About Us

International Clown Festival 1999-2011, Svendborg, Denmark.

At the beact

The Clown festival involves the whole community from kindergarten age up till the old age pensioners. There are shows and workshops in kindergartens , schools, playschools, Old Peoples Homes, visits to hospitals, walkabout in the streets and shopping areas, the clowns are everywhere bringing smiles and the sound of laughter with them.

The clowns have the rare opportunity to meet up with fellow clowns, to watch them at work, to learn from each other and to attend the internal workshops in hospital clowning, make-up, balloon modelling, magic, mime, puppeteering, circus skills, caring clown, how to entertain under three year olds, face-painting etc…
The new and young clowns gain experience working alongside the old masters and in turn, some of their enthusiasm, freshness and naivety rubs off, giving renewed inspiration to the old timers.

Students from Commedia School in Copenhagen attend the festival every year after two months of studying “clown”. They are met and taken in hand by such clowns as “Zilly” 84 years old, president of the UK dept. of the Worlds Clown Association (WCA) with 70+ years of experience to share and “Dizzy Dez” 82 years old Master Magician, magic circle UK, to name but a few.
The festival program also includes workshops open for the public such as: introduction to circus skills jugglin, tight wire, diablo, stiltwalking, plate spinning, unicycling, acrobatics, object manipulation plus more. Improvements in concentration, eye-hand coordination, fine motor skills, reading, and behaviour are just some of the benefits of juggling cited by educators. In fact, several teachers said that juggling increases students’ ability to concentrate, enhances their eye-hand coordination, and builds self-confidence.
The children’s drawing competition, to draw a clown, promotes the creativity and imagination of hundreds of school children, producing 300+ works of art each year. Link to drawings The drawings are used to decorate the venues and later put on exhibition.
Clowns from different countries and styles, and with varying degrees of experience, spend time together, build friendships, learn from each other, exchange experiences, pass work to and fro and some even fall in love.

Many of the Danish clowns attending the festival have subsequently been invited to perform in other countries throughout Europe.
Over the years the festival has played a major role helping develop the network between Hospital Clowns throughout Scandinavia and abroad.
The festival is unique. The only one of its kind in the world.

The clowns all work on a voluntary basis without pay, as one big family, playing together.
The spirit and energy created during the festival is contagious, everyone wants to play and become a clown.

John “Clown Jo Jo” Newman
www.clownfestival.dk

Jo Jo