One Week Clown & Physical Comedy Workshop with Clare Bartholomew

Name: One Week Clown & Physical Comedy Workshop with Clare Bartholomew
Start: 2026-01-25T23:30:00+11:00
End: 2026-01-29T19:00:00+11:00
Location: Dancehouse, Melbourne Australia

Schedule

Sun, 25 Jan, 2026 at 11:30 pm to Thu, 29 Jan, 2026 at 07:00 pm

UTC+11:00

Location

Dancehouse, Melbourne Australia | Melbourne, VI

COME SPEND FIVE DAYS DIVING HEADFIRST INTO THE JOYFUL, RIDICULOUS, FINELY TUNED, AND FULLY ALIVE WORLD OF CLOWN AND PHYSICAL COMEDY WITH ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S MOST EXPERIENCED AND CURRENTLY TOURING PERFORMERS AND TEACHERS.
Clare brings three decades of lived, on-the-floor, in-front-of-real-audiences experience. She’s not teaching from concepts or the past: she’s performing constantly, nationally and internationally, testing ideas, refining the craft in real time with fresh audiences every week.
This workshop is a vibrant, generous space for play: a place to take creative risks, discover the fun of your own absurdity, and explore the kind of connection that energises an audience. Clare distils her lived practice, the instincts, the precision, and the glorious flops that ultimately light the way into a playful, structured, deeply practical week of creative investigation for performers hungry to stretch, leap, and surprise themselves.
Over the five days we will explore exercises, tasks and scenarios for solos, duos and small groups where you’ll practice expressing joy, vulnerability, mischief, your inner idiot, and the absolute pleasure of “being seen” by an audience. The workshop is hands-on, joy-forward, and designed to feed directly into your artistic practice, whether you’re devising new work, strengthening stage presence, or wanting permission (and a push!) to be gloriously, imaginatively silly.
The workshop will focus on:
Your solo presence - what makes you funny before you do anything.
Investigating your personal relationship with clown and embracing your own stupidity.
Practicing the joy of “being seen.”
Ensemble complicité
Group devising provocations for duos, trios, and beyond.
Physical comedy scenarios, games and improvisations
Deconstructing physical comedy techniques to understand how and why they land.
What we explore together will feed directly into your live performance work and devising processes. Strong clowning and physical comedy skills sharpen everything: farce, pure clown, stand-up, circus, cabaret, scripted plays, devised work, even dramatic text.
Clare draws from 30 years of performance, devising, directing and touring as well as training with John Bolton, Sophie Gazel, Jos Houben, Angela De Castro, Philippe Gaulier, Sian Newey, Alex Pinder, Phil Burgers and others to create workshops that are practical, generous and instantly applicable.
Who is this for?
Performers with some experience from any background: acting, circus, dance, cabaret, comedy, physical theatre who are ready to take risks, be ridiculous, be brave, be seen, and have fun.

Read about Clare’s extensive experience in a freshly published ARTShub article:
https://www.artshub.com.au/.../so-you-want-my-arts-job.../

TESTIMONIALS:
"Clare is without doubt one of Australia's most experienced and funniest clowns. Her experience has also made her a brilliant teacher. She's perceptive and gives very helpful directions. You will be a better, more sensitive and aware performer after one of her workshops. I've been so lucky to have had her direct me. Australia is lucky that someone of her calibre and experience lives here and is able to teach Australian performers." - Josh Glanc
"Clare is an amazing and nurturing teacher who made us all feel so comfortable to try things out and allow ourselves to be super silly! I loved the class environment she created and there were so many gems I learnt to take into my practice. What a legend." - Stephanie Teitelbaum
"Clare was one of my first ever teachers and really opened my eyes to the world of clown, when I first saw her perform, she had a wonderful magic in her eyes and I thought to myself “I want to have that” I have had the opportunity to participate in many of Clare’s workshops over the years, she is a wonderful and generous teacher with lots of fantastic clown secrets to share, if you get the opportunity to work with her and you want to be a clown, my recommendation is take that chance." - Paul Bourke
"The world of Clown can be intimidatingly vulnerable. It is important to have a teacher that can hold all the feelings that might come up with nurturing presence. Clare brings so much warmth and heart to her teaching which creates a space where it feels safe and accessible to "have a go". She oozes Clown star quality and just seeing her standing and apparently doing nothing provides so much embodied learning about the subtle beauty of the clown state. This training is the real deal foundational stuff." - Amaya Vecellio
"Clowning can be really intimidating to learn and try, however Clare holds such a warm, safe space for people to try new things and be creative while also giving nuggets of teaching gold. Loved being able to learn so much in these four days, couldn't recommend her and this workshop enough for anyone looking for a friendly and educational approach to clown.” Simon Wood
"Thank you Clare for creating the environment for participants to be their true creative self. There was one truly exhilarating moment when I plunged into the unknown. I know you know which one... and a great level of self expression was permitted by both you and ultimately myself. Clowning at that workshop brought such joy! I also learnt much from the exercises and all the useful tips!" Carmen
ABOUT CLARE
Clare Bartholomew is a Melbourne-based performer, writer, director and producer who has been creating new theatrical works across Australia and internationally for over 30 years. She is best known as Astrid from the anarchic pop-punk sibling duo Otto & Astrid - Die Roten Punkte, who have toured everywhere from Joe’s Pub (NY) to Soho Theatre (London) to La Botanique (Brussels). They have won numerous awards for their work including four Greenroom Awards for Most Outstanding Production, Writing and Ensemble (and 22 nominations) as well as nominations for the Time Out & Soho Theatre Award and Total Theatre Award, Edinburgh.
As Salvador Dinosaur, Clare and collaborator Daniel Tobias have also created acclaimed works including Sunny Ray & The Magnificent Moon, The Orchid and the Crow, and the non-verbal physical comedy farce The Anniversary with Peter Houghton.
Clare has taught at the John Bolton Theatre School, VCA (theatre makers and actors), NICA, Collarts, she has run masterclasses nationally and internationally at LA’s Lyric Hyperion, University of New Mexico - US, Atomic Vaudeville, Victoria - Canada, Handsome Little Devils, Denver – US and for the Tasmanian & Mullum Circus Festivals’.
She has worked as a Clown Doctor for 25 years and runs regular training programs for Clown Doctors Australia. She has performed with, consulted on, or directed works for: Batton & Broadway, Circus Oz, Dummies Corp, Barnie Duncan’s Juan Vesuvius, Josh Glanc, Hannah Gadsby, Fringe Wives Club, Women’s Circus, Rawcus, Bunk Puppets and many others. She is currently writing and directing a new physical comedy called The Portrait, devising alongside Emilie Bloom & Tim Sneddon.
“Astrid (Clare Bartholomew) is a crisp-eating comedy powerhouse. She is a superb clown. Everything about her is funny.”
- Kate Copstick, The Scotsman
Ticketing & Queries - TRYBOOKING LINK: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1514885
Early Bird price $680 (before until January 15th)
Full Price $780 (from January 16th)
There is a non-refundable deposit to secure any booking $250
We have a couple of discounted spots available for folks experiencing financial hardship, please enquire.
Any general enquiries about workshop, payments or Try Booking deets please contact Jess Lu: [email protected]
Any specific workshop questions or access needs please contact me: [email protected]