London Clown Festival 2017

LONDON CLOWN FESTIVAL 2017

London Clown Festival

We are asking for funds to help us to produce the London Clown Festival 2017.

We want would really like to produce the festival again after the success of 2016 reaching out to new audiences and cementing our relationship with those that we attracted last year.  

Donating will help us to begin moving away from the pay to play model and box office splits and enable us, along with other funding, to get to a point where we can offer guarentees to our artists.

Basic Details 

• Dates 10th - 20th May (tbc)
• Location -  Finsbury Park & Hornsey Town Hall (tbc)

Aims For London Clown Festival 2017

2016 was a huge success and both audiences and performers were keen that we follow up with a second festival in 2017 in an effort to capitalise on the momentum and in order to promote the festival as an annual feature in London.

We want to build on our success by:

• Maintaining fair offers for artists
• Developing relationships with artists from the inaugural festival, supporting and furthering their creative advancement
• Paying staff fairly in line with the London living wage
• Making the festival attractive to high profile performers
• Allowing space for more workshop performances
• Encouraging emerging artists in the art form
• Offering workshops to schools, community groups free of charge
• Offering subsidised tickets to families
• Keeping prices down to promote the artists, festival and art form.
• Outside performances of street theatre and workshops
• Increased performances of family orientated shows
• Relaxed performances
• D/Deaf and hard of hearing performances

London Clown Festival 2016

The Inaugural London Clown Festival took place in June 2016 in an abandoned car park in Manor House

• 2000 tickets sold
• £5 tickets
• 70% of ticket sales to artists
• Ten days of programming
• 32 hour long performances
• 11 nationalities of performers
• 3 free cabarets
• Two talks on clowns in crisis areas charity work
• 10 work in progress presentations

4 days of workshops

Mission Statement

London Clown Festival is a festival of physical comedy and clown influenced contemporary performance exploring what Clown is to the modern performer and their audiences.

In recent years there has been upsurge in comedy and theatre of performers who have been influenced by the teachings of Lecoq and Gaulier many of whom have gone on to become celebrated award winning artists. However, Clown remains an enigma to the general public beyond the stereotypical image of the clown as found in circus performance, red nose, big shoes and squirty flower.

So much so that sometimes performers are reluctant to identify themselves as Clowns.

The influence of Clown is found everywhere once you know what to look for with performers as diverse as Tommy Cooper, Charlie Chaplin, Sasha baron cohen (Ali G, Borat), French and Saunders and Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean) amongst many that use clowning in their performances.

We at London Clown Festival program an exciting, inspiring and eclectic mix of current performers who embody the principals of this timeless art form. In doing so we hope to share the joy and exhilaration of Clown with a wide breadth of audiences both young and old. 

Links:

• London Clown Festival Website
• Radio 4 interview
• Brief Video Documentary
• Interview with Henry Maynard and Dan Lees in The Metropolist
• Full press cuttings pack

Community engagement

 A vital aspect of the festival is a genuine drive to engage with the local community.

 We will engage a community engagement officer who will be employed in the lead up and during the festival to promote the festival to groups such as:

• Local schools
• OAP societies
• D/deaf and hard of hearing societies
• Vulnerable groups
• Cultures outside of our own in the local vicinity such as the Afro Caribbean, Greek and Turkish communities
• Drama Schools and clubs including Mountview
• The ‘Friends of Finsbury park’
• The ‘Manor House Warehouse community’

We hope to provide discounted and, in some cases, free tickets to these groups to encourage attendance.

Charity work

We have close ties to both the

‘Flying Seagull Project’

We believe that it is everyone, man, woman or child’s right to put aside the cares of life and smile for a while. We work with widely varying groups in several countries to help bring smiles and happiness to people, whether as Clown Doctors for children undergoing difficult medical treatments or through arts, music and crafts workshops.

And

‘Clowns Without Borders’

Clown Without Borders believes shares joyful experiences with children living in some of the most hostile circumstance in the world including conflict zones, refugee camps and areas of natural disaster. This is because we believe every child has the right to a childhood full of laughter and play, regardless of their circumstances.  Through our clown-based performances we create unique opportunities for children to engage in imaginative play, self expression and most importantly, laughter.

Promoting their missions and helping to fundraise is an important part of the festival.