Dead Serious Clowning
A Multidisciplinary Artist And Performer
A Multidisciplinary Artist And Performer
Txi Whizz has been a professional stage clown for more than 45 years, perpetrating Fools Theatre. She brings a wealth of experience to her performances and generously shares her clowning skills in performance workshops with people of all skill levels.
A Multidisciplinary Artist And Performer
A Multidisciplinary Artist And Performer
A Multidisciplinary Artist And Performer
Txi Whizz is a true Renaissance Woman. She is equally qualified showing her photo collages at an art gallery in Toronto as she is in Patagonia giving an iconic performance at the Clown Festival in El Bolson, Argentina.
Physical Theatre
A Multidisciplinary Artist And Performer
Physical Theatre
Performance is at the core of Txi´s teaching. The intention of Txi Whizz's performance workshops is to train performers to generate genuine and powerful performance. Txi encourages her students to daringly collaborate with other artists.
Contact Txi Whizz
Txi Whizz
Txi Whizz - artists profile and history
Txi Whizz aka Barbara Hannah
Clown, multi-disciplinary artist, creator, performer, writer, director, choreographer, teacher - soloist, collaborator and large ensemble player. Following are highlights from the past 45+ years, illustrating an extensive professional career, rich in experience, versatility and scope.
2018 ♦ Heart Beats - Taught and directed performance with Damarise Ste Marie and Laurel Murphy.
2017 ♦ Taught Clown & Physical Theatre at Winnarainbow for Adults, a 6-day performing arts residency in northern California ♦ Performed in the Festival de Clown de El Bolson, Rio Negro, Argentina & taught a 4-day performance workshop ♦ Taught 2 introductory clown theatre workshops in Buenos Aires.
2016 ♦ Festival de Clown de El Bolson, Rio Negro, Argentina taught workshop & performed in the Variety Show on the final night of the festival ♦ Taught introductory clown theatre workshop in Montevideo, Uruguay ♦ Celebrated 30 years co-directing Camp Winnarainbow for Adults with Wavy Gravy, performed opening night with Tash Wesp ♦ Taught a 5-day performance workshop with a final performance in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas ♦ Taught a Physical Theatre Workshop in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas.
2015 ♦ Taught a 4-day physical theatre, clown, bufon & butoh workshop in Cuernavaca, Mexico with a performance at its conclusion ♦ Directed Argentinian performer Josefina Sabate y Baudron in a solo clown show ♦ Directed Argentinian performer Romina Vallogia in a solo piece ♦ Took a Kokoro Dance workshop & performed in an open-studio at Scotiabank Dance Centre ♦ Co-directed Camp Winnarainbow for Adults in northern California ♦ Directed solo shows for Gabriela Ottogalli and Amalia Schardrovsky, 2 Argentinian clowns living in Chiapas, Mexico ♦ Performed a new idea in a Variety Show in San Cristobal de las Casas ♦ Taught 2 performance workshops in Physical Theatre/Clown.
2014 ♦ Contributed 10 autobiographical photo-collages to Adad Hannah’s installation called Three Generations at the Koffler Gallery in Toronto ♦ Taught & directed 18 clowns for the final performance of the InJest Festival of Clown & Play in Vancouver ♦ With Hiroko Tamano taught & directed a Butoh/Bufon collaboration project in Berkeley, California at the Subterranean Arthouse ♦ Co-directed Camp Winnarainbow for Adults with Wavy Gravy; performed in the opening performance with Gregg Moore; taught physical theatre & directed a group performance for the final camp show.
2013 ♦ With Hiroko Tamano, taught & performed in Butoh/Bufon, a 2 week performance workshop in Vancouver, BC ♦ Taught a mask workshop in Chiapas, Mexico ♦ For the 8th consecutive year, taught physical training for FOMMA, Fortaleza de la Mujer Maya, a Chiapecan indigenous women’s development collective with their own theatre company & state of the art theatre in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas.
2012 ♦ In Chiapas, Mexico, worked with an established troupe ImproSplash to strengthen & refine their show’s opening & to set transition piece ♦Taught a performance workshop in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, where after 24 hours of workshop a group of 7 performed in Teatro de la Ciudad.
2011 ♦Taught a mask workshop and facilitated physical training for FOMMA. ♦ Taught a 2-week clown theatre workshop for the National Circus of Cuba and created a group spectacle, a Batalla de Bufones performed in Circuba’s Trompoloco big top in Havana ♦ Conceived, directed and performed in a project with painted parasols, funded by the United Way at Kits House in Vancouver, BC.
2010 ♦ Taught performance workshops in Palenque, Chiapas, and Camp Winnarainbow
2009 ♦ Performed with Hiroko Tamano at Butoh San Francisco’s “Celebrate: Butoh Dance 50th Anniversary”. ♦Taught a clown workshop for Vancouver’s Circus West performers. ♦Taught a performance workshop to immigrant mothers at Mount Pleasant Neighborhood House in Vancouver ♦Taught a weeklong Living Pictures performing art workshop at Palo Alto Art Center in California.
2008 ♦ Taught performance workshops in: San Francisco; San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico; and in Vancouver, BC with the Roundhouse Community Dancers ♦ Performed and taught Clown Dance Theatre with Nao Kobayashi at Winnarainbow for Adults ♦Danced with Kokoro Dance in the Wreck Beach Butoh Project for the 3rd time ♦Taught Autobiography and Self-Portraiture workshops to teenagers at Palo Alto Art Center in California ♦ Made a guest appearance as singer/songwriter in Accordion Noir at Vancouver’s Railway Club.
2007 ♦ Created a performance at a school for children with multiple disabilities in Atizapan de Zaragoza in Mexico. Workshops were for students, siblings, parents & teachers ♦ Taught performance workshops in ensemble performance technique to adults in Vancouver, BC ♦ Performed Butoh Mexicano Ritual with Diego Pinion & his workshop group in Seattle.
2006 ♦ Taught and created a performance piece with parasols at Palo Alto Art Center ♦ Taught performance and prepared a piece for the graduation celebration at the Meadows-Livingstone School in San Francisco.
2005 ♦ Danced with Harupin-Ha Butoh Dance Theater at the Dionysian Festival in SF.
2004 ♦ Collaboration with songwriter and accordion player Geoff Berner to write Love for Three Umbrellas, an edgy opera combining music, dance and theatre, funded by a Canada Council Inter-Arts Creation Grant.
2003 ♦ Taught dance, theatre, clown and masked performance at STSI, the Balinese Fine Arts University in Denpasar. Directed a ‘new creation’ with 40 students and a gamelan orchestra. Travel was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts ♦Taught clown dance & bufon for the Roundhouse Community Dancers ♦ Amazing Umbrella Experience at the Roundhouse in the Dance Allsorts series ♦ Txi Whizz’s Amazing Umbrella Experience played for a week in December at Vancouver’s Scotiabank Dance Centre. This project combined dance, theatre, accordion and gamelan ensemble in 80 minutes of daring and innovative community performance.
2002 ♦ Played Mamachia, Arlequino's mother and member of a Commedia dell’Arte troupe, for 30 dance performances of World Arts West's production of People Like Me in San Francisco's Cowell Theater.
2001 Co-emcee, with Wavy Gravy, of the Hog Farm's PigNic, a marathon Labor Day weekend rock-and-roll concert at Black Oak Ranch, a campsite venue in northern California.
Highlights previous to 2001: ♦1996 Opening act of Wavy Gravy’s 60th Birthday Benefit at Berkeley Community Theatre ♦Performed cabaret pieces in performance art festivals & events ♦ 1991-92 Collaborated with Barbara Bourget to write, produce and perform in STACKED. Directed by Teri Snelgrove, this dance/theatre performance was funded by the Canada Council as an artistic collaboration and first performed at the Women In View Festival ♦ 1991-92 Middle Aged Women With Guts, singing drama queens with Nan Gregory and Andrea Ahlgren-Shirley, piano accompaniment by Ross Barrett ♦1991 Played Trudy in Forbidden Fruitcake with Ross Barrett at the Globe Theatre in Regina, Saskatchewan, presented by Neutral Ground Gallery ♦1989 Choreographer and narrator for the Story of the Wooden Drum in the Marin Civic Auditorium, San Rafael, California, in the first of Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart's Planet Drum concerts ♦1988 Played the nun in Gina Bastone's Millions Die for an extended run at the Firehall Arts Centre in Vancouver ♦1984 Played Pimple the Maid and several other characters in She Stoops to Conquer, directed by Larry Lillo at Vancouver's Granville Island Arts Club ♦1983 Performed at Vancouver International Children’s Festival and Universiade in Edmonton, Alberta ♦ 1982 Performed as Fools Theatre in Denver, Colorado at the World Theatre Festival ♦ 1978-81 Company member of English director Ken Campbell’s Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool. Performed in The Warp, a 22-hour play at the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Roundhouse in London; and in Liverpool at the Everyman Theatre. Performed different newt characters in War with the Newts, at Riverside Studios, London, England ♦ 1976-81 Wrote, directed and performed in Umbrellas which toured Europe for more than five years, at venues such as the International Festival of the Clown in Dijon, France; the Avignon Festival; the Roncalli Zircus in Vienna; the Festival of Fools in Amsterdam, Holland; jazz clubs in Holland and Germany; and a Puppetry for Adults Festival in Pecs, Hungary ♦ 1973-76 Performed as Abrakadabra, a Troupe of Clowns Doing Puppet Theatre at the Barcelona Festival, in Spain; in Israel; in Toronto, Canada; in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and New York, NY; and all over England ♦ 1970-73 Worked at the New York Shakespeare Festival; constructed masks for Tom O’Horgan’s first Broadway mounting of Jesus Christ Superstar; designed sets for the Duo Theatre a Spanish/English group in Manhattan; designed costumes of the 7 deadly sins for Israel’s Habimah Theatre’s production of Dr. Faustus; designed masks for English director Michael Alfreds at the Khan Theatre in Jerusalem; built puppets and performed for the Little Angel Marionette Theatre in London, England.
Professional Training
1970 Mask Making with Jane Stein at the New York Shakespeare Festival
1975 Clown Workshops with Jango Edwards at the Festivals of Fools in Amsterdam, Holland
1983 Masked Performance & Theater, at Dell'Arte School of Mime & Physical Theater in California
1983-85 Movement Studies with Savannah Walling
1984 Creative Processes in Theatre with Eugenio Barba of Odin Theatre
1985 Voice Study with Ralph Cole, formerly of The Nylons
1987-91 Body Training and Maintenance with Jane Ellison
1988-90 Art at Emily Carr College of Art and Design
1989 Clown Workshops with Gina Bastone and Michel Dallaire
1990 Voice Study with Stella Walker
1991 & on-going Contemporary Dance and Butoh with Barbara Bourget & Jay Hirabayashi
1991 & on-going Butoh Dance with Koichi and Hiroko Tamano of Harupin Ha Dance Theatre
1994 Directors Workshop from Vancouver Women in Film
1995 Pitching a Film Workshop with Mina Shum
2001 Bouffon Workshop with Massimo Agostinelli
2002 YMCA Group Exercise Course and Qualification as an Instructor
2004 Mask & Movement Workshop with N. Sakalides, I. Panagioutoni & K. Palamides
2007 Butoh Mexicano Ritual performance workshop with Diego Pinon
2007-10 Contact Improvisation with Peter Bingham of Edam Dance
2008 Round Abouts modern dance practice with Kelly Keenan at Studio 303 in Montreal
2008 Dance Improvisation with Charlotte Zerbey & Alessandro Certini of Blu Danza from Italy
2009 Dance & Contact Improvisation with Chris Aiken
2010 Action Theater Workshop with Ruth Zaporah
2010 Butoh Dance with Katsura Kan
2013 & 2014 Improvising Contact Improvisation with Andrew Harwood
2014 Contact Improvisation with Peter Bingham
2014 Flowing Like Water with Jane Ellison & Anne Cooper
2014 5-day intensive workshop with Kokoro Dance, studio performance at Scotiabank Dance Centre
2014, 2015 & 2016 WOW Dance & Interdisciplinary Intensive with Jennifer Mascall & Steven Hill
2017 Axis Syllabus with Ruth Douthwright