notAmuse Theater
Sophie Amieva /// Theater Maker
WORKSHOPS
ACTOR TRAINING
Bouffons and Physical Comedy for students of all levels.
These high-intensity, play-focused sessions provide students with the tools to dig into the self, develop greater presence and availability on stage, and sharpen their impulses as performers. They combine collaborative exercises, experimentation, and emotional exchanges in order to develop keen performance instincts, body awareness, and intelligence.
WEEK INTENSIVE
BOUFFONS
📅 February 10th to 14th
🕖 Monday to Friday, 10 AM-3 PM
📍 Chez Bushwick - 304 Boerum St. Unit 23, Brooklyn, NY
💰 $450
The Bouffons are society's outcasts who thrive on mockery. They confront our fears of death and amplify the harsh realities of oppression, refusing to believe in anything and finding humor in everything; they remain neutral and revel in strife.
Through games and improvisations, we will explore and redefine the essence of the Bouffons. What is our personal connection to power? What are the games of the bouffons? Can we embrace the challenge of mockery?
We'll refine our mask techniques (point fixe and isolation), enhance our improvisation skills, engage in chorus work, maintain a sense of urgency, surrender to our instincts, and, most importantly, make each other laugh.
***TAKE $50 OFF TILL 01/01/2025 ***
MONDAY SERIES
GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER
Only 8 spots available for this exciting workshop!
📅 March 3rd, 10th, 17th, and 24th
🕖 Mondays from 7 PM to 10 PM
📍 Chez Bushwick - 304 Boerum St. Unit 23, Brooklyn, NY
💰 $350
Jump into the creative process and unleash your imagination! Whether you're looking to create a solo act, develop a character, or hone your self-scripting skills!
Join me for a thrilling four-week intensive where you’ll dive into developing YOUR materials. Need an audience, a supportive space, and accountability? This is your golden opportunity to brainstorm new ideas, polish existing pieces, or simply refresh your creative practice.
Over these four weeks, we’ll collaborate using elements of Clown, Bouffon, and Physical Comedy to bring your vision to life and discover YOUR unique sense of humor! All styles of Funny are welcome—whether it’s eccentric, stand-up, dance, mime, drag, burlesque. What matters is that it’s true to YOU and brings you pure JOY!
***TAKE $50 OFF TILL 01/01/2025 ***
What's in it for you?
My physical comedy classes draw from a Lecoq pedagogy that takes students on a transformative journey where the mind and the body become accomplices. We move beyond the punch line and develop a comedic logic that creates full moments of narrative driven laughter.
Bouffons is a masked clowning style that breaks down social constructs and critiques society through the use of physical humor and the grotesque. Bouffon in French means Jester, the one who speaks truth to power; They hold a mirror up to society and show us our full humanity unfiltered or censored. In doing so, they inspire a poetic territory in which to explore freedom and search for the profound.
In all my classes, I offer my students a process of confronting their fear and unleashing their beauty and authenticity. We start from identifying who we are as human beings, then learn how to hone those qualities in performance.
Who are my classes for?
My classes are for theater makers and artists of all kinds with a desire to laugh and make others laugh.
They are for actors interested in sharpening their skills. No matter your focus - by engaging in play, finding our inner child, and exploring who we are - we find a sense of pleasure onstage that makes us better performers.
What can you expect?
As past students have said . . . “expect to get more than you bargained for”
Be ready to be challenged, to shake your own ground, and to find the freedom to let go.
What will you walk away with?
You will gain the skills and tools to handle space, physicality, and audience. You will learn how to fail with grace. In doing so, you’ll walk away with a new sense of freedom, new questions, excitement, passion, and curiosity.
Professional Training
I teach bouffons and physical comedy to students of all ages, and all stages, individually and with partners including Clown Gym, The Clown School, the Examining Clown Lab and Brooklyn Comedy Collective. In these courses, I offer high-intensity, play-focused sessions that provide students with the tools to dig into the self, develop greater presence and availability on stage, and sharpen their impulses as performers. My courses combine collaborative exercises, experimentation, and emotional exchanges in order to develop keen performance instincts, body awareness, and intelligence. I also offer one-on-one coaching sessions.
Colleges and Higher Education
I have taught physical comedy, clown, bouffon, and mask at higher education institutions including Playwrights Horizons Theater School, the Terry Knickerbocker Studio, and the Movement Theater Studio. Between 2005-2020, I was an Adjunct Professor at the Experiemental Threatre Wing, a studio at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where I taught bouffon and clowning to hundreds of undergraduate students. My higher education practice combines techniques from my own diverse practice, and presents actors and theatremakers with an expansive toolkit for performance and creation.
Young Artist Education
In 2006, I co-founded and co-directed Brooklyn Beanstalk, a French and Spanish immersion program for children that uses clowning and theater as a tool for language acquisition. For over a decade, I oversaw an arts-driven educational program offering specialized language immersion classes and creative enrichment programs through arts and performances to children aged 16 months throughout elementary grades. These classes took place in collaboration with childcare centers, playgroups, the Brooklyn Public Librairies and schools across New York, and worked to foster critical thinking of young students by creating a fun, interactive learning environment.