Enrollments by 28.8.2026

KEY WORDS

Bouffon workshop, physical theatre, body masks, bouffon characters

TO WHOM

Professionals, students and advanced amateurs in the wide field of performing arts.

COURSE DESCRIPTION 

In this intensive weekend workshop, you can unleash your visual-movement creativity and create a most outrageous bouffon character. In addition to building a body mask, a comprehensive grotesque essence will be created for the characters, including their movement language, voice, and logic. The work utilizes physical comedy techniques to achieve the exaggerated level of expression characteristic of the genre.

The roots of bouffons extend back to the satyr plays and jesters of Ancient Greece. More recent connections tie into the French tradition of physical theater; the term "bouffon" was launched by theater educator Jacques Lecoq (1921–1999), and bouffons became one of the cornerstones of Lecoq pedagogy.

The core of the genre is mockery and satire. Bouffons examine social themes and make their observations visible through exaggeration and the grotesque. The primary strengths of bouffons are all-seeing awareness and playfulness. A bouffon's mockery never directly targets individuals or private topics, but rather large collective themes.

TEACHER

Soile Mäkelä (MA) is a founder member of Teatteri Metamorfoosi and a theater teacher who graduated from University of the Arts Helsinki, Theatre Academy in 2008. She is approaching theater from the physical point of view, highly influenced by the French Lecoq pedagogy. Mäkelä has been teaching physical theater, with different masks, for twenty years.

LANGUAGE

Finnish, or English if necessary

SCHEDULE

Sat-Sun 10-17:00 

(including 1 h lunch break + shorter coffee pauses / day)

PARTICIPANTS

Max 20

COURSE FEE: 100 € (Tehdas Teatteri members) and 130 € for others

NOTE! Registration is binding. An invoice for the course fee will be sent on Monday, August 31, provided there are enough participants.

REQUESTS

About the content of the workshop:

Soile Mäkelä

soile@metamorfoosi.com