Facilitating At The Speed Of Fun

Nov 05 2024

This years’ British Association of Dramatherapists (BADth) conference took place (mostly) online over the week of the 14th October 2024. It was titled: Creativity in Conflict; Empowering Change Through Dramatherapy and I was both an attendee and a presenter, gorging myself on all the dramatherapy goodness I could get my hands on, as well as offering my own workshop titled; ”Exploring Internal Conflict Through Creative and Embodied Approaches To Internal Family Systems (IFS).” 

This blog explores my learning during two sessions at the conference, Drew Bird’s Monday morning presentation, “To Be Or not to be a clown: Conflict on and off the stage” and my Friday evening embodied IFS workshop. It’s a blog about bringing fun into facilitation. It’s a blog about what stops us following our impulses towards connection and play. It features theory from clowning, fooling and Internal Family Systems (IFS), as well as personal reflection and ponder points for you, dear reader. It’s quite long, my Inner Academic may* have got a bit carried away. 

*She definitely did, but waddaya gonna do?

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How do the Clown and the Fool meet?

Feb 15 2022

Massimo “Max” Cavallini is an Italian clown and fool, living in the Netherlands. He invited me to talk about how the Fool meets the Clown, ahead of his new two day workshop called "The Fool through the eyes of a Clown.” 

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When Holly met Barnaby King

Oct 14 2021

I was invited to have a "Clownversation" with Barnaby King of Clown Spirit. This was a live conversation streamed in Barnaby's facebook group, The Way Of The Clown. Here's the video:

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Me and My Anxiety Monster

Aug 26 2021

One of the highlights of my pandemic experience has been getting to work one-to-one with a fantastic array of artists, facilitators, therapists and researchers over Zoom, through my Creative Consultancies. It's been such a joy to guide people's creative and therapeutic explorations and I intend to keep this string to my bow. I’ll be opening up for new clients this September.

For this blog, I wanted to celebrate one of the amazing individuals I worked with from September 2020 to January 2021. I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to share what happens in the Creative Consultancies as they are private and confidential, but as this project had many public facing elements, I asked the artist for her permission to share this blog and she agreed

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A chat with de Castro & Franki Anderson

Jun 30 2021

As part of the Why Not Cafe's new series of clown conversations, I got to have a lovely chat with two of my favourite teachers, clown maestro Angela de Castro and master fool Franki Anderson. This blog contains the recording of the chat as well as charting the conversation; paraphrasing some bits, quoting other bits and offering a bit of bonus extra background on some of the topics covered, which included; how we met, how we've influenced each other's work, how our students are our greatest teachers, pivotal moments of our teaching evolution, the difference between clowning and fooling, the importance of safety in clowning and fooling workshops, how some teachers methods are good for people who have emotional armour and others are good for hyper sensitive people and what we're up to next.

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Clowning Out Of Chaos Panel Video

May 26 2021

On the 22nd May 2021 as part of the Clowning Out of Chaos Conference, The Online Clown Academy held a panel discussion, exploring the themes of the conference; how can clowning help us to meet inner and outer chaos?

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When Holly met Andrew Cain

May 19 2021

I met Andrew Cain from Play Connect for a chat on Zoom.

Andrew is a Brighton-based improvisation teacher and therapist who specialises in helping people into play and connection. He wanted to find out about what I do and how I do it.

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Holly on The Big Juicy Creative Podcast

Dec 27 2020

If you've got time for listening to podcasts, here's me chatting with Suzy Bashford on the Big Juicy Creative podcast.

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Holly talks on the Playfulife Podcast

Dec 10 2020

...cast your mind back to the heady days of May when the air was thick with the scent of blossom and the baby ducklings were just starting to hatch. Anthony Trahair from Playfulife approached me for an interview after watching my Bristol TEDx talk. 

Anthony was especially interested to hear about how safety and risk, vulnerability  and allowing ourselves to be seen in all our weirdness and wildness, feature in my Clown-o-therapy work...

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Clowns In Crisis Open Space Notes

Nov 13 2020

On Sunday 8th November 2020, we held an online Open Space session on Zoom, exploring the theme of our conference, 'Clowns In Crisis.' All weekend, through performances, workshops and a panel discussion, we'd been exploring what clowning can do for us and what clowns can do for the world. 

The Open Space was a chance for an international group of clowns and clown enthusiasts to come together and discuss what was relevant to them personally and professionally. This blog captures a little of what happened, including notes and pics from participants.

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