The district in Barcelona called Les Corts will once again be home to the Circorts Festival, a free annual celebration of contemporary circus arts. Now in its 26th edition, the festival is dedicated to showcasing emerging talent in acrobatics, clowning, physical theatre, music, and aerial arts. With performances across multiple outdoor stages, workshops for all ages, and accessible programming, Circorts […]
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Patrick Van den Boom and ClownSchool International are presenting a retreat/workshop in Italy starting next week. The Retreat goes from May 18-25, 2025 and will feature Patrick more as a facilitator than as a teacher as he helps people find their clown and their voice in beautiful southern Italy. Patrick is a Dutch clown who moved to Norway in […]
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The Zagreb Clown Festival is happening this week May 8-11, and it looks like I will be in attendance! (Not performing, just watching, networking, and drinking with the clowns) The festival is now in its 6th year, and had over 77 shows apply to perform on the stage. This year the theme is clowning across cultures, and they strove to […]
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The Clownvergence is almost here! I am a little late in letting you all know, (just realized last week that it was happening) and wanted to give it a shout out here, in case you can come. It’s Clownvergence! It’s hosted and invented by Barnaby King, the Clown-Spirit community owner and mentor. He’s gathered a lot of interesting folk together, […]
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Since I was a young man, I have always been obsessed with a photograph by Alfred Eisenstadt. Taken in 1963, it depicts a number of children watching an outdoor puppet show at the moment that the Dragon is slain. It’s a wonderful photograph, full of joy and wonderful and that moment of belief that children have. I love that photograph, […]
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I have lived in Barcelona now for 3 years, and it never ceases to amaze me how festivals get by my radar. I have my antennas tuned for circus and theatre festivals, but somehow I just discovered this circus festival happening this weekend. It is about 15 blocks from my house, and in it’s 25th year, which means that for […]
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Sad news, friends. It has just been announced that PeeWee Herman (actor Paul Reubens) has been struggling with cancer for the last 6 years and has just lost that battle, passing away on Sunday evening.. I read it on Rolling Stone, but wanted to write about it here. He was a big influence on me as a young performer, and […]
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TAKE A WALK ON THE FUNNY SIDE: CLOWN SKILLS 101 I’m teaching Clown Skills 101 an intro to clowning class at the Comedy Clubhouse twice in the next couple of months. The classes are on Sunday May 14 and Sunday June 14 from 12pm-4pm at the Comedy Clubhouse in Barcelona. (Each class is a separate class) It’s a beginner’s level […]
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UPDATE: due to a suitcase malfunction (didn’t arrive on time) the show will be on Friday at 8:30 pm, and the class will be SATURDAY only. Prices for the class are less, and if you already purchased tickets, you will get a refund. Links should still be valid At Espai Piluso, a small space in Barcelona’s Poble Sec neighborhood, Swiss […]
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Two of the original members of Theatre de Complicite , Jos Houben and Marcello Magni, opened the 2016 London International Mime festival with their show Marcel, It’s a clown double act in which Houben, the tall, skinny figure of authority puts the shorter clown Magni through a series of demanding physical and mental tests. What these tests are for, it’s […]
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Joe Dieffenbacher, former director of the Clown Conservatory in San Francisco and the former clown teacher at the Dell’arte School, is teaching some workshops in Spain. And I’m attending some of them! I’ve written about Joe before multiple times, see here to see the list, and I’ve known Joe a long time, but I don’t think I’ve ever taken a […]
Read moreDan Rice, the most famous clown you’ve never heard of, is going to turn 200 this year! You may not have heard of him, but surely, you know his image. Dan Rice was “most likely” the model for the classic Uncle Sam poster. It’s not 100% proven, but the poster looks a lot like him, and combines his costume and […]
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I’ve been attending the Festival of Fools here in Barcelona, which has been among other things a big send off to the Never Ending Jango Edwards, one of the principals of the festival for the last 50 years. (For the history of the festival, check out this recent post about the latest book about it.) Jango recently announced that he […]
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The Festival of Fools Barcelona 2022 is in fool swing right now. I’ve seen a few of the shows this year so far, and have been posting excerpts of some of the videos I’ve taken over on my Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/kafclown/ If you want to catch any of the festival, you should check out their website https://festivaloffoolsbcn.com/. There are plenty of […]
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I got a call a few days ago from someone looking to talk about clowns. And since that is one of my favorite subjects, I was more than happy to oblige. Now I don’t purport to be a spokesperson for clowns, or represent clowns on the whole. I wouldn’t say I’m a particularly good role models for other clowns to […]
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I’ve been coming to Barcelona for the past four years, and I’ve known Harris about that long. He’s a business guy turned magician, who has been slowly and patiently creating a niche for himself here in Barcelona as a comedy magician. He has (or had) an online store, a magic podcast, he plays standup comedy audiences as well as corporate […]
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