Advanced Cycle · 5 Modules Lisbon
Lisbon Playground
Pedro Fabião with googly eyes on his fingers

Clowns &
Relationships●

an advanced journey with Pedro Fabião

Lisbon October 2026 – January 2027 Five two-day modules
An advanced cycle · The program

The four classic clown relationships

From October to January, Lisbon Playground presents an advanced cycle of five workshops with Pedro Fabião, devoted to the four archetypal relationships between clowns: Siamese Twins, Complicity, Competition and Hierarchy.

Each of the first four weekends explores one relationship in depth. In the fifth, we bring them all together — training the ability to recognise them, move freely between them and use them to create scenes. The cycle culminates in a playful presentation before a real audience, revealing the extraordinary theatrical possibilities contained in this old tradition of clown training.

These four structures are to clowning what scales are to music, or primary colours to painting.

Each one has its own logic, tensions and rules. Once we understand them, we gain a shared language that gives us greater clarity and freedom when improvising, creating material and playing with others.

The structures are deceptively simple, but their precise rules are what make them work. Sometimes one small element out of place is enough for a relationship to become muddy — we no longer understand who these clowns are to each other, what each one wants, or where the scene can go. By learning to recognise and inhabit each structure, we discover which relationships bring out the most surprising, pleasurable and powerful dimensions of our clown.

More than theatre

But these are not only theatrical structures. We all live through them.

In different areas of our lives we merge, collaborate, compete, lead, obey, resist, support, imitate and differentiate ourselves. We become different people with a lover, a friend, a parent, a child, a colleague or an authority figure. Relationships are the core environment where identity is created.

Exploring these dynamics through clown lets us see our habits more clearly: the roles we enter automatically, the positions we avoid, and the relationships in which we feel most at home. The more consciously and playfully we can inhabit these structures, the more freedom we have to choose how we relate — instead of simply repeating what we already know.

Five two-day modules · The journey

The modules

01
Oct 13–14

Siamese Twins

The desire to be one

The story of imitation — perhaps the first and most primitive form of relationship. There is no leader and no follower: both clowns must lead and follow continuously, trying to breathe, move, feel and act as one. Individuality seems not to exist, yet it appears everywhere in the cracks of that impossible attempt to remain identical.

This structure explores belonging, attunement, surrender, and the tension between losing ourselves in another person and discovering ourselves through them.

The more we try to be the same, the more clearly our differences emerge.

02
Nov 5–6

Complicity

The paradise of relationship

The clowns are independent and different, but there is no conflict between them. When one follows an impulse, the other joins the experience — perhaps with a completely different emotion. Both say yes to the pleasure of discovering the world together, and imagination runs wild.

Complicity trains acceptance, curiosity, imagination and the ability to support another person without abandoning our own experience.

Any conflict belongs between the clowns and the world, never inside their relationship.

03
Dec 3–4

Competition

The right to want something different

Conflict enters the relationship. The clowns have relatively equal status, but they want different, often opposing things. The relationship becomes a seesaw: focus, power and advantage move continuously from one to the other. It invites us to discover individuality, desire and differentiation — permission to assert our voice, defend what matters and explore the mischievous part of the clown that dares to take a proposal further than usual.

Competition teaches us that conflict does not have to destroy connection. It can generate energy, clarity, pleasure and play.

04
Jan 12–13

Hierarchy

Different worlds meet

The richest and most complex of the four — really a whole family of relationships: Whiteface and Auguste, Master and Servant, Teacher and Pupil, Fast and Slow. Here the clowns are not equals. They live in different worlds, understand reality differently and often fail magnificently to understand each other. One tries to guide, control or complete a mission; the other accepts, admires, misunderstands, interrupts or innocently makes everything derail.

Hierarchy lets us explore authority, obedience, admiration, rebellion and the comic disasters that arise when power meets a completely different logic.

05
Jan 30–31
Grand Finale

Integration & Performance

The full palette

In the final weekend we bring the four relationships together — training our ability to recognise which structure is emerging, remain faithful to its logic and consciously transform it when the scene asks for something new. Like primary colours, they combine into an entire palette of encounters.

The cycle culminates in a presentation before a real audience — a chance to put the work under the joyful pressure of performance and feel how immediately these ancient structures can be recognised, felt and enjoyed.

Who it's for

Deepen your play

This cycle is for people who want to deepen their clown and performance practice — but also for anyone curious about play, identity and human relationships. You don't need to want a professional life onstage. You only need to be interested in what becomes possible when we stop relating automatically and begin to play with how we meet one another.

Advanced level · Prerequisites

This is an advanced cycle. To take part, you need one of the following:

A

Completed the “A Clown is Born” program

or
B

At least 6 full days (42 hours) of previous clown workshops

Investment

Two ways to join

Full program · 5 modules Priority
€1,000

The complete journey, best value.

  • €200 deposit to reserve your place
  • €300 due by September 1
  • €500 at the first module
Per module
€230 / module

Pay as you go, module by module.

  • €200 deposit to reserve your place
  • €30 due by September 1
  • Remaining balance module by module
★

Full-program participants come first. Places are limited — those enrolled in the complete cycle have priority to take the available spots.

Registration & payment now open

Places are reserved with a deposit. Reach out to book your spot or ask anything about the journey.

WhatsApp · +351 937 990 470 playgroundlisbon@gmail.com
Lisbon Playground · Lisbon, Portugal · playgroundlisbon@gmail.com