Barcelona Journal

Last summer I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a Philippe Gaulier workshop in Barcelona. I wound up learning so much over that week, and getting to experience a learning environment where you’re surrounded by people that don’t understand you verbally is amazing.

My talented and amazing roommate Kyla was taking a bouffon workshop with one of Gaulier’s protégées and one of my favourite teachers, Adam Lazarus in Toronto. She was having the normal “what is this” questions about bouffon (it always seems like a slow response to understand bouffon… it’s just weird and amazing.)

To make Kyla feel that she is not the only one with troubles understanding bouffon, I pulled out my journal from Barcelona and read her an entry. What’s funny, is now, over a year later, I love bouffon and find myself throwing elements of it into characters that I portray.

And now I share with you.

~*~

THE WORKSHOP IS OVER!

I leave with a regret that I did not get a chance to perform on la denier jornee, but I saw beautiful moments of humanity, like when Jordy, this guy in my class was rapping in spanish about being tough, being tough, being tough… then took off his hood to show us that he was a beautiful human being.

Because I am optimiste, I leave with a sense of "What is Bouffon" and after looking at these pages of notes and decompressing, I will probably understand more.



I feel so restricted with bouffon, I don't feel it to be in my heart like a clown but it is good to know the aspects of bouffon to enhance my performance, any performance.

"Madame Toronto! Why are you not looking at the audience!" he says to me...

I'm not sure I'll be rushing off to do solo bouffon anytime soon.

Decompressing from the week I will realize more as well.

Natural moments are the best to feel and watch and maybe it's not Bouffon I grasped from this week, but rather a sense of being truthful in the theatre. Honest about what is boring and what is not and how I can change these things as an actor.

While we were watching a group of bouffons on stage, Gaulier turns to me and says,

"Do you think it is funny to tell students they are boring?"

Nobody says anything. We're tired of pitching in our honest thoughts, it’s hot in Barcelona, and it's Friday.

"Is it?" he pauses "You think it's funny?"

We look at him. He humbly replies,

"It is."