MYSTERY BOUFFON
CARNEVALE VENEZIANO 2025
A WORKSHOP ON THE RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF FULL-BODY MASKS
IN PADUA, ITALY WITH EXCURSIONS TO VENICE
AND A PROMENADE ON THE SECOND SUNDAY OF CARNIVAL.
BOUFFON:
The word in French does not translate easily into English. “Buffoon” is wide of the mark. The etymology comes from the French word, “bouffir” which means to stuff or swell. In the work of the late great theatre pedagogue, Jacques Lecoq, the ongoing research into bouffons always involved performing a physical transformation through the device of a full-body mask. Starting off with stretchy clothing and light stuffing material, the performer-researcher would begin to stuff certain areas of this emerging bouffon body and then, through improvisational play, to explore the psychological shift that entails. Who do I become in this new body? How do I feel? What passions arise? What identity emerges?
Lecoq, an encyclopedist of human imagination, developed many categories of bouffon. The closest to mundane social realities are “grotesque bouffons”, which caricature notable types or characters. In terms of British Culture, one might think of the comedy series “Spitting Image,” or more recently, some of the work of “Little Britain”. The performer “punches upwards” at the powers that be, the potentates that wield undue influence over our lives. These bouffons enact rituals of power and privilege.
However the further one explores such mockery, the more one discovers other sides to it, more serious, more important, and even mysterious. We realize that everyone and everything is connected.
This deeper and more advanced form of bouffon, Lecoq referred to as “mystery bouffons”, no doubt chiming with his longtime collaborator and friend, Dario Fo. We can associate the witches in Macbeth, the figures caught in Dante’s inferno or in the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch, and the gargoyles above the medieval cathedrals. These bouffons enact rituals of mystery and meaning.
Most importantly, however, bouffons don’t exist until we create them. As we begin to stuff and play own bouffons, we are offered the amazing opportunity to research our own sense of meaning and mystery. Where does it reside? In our dreams? In our spiritual hunches? In our love of what is other than us, the natural world of the wilderness and the wilderness of our own imaginations? Here, the quest for the mystery bouffon takes an oneiric pathway into what might be referred to as the “shadow”, the side of ourselves and of life that is on the flipside of our forward facing, rational mind. In our dreams, every human proves that they are an artist and a visionary.
But having done this research, having drawn these bouffons up from the depths of our individual and collective unconscious minds, how do we integrate them into the world? This is where the wisdom of the ancient custom of carnival is revealed.
CARNIVAL:
“Carnival”, at its origin, means to lift, remove, or lose one’s flesh. Falling just before Lent in the Catholic calendar, it has become known as a period of revelry and indulgence before the penance of Ash Wednesday, leading up to Easter. However, in medieval Europe, it was also a time when one was invited to wear a different face, to change one’s costume and body. The joy of this feast, bidding “flesh farewell!” becomes an opportunity to inhabit a different body and identity. Roles are exchanged and reversed: monarch and pauper, male and female, human and animal, living and dead. All of the binaries that structure the power and permanence of the rational order are lifted and reversed in Carnival, and nourished by the fantastical energy of the unconscious mind, elaborated, extended, exaggerated and enjoyed. During the levity of Carnival, the ecstasy of the play of identities is experienced in revelry and mysterious communion.
OUR WORKSHOP:
We will begin work on Friday, February 21 in Padua. During the nine days of our exploration of Mystery Bouffon, we will delve into the creativity of our body/minds, our dreams and visions, our memories and mysteries, our secret worlds, as we prepare to celebrate. Building our bouffon bodies will be an essential part of this process, but also our texts, our own liturgies and spells, and how we can play them together. The workshop and our bouffon performances will take place in an intimate studio in Padua, sister city and neighbor to Venice. We will culminate our performances there on Saturday, March 1.
Our excursion into Venice will take place on March 2, the last Sunday before Mardi Gras. At that time, Venice is filled with performances of many varieties, of which our promenade will be one. This final moment is our chance to participate, inhabit and play our bouffon masks in the city-wide party of Venetian Carnival.
Our workshop will be structured as an intensive, nine-day workshop and atelier, including time for group play, individual research, construction of bouffon bodies, solo and group improvisation, writing exercises, solo and choral singing and music making. On the whole, we will work for seven hours per day from 10H – 18H, with lunch and rest breaks. We will also be planning field trips, including a group visit to the Sartori Museum in Abano Terme. On the last Sunday, we will join the Carnival in Venice.
Amy Russell will lead the workshop with fellow guide, Ivano Conte. Sara Corsini will accompany the workshop with logistical support and can help to answer questions about accommodation in Padua.
Willing and committed applicants without performance experience and training are welcome to apply. The guides will instruct is English, and have the ability to translate into Spanish, Italian and French.
The cost of the workshop is €875, which includes construction materials and group excursions. It does not include accommodation, however participants may request to be put in touch with each other to share accommodation.
To apply, please contact info@embodiedpoetics.org and please contact us with regarding questions of access. We’d love to hear from you.