Many spiritual masters have one thing in common: a great sense of humour. Some of them (Christ included) have been dubbed Holy Fools. Indeed, it has been the role of Sacred Clowns in different traditions to shake up the status quo whenever things got too dogmatic or serious.
Join us for a week in the company of Rumi, Rabia, Hafiz, the Buddha, Uzume, Jesus and more to take our spiritual questing a little more lightly, to laugh at ourselves in the many mirrors of what it is to be human.
Facilitators
Vivian and Ashley began teaching the skills of their different crafts ( clowning and storytelling) back in the eighties; together they will bring you over 70 years of their experience, mistakes, momentary epiphanies and mutual madness.
Ashley Ramsden
Ashley Ramsden is the founding director of the School of Storytelling, the longest established centre of its kind in the United Kingdom.
He has toured with his remarkable storytelling programmes on all five continents, has appeared at major storytelling festivals in the UK, South Africa, Scandinavia and America.
He is as much at home telling in the Sydney Opera House or alongside the London Symphony Orchestra as he is in your front room. Ashley’s unique methods of teaching voice and the skills of the storyteller have received international acclaim.
Vivian Gladwell
Vivian is the founder and director of Nose to Nose and has given hundreds of workshops around the world. He lives both in the UK and France where he started clowning in 1978. He speaks French and English fluently.
Vivian began teaching in 1988 as part of the Lifeways Festival at Emerson College – UK. He trained as a facilitator with the Bataclown in 1990 and joined their team in 1991 also working as a modern day Court Jester (Clownanalyst).
He created Nose to Nose UK in 1990, Nose to Nose of North America in2006 and Fool View, the Social Clowning group and has trained facilitators in the UK, the USA, Germany and Italy – view history.
He continues his role as ambassador for the work by researching the applications of clowning in the context of teacher training, medicine, conflict management, ecology and intercultural work in many countries (South Africa, USA, Senegal, Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Italy, Germany, Norway…)
He holds clowning as a social playground for exploring our humanity.
Booking
09 – 14 March 2025 at Emerson College, Forest Row, UK
The cost of this course is £520 – a small number of places are available for bursaries from Emerson, please email the registrar. If you are ready to apply please click here .
To book meals and accommodation please click here.
Are you curious about clowning? Would you like an opportunity to meet the course leaders and learn more? We are offering online ‘insight’ sessions which will give you the chance to do just that. To register, select a date and time from the options below:
Monday 13th January 2025 at 7pm GMT / 8pm CET
Saturday 18th January 2025 at 2pm GMT / 3pm CET