Clown Psychomagic Ritual: Samhain Weekend- Bristol

Clown Psychomagic Ritual: Samhain Weekend- Bristol

A two-day outdoor workshop exploring clown, ritual theatre, psychomagic, ceremony, embodiment, imagination and play.

WHEN: October 31st & November 1st (Halloween/ Samhain Weekend)
Saturday/Sunday- 12:00am - 6pm 

WHERE: Bristol, Near Eastville Park in nature and an outdoor covered area with fire pit, close to the elements.

INVESTMENT: (2 day in person course- 12:00am - 6pm)
£130 - Early bird (book before October 5th @ Midnight 2026)
£165- 200 £ Sliding scale (scroll down for more info)

• Optional Sunday Sauna Integration add on from 6pm-7pm- 10£ to join, you can decide on the weekend or include this price in your ticket, as you wish.

TO REGISTER:
Registration: To avoid ticket link fees,  please email:  info.clownlife@gmail.com to secure your place

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THE INVITATION:

Halloween and Samhain fall on the same weekend this year, so we're going to make the most of it.

This is a playful, experiential workshop for anyone curious about clown, creative expression, ritual and the ridiculous nature of being human.No previous clown experience is needed, and you don't need to be a performer.

Over the two days we'll learn and practise the fundamentals of contemporary clown, then use clown as a gateway into ritual theatre, psychomagic, symbolic action and ceremony. We'll play, move, perform, make things up, dress up, laugh, create rituals, work with intention and explore what happens when we give our imagination and expression a little more freedom. The work can be silly. It can be profound. Usually it's both.

🌑 WHAT WILL WE ACTUALLY DO?

I'll begin by introducing you to some of the foundations of clown:

presence, play, vulnerability, risk, failure, relationship with an audience, taking space and full expression.

From there we'll explore what happens when these principles move beyond conventional performance and into ritual and ceremony.

We'll work with:

🤡 Clown
Presence, play, vulnerability, failure, risk, taking the stage, finding the ridiculous and expressing yourself more freely.

🎭 Ritual Theatre
Using performance, movement, voice, costume, symbolism and imagination to give form to something we want to explore.

🔮 Psychomagic
Creating symbolic and embodied actions around personal intentions, questions, endings and beginnings.

🌿 Nature & the Elements
Working outdoors with the land, autumn, darkness, fire and the changing season.

🃏 Tarot & Archetypes
We'll do one of my Clown Tarot Rituals as a taste of the wider Clowning the Tarot practice that I offer.

🔥 Samhain Ceremony
Exploring the seasonal threshold of endings, beginnings, remembrance, release and renewal supported by our clown lens.

👥 Collective Creation
Making rituals and performances together, witnessing one another and discovering what emerges from the group.

And, of course:

You can Expect A LOT of ridiculousness.

🔮 WHAT IS PSYCHOMAGIC?

Psychomagic is an approach associated with Chilean artist and filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, exploring the use of symbolic action, ritual, theatre and imagination as a way of engaging with our inner lives. My own practice has grown from years of studying clown alongside ritual theatre, shamanism, ceremony, nature-based practices, near Linguistic programming and personal development.

I'm interested in what happens when we stop simply thinking or talking about something and give it an embodied form.

For example:

What if instead of saying "I'm ready to let this go," you create a symbolic action that represents releasing it?

What if instead of trying to overcome your fear of being seen, you deliberately play with being ridiculous?

What if an intention isn't just something you write down, but something you embody, perform, witness and commit to?

Clown is a particularly powerful vehicle for this because it teaches us to risk being seen, embrace failure, laugh at ourselves and discover freedom in the very places where we might normally feel embarrassed or inhibited.

This weekend is an opportunity to experiment with those principles through play, ritual, performance and community.

You don't need to believe in magic.You can approach the work as theatre, psychology, imagination, ritual, art, personal exploration or simply an experiment.

🖤 WHAT MIGHT YOU TAKE FROM THE WEEKEND?

This isn't a course where I'm promising that everyone will have the same transformation.

You may come with something specific you want to explore, release or call towards yourself.Or you may simply come because you want to play, perhaps you are tantalised by this unique and unusual combination of methodologies.  

Whatever your reason for coming, you will:

• Expand your understanding and practice of clown
• Become more comfortable being seen
• Take creative and performative risks
• Explore vulnerability without taking yourself too seriously
• Discover new ways of using movement, voice and imagination
• Develop ideas for performance and creative work
• Explore a personal question through Tarot and archetype
• Create an embodied ritual around an intention
• Experiment with symbolic action and ritual theatre
• Experience the power of collective witnessing
• Reconnect with play, curiosity and imagination
• Laugh at yourself and the strange absurdity of being alive
• Spend time outdoors and reconnect with the changing season
• Let go of something that you no longer need
• Honour something you've learned or experienced
• Plant an intention for where you're going next

How deeply you engage is up to you. You don't have to share anything personal that you don't want to share.

🎃 WHY SAMHAIN?

Halloween has always been one of my favourite times of year. Growing up in Canada, I loved making my own costumes and throwing myself into the strange permission Halloween gives us to dress up, become ridiculous and step outside the ordinary rules for a while. But underneath the costumes and mischief is something much older.Samhain marks the turning of the year towards winter and is traditionally associated with the end of the harvest, the beginning of the darker half of the year, remembrance of the dead and the crossing of a threshold between what has been and what is yet to come. For me, it's this symbolism that makes Samhain such a rich landscape for ritual and creative exploration.

It's a time to ask:

What has come to an end? What is worth remembering and honouring? What are we ready to let go of? What are we carrying with us into the next season? And What might be waiting to emerge?

Rather than approaching these questions through discussion alone, we'll explore them through clown, embodiment, imagination, symbolic action, performance and ritual.

And because this is also Halloween...

We'll bring some mischief to the threshold.

Costumes, play, absurdity, darkness, laughter and the strange freedom of welcoming more parts of ourselves in for a while.

I'm interested in what happens when the sacred and the ridiculous are allowed to exist together. When we can honour an ending and approach something mysterious through play.When something as simple as putting on a costume, taking the stage or performing a symbolic action can give us a new way of relating to ourselves and the world around us. That is the Samhain threshold we'll be playing with together.

🤡 WHO IS THIS FOR?

This workshop is for anyone curious about clown, creative expression, ritual and play.

You might be:

Actors, clowns, comedians, performers, dancers, musicians, artists, writers, facilitators, teachers, therapists, ceremonialists...

Or someone who has never performed anything in their life.

Experienced performers can use the weekend to explore new territory for their creative practice and discover ways that ritual, archetype and psychomagic might inform performance.

Beginners can experience clown without the pressure of becoming a professional performer or needing to be "good" at it.

You don't need to be funny or confident.You don't need previous clown experience or even to identify as spiritual. Curiosity is enough.

I particularly love bringing a diverse mix of people into the room. The work becomes richer when different ages, backgrounds, experiences, cultures and perspectives meet.

🔥 THE WEEKEND

SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER

Entering the Ridiculous

12:30pm–6pm

• Arrival and grounding
• Movement and embodiment
• Introduction to contemporary clown
• Presence and relationship
• Play and finding the ridiculous
• Vulnerability and risk
• Taking the stage
• Full expression
• Costume and imagination
• Clown Tarot Ritual
• Halloween celebration

SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER

Crossing the Threshold

12:30pm–6pm

• Ritual and embodied opening
• Clown practice
• Movement, voice and song
• Introduction to ritual theatre & psychomagic
• Collective creation
• Working with intention
• Psychomagic and symbolic action
• Working with the land and elements
• Samhain ceremony- Personal and collective ritual & co- created ritual theatre
• Integration and reflection

Optional sauna + spring plunge Add (10£ Additional cost)- Available from 6pm Sunday to turn the event  into a retreat like experience and enjoy an even deeper integration to the work.

🌿 THE SETTING

The entire workshop takes place outdoors under cover at a beautiful nature-based community space in Bristol, near Eastville Park.

We'll be working with the land, weather, autumn, darkness and the elements rather than trying to create a perfectly controlled indoor environment. There may be a fire, depending on weather conditions.

Please come prepared for the outdoors:

• Warm layers
• Waterproofs
• Sturdy outdoor shoes
• Lunch for both days
• Water bottle
• Power bank
• Clothes you can move in
• Costumes if you have ones you'd like to play with or add to the pile that is already there.

Tea will be provided.

🖤 THIS IS NOT THERAPY

This is a creative, embodied and experiential workshop, not a therapy course or substitute for professional mental-health care.

The work may be personally meaningful and can sometimes be experienced as transformative, but there is no expectation that you will have a particular therapeutic experience. You decide what you want to explore and how deeply you want to engage and you will be supported in the process.

🌙 ABOUT ZUMA PUMA

Zuma Puma is a clown artist, ritual ceremonialist, creative facilitator and founder of Clownlife.

She has spent more than 18 years studying clown and comedy with teachers around the world, including Philippe Gaulier in Paris and Francine Côté / the School of Clown and Comedy in Montréal, alongside more than 40 other teachers and practitioners.

Her work brings together clown, ritual, ceremony, nature, creative practice, mythology, Tarot and personal exploration.

She founded Lost Cabaret London, has trained thousands of participants through clown and creative practice programmes throughout the last decade, and is the creator of Clowning the Tarot and The Clown Arcana Major Arcana Tarot deck and show.

Her ongoing research explores what happens when the tools of clown are taken beyond conventional performance and into ritual, ceremony and life itself.

🌑 COME PLAY AT THE THRESHOLD

This weekend is an experiment- every one of these courses is unique- this weekend will never happen again, in this way, at this time, with these people. Come if you want to explore.Come if you want to create. Come if you want to be seen. Come if you're standing at a threshold of your own.

Bring your curiosity.Bring your ridiculousness.Bring a costume if you fancy it.

And bring whatever you're ready to explore.

CLOWN PSYCHOMAGIC RITUAL: SAMHAIN

31 October & 1 November 2026 |  Bristol

12pm- 6pm

Early Bird £130 | Full Price £155–£200

🤡🌑🔥🌿