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Bristol Physical Theatre Project, Cato Street, Bristol (2026)

Bristol Physical Theatre Project is a series of workshops and regular classes offering training and research opportunities for performers, theatre makers and performing arts students. The project aims to foster a collaborative network where participants can meet, exchange ideas and learn new theatre making skills together. The workshops and classes are facilitated and taught by Igne Barkauskaite -

a Bristol based theatre maker and teacher specialising in devised performance and physical theatre. Igne trained at “L’Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq” (2011 – 2013) and also holds a BA in Drama at UWE (2008-2011). Whilst in Paris, Igne has also had an opportunity to train with Peter Brook (International Centre for Theatre Research) and Nina Dipla (Tanztheatre Wuppertal - Pina Bausch). After completing her two – year course at Lecoq, Igne continued her research at Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico (Syracuse) where she also worked as a visiting movement and improvisation teacher for the undergraduate actors’ course (2013-2014). As a performer and theatre maker Igne has also collaborated with The Missing Pieces (Hamilton House), The Edible Theatre (Bristol Old Vic), The Mechanical Animal Coorporation (The Paintworks, Bristol Old Vic, Edinburgh Fringe), Panevezio Dramos Teatras (Lithuania) and others. Igne's research and teaching revolve around the methods of Lecoq, Grotowski, Brook and Pina Bausch. She is also interested in new writing – grotesque and absurd in particular. As a workshop facilitator and teacher, Igne aims to create an encouraging and inclusive environment where her students can explore, experiment and challenge themselves through the process of learning.

29/05/2026

What happens in a clown workshop?

I work with small groups (8 people max) because clown is deeply individual work. Each participant arrives with their own rhythm, sensitivity, imagination, humour and resistance — and it matters to me to give space and attention to that. Over many years of practice, I’ve learned that smaller group size allows me to support each artist more fully, and to hold the work with care and focus.

I aim to build a warm and trusting ensemble environment where everyone can explore, play, fail and surprise themselves.

Throughout the weekend we work with sound, poetry and movement to explore the many textures of clown — from intimate and vulnerable to absurd, existential and grotesque.

The training is rooted in Jacques Lecoq pedagogy and includes improvisation, movement, space awareness and performance skills. We begin with simple exercises that gradually become more complex over the two days, with space for both action and reflection.

Complete beginners are welcome.

A couple of places remain for this weekend’s intensive.

30–31 May
, Bristol

23/05/2026

How do I meet my clown?
How do I start thinking about it?
How do I find it?

These are some of the questions I’m most often asked by participants in clown workshops.

And my answer is usually this: finding your clown is not an intellectual process.

It’s the work of feeling, play, exploration, failure.

Sometimes it’s shedding light on the parts of ourselves that achingly long to be seen. Sometimes it’s creating space for inner silence. Sometimes it’s breathing. Often it’s allowing yourself to be ridiculous without rushing to explain or correct it.

Meeting your clown can be gradual or unexpected. There isn’t one right way. But once you recognise it, you’ll know.

Here are a few self-reflective prompts I find useful. Not a recipe — more like small doors into exploration:

— When do I feel slightly exposed, embarrassed, or “too much”?
— What makes me laugh about myself when I’m alone?
— When do I become overly sincere, overly excited, or overly serious without meaning to?
— What do I tend to fail at repeatedly, even in small everyday situations?
— How do I behave when I don’t know what to do next?
— What is my first impulse when I enter a space where I might be seen or judged?
— Where do I try too hard — and what am I trying to prove?
— Where do I become unexpectedly naïve, literal, or childlike?
— What do I do when I want to be liked?
— What do I do when I stop trying to be liked?
— What kinds of attention/things do I secretly enjoy?

In the photo there’s a little clown creature I called Borisa.

I found her in an antique shop by the side of a motorway on the way to Sarajevo in 2019. She was sitting there alone among harsh dictatorial symbols, oversized broken furniture, old dirty pans and kitsch paintings, as if waiting to be adopted.

I adopted her.

I also come from a similar world, I thought.

What a coincidence.

📌 The Red Nose Intensive, 30-31 May in Bristol at

Bookings: [email protected]

15/05/2026

The clown enters alone.
Even when there are others on stage, the clown arrives from a place of radical solitude. The audience feels it immediately — that exposed human standing under the light with nowhere to hide.

This is why clown training terrifies most people!
A big part of actor training is built on control: objectives, interpretation, and emotional architecture. Clown dismantles these defenses. The clown does not perform loneliness but is actually alone with silence and with the possibility that nothing is funny or interesting.

A clown walks onstage carrying the ancient human question: Will you stay with me even now — in my failure, my ridiculousness, my need?
The audience laughs not because the clown is competent, but because the clown is unable to fully conceal their humanity.

For actors, this demands a brutal shift in emotional landscape. To stop demonstrating emotion and instead allow oneself to be seen thinking, failing, waiting. To allow emptiness without rushing to fill it. To stand in front of people without the armour of competence.

In clown, timing is born not from technique alone but also from listening. The clown listens with the whole body: to breath, stillness, discomfort, laughter, and impatience.

We will work with silence, vulnerability, rhythm, pleasure, failure, presence, and the fragile poetry of being seen.

Because perhaps every actor (and human) knows this feeling: standing alone in front of others, waiting for connection to happen.

To find out more there’s The Red Nose Intensive happening in Bristol at on 30-31 May! GET IN TOUCH beautiful people🔥❤️

Address

Cato Street
Bristol
BS56JL

Website

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