual word “Bouffons” comes from French and it entered English theatrical language through the work of Jacques Lecoq.
The essence of the Bouffon is in the dynamic of MOCKING. The MOCKER is a specific role, existing in all human societies. Bouffons represent elements of their society in an amplified, distorted or exaggerated way, thereby provoking laughter and outrage. Their Mockery doesn’t have an agenda in itself, because the Bouffons don’t have opinions, and they don’t protect any side from their mocking. They just mock everything and everybody. Their purpose is to have fun playing at being humans and therefore they use everything they find, with ferocious ecstasy and jubilation. This is their power: they see and play with everything, they feed on human dynamics in order to play with it.
Bouffons never touch on individual or private themes, instead they take on big collective dynamics and roles – involving the social complexity and the very essence of society and culture. Politics, religion, economy, power, money and finances, morality, war and the military, science, gender and race, ecology, family, education and school, cultural institutions…
If the Bouffons don’t have an agenda behind their mockery but just the ecstasy of play, the artists behind them do. Satire is a very powerful way to address societal and political issues. Sometimes it is the only theatrical genre who can fully hold the wild and often grotesque and tragic paradoxes of the individual and collective human behavior.
For Bouffon work to be possible, we need to be very well and precisely informed about the situation or themes that we are mocking, in order to see and then reveal what is hidden, what lies underneath – on the other side, in the shadow or the unspeakable. Nothing can be invented – all the movements and dynamics are documented and are based in authentic behaviors. The actors need to collect facts, not opinions. Bouffons have no opinions or values. Actors, directors, writers and members of the audience do. That’s why, as a theatre genre, Bouffon is often very provocative, because its very nature is to bring hidden things to the surface and to unmask the collective games lying behind events and human decisions. This often includes the fact that the role of oppressor and victim are always intertwined.
Everybody in the audience gets scrambled by a Bouffon piece, which can be often a bit difficult and or even unbearable. It’s not the Bouffons who are unbearable but the truth that they reveal about humanity, what is hidden, what lies underneath, on the other side, the grotesque of human society (grotesque comes from greek cryptos = hidden).
The audience laughs at the Clown.
The Bouffon laughs at the audience.
Jacques Lecoq
THE PROGRAM
First Week: THE BOUFFON FOLLY
– Play, action/reaction and fun
– Flocking and collective movements: the shapeshifting chorus
– From children playing to Bouffon games
– Engaged Madness: the “buzz”
– The Bouffon “state” and the mocking eyes
– The grotesque body: amplification, deformation, swelling and puffing
– The white bodies
– Altered states of play: bands of Bouffons, rhythm, rituals and mocking dynamics.
– The shapeshifting body.
– How the Bouffons see the world: themes of play
– Bouffons impro: non-linear and non local writing.
– The Bouffons mocking the great themes of humanity.
Pablo Picasso: Goat Dance (1959)
Second Week: THE DYNAMICS OF MOCKING
– How Bouffon relates to Tragedy, Melodrama and Clown.
– Grotesque Characters and Grotesque Bouffons.
– Grotesque Writing
– The devising of a Bouffon piece
– Staging of bands of Bouffons
– Rhythmicality and Musicality of a Bouffon band
Third Week: DEVISING WITH BOUFFONS
– Writing, Staging and Directing in the Bouffon genre: participants will work and rework on some acts, which will be presented in a public performance.
– Devising, rehearsing and performing an evening of Bouffons.
– First performance of a series of Bouffon acts.
Fourth Week: DEVELOPING THE WORK
– The scenes presented on the public performance of week three will be developed into longer forms. The group will be divided in smaller bands, each one of them developing further their work.
– Focusing on the three roles of the player, the writer and the director, each band will develop their piece aiming for short Bouffon Shows that will be presented in three public evenings.
– The core principles of devising in the style of Bouffons will be constantly at work, with the purpose of nurturing and breeding a few band of wild, ruthless and unsinkable theatre bouffons, ready to bring their work and their state of play into the world .
PRACTICALITIES
LOCATION
Pascoe Vale Uniting Church
10 Cumberland Rd, Pascoe Vale South VIC 3044, Australia
Directions
SCHEDULE
The workshop is an intensive four week Masterclass, from Monday February 1st to Sunday February 27th, with the following schedule:
Week one: Monday 8th to Friday 1th, 9:30am to 5:00 pm
Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th: Days Off
Week two: Monday 15th to Friday 19th: 9:30am to 5:00 pm
Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st: Days Off
Week three: Monday 22nd to Wednesday 24th: 9:30am to 5:00 pm
Thursday 25th: 12:00pm to 10:00pm.
7:00pm: FIRST PUBLIC PERFORMANCE of a Work-in-progress showcase.
Friday 26th: 9:30am to 5:00 pm
Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th: Days off
Week four: Monday 1st to Wednesday 3rd: 9:30am to 5:00 pm
Thursday 4th & Friday 5th & Saturday 6th: 12:00pm to 10:00pm. PUBLIC PERFORMANCES of the pieces developed from the first work in progress.
Sunday 7th 11:00 am to 10:00 pm: completion day and final Party
Bouffon Training at the Celebration Barn Theatre, USA, 2017
ADMISSION
This workshop is for theatre practitioners who have previous experiences in movement theatre and for anyone interested in the Pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq and in its evolution in the work of Giovanni Fusetti.
The aim of this course is to give participants professional theatre tools, in order to play and devise in the genre of Bouffon and Grotesque. It is a training based on generosity, poetic ruthlesness and a commitment to exploring extreme states of physical excitement, madness and play.
A fierce and playful urgency to perform is required!
HOW TO APPLY
There is no application form.
To apply to the workshop please email a brief bio, and a letter of motivation, sharing the essence of your story, vision, dream, desire, fear or inexplicable intuition that leads you to this work. Please include in your letter
– your experience with movement based theatre;
– your experience with the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq;
– your experience with Bouffons;
– anything about your physical or emotional state that you feel it is important for the teacher to know (ex: injuries or pre-existing physical conditions; specific physical or emotional needs; psychological states, diagnosed or undiagnosed).
Priority will be given to applicants who have already experienced the Bouffon work with Giovanni Fusetti or Kimberley Twiner.
Before applying please read the rules of engagement of the participants with the workshop: with oneself, with the group, with the teacher and with the work.
If you are thinking about asking AI to write for you… please read this note first.
Giovanni will contact you after receiving the application.
The first selection will happen on October 1st, 2026.
Once the application is accepted, places will be given in order of email submission.
Once Giovanni has selected 18 students, the workshop is full, and a waiting list will be created.
If you intend to participate, we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
Please send your application to giovanni.fusetti@helikos.com
Bouffon Performance at Dell’Arte School , 2007
TUITION
Early Bird Tuition: AUD$ 3.200. If full tuition is paid by November 15th, 2026
Full Tuition: AUD 3.800. If full tuition is paid between November 15th and December 15th, 2026
Late Bird: AUD 4.200. If full tuition is paid after December 15th, 2026
Once accepted, to confirm the enrollment, a deposit of AUD 1.000 is due.
Please note that the deposit is non-refundable, unless in case of cancellation of the workshop due to force majeure.
Please note that the tuition does not include accommodation and that participants will be responsible for organizing their staying in Melbourne.
A limited number of scholarships are available in the form of a reduced tuition.
Once completed the enrollment, participants will receive a message containing further practical details about the workshop.
LANGUAGE
The workshop will be taught in ENGLISH and a basic understanding of this language is required.
Helikos School, 2013
INFORMATION AND APPLICATIONS
For further information about the content of the workshop
and for APPLICATIONS, please contact Giovanni Fusetti at
For enrollment and practical enquiries please contact
KIMBERLEY TWINER
ktwiner@gmail.com
Tel: 04 68664466
See you in Melbourne!
Bouffon Training, Melbourne 2017
