Clown school in Sudbury, Ont., attracts students from around the world

A new clown school in Sudbury, Ont., has attracted students from as far away as New Zealand to learn techniques perfected in Canada.

Michi and Derek Flores are two of those students. They are both Canadian, but now live in New Zealand, where they are raising their son and teaching new comedians.

Derek has a background in improvisation, and trained at the Loose Moose Theatre in Calgary, and Michi is an actress and directs some of her husband's performances.

John Turner, the lead instructor with the new One North Clown and Creation school in Sudbury, drew them to the program. Turner was one half of the clown duo Mump and Smoot.

"In like '91 or '92, I remember seeing Mump and Smoot at the Edmonton Fringe and loving it, like having my mind blown by that style of clowning and then not realizing that they were in Toronto at the same time that we were in Toronto and teaching," Derek Flores said.

Turner operated a clown school on Manitoulin Island, colloquially called the Clown Farm, for 19 years before it closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of his former students, Jenny Hazelton, started the new clown school in Sudbury and recruited Turner to come back and teach.

Turner said he was living on Vancouver Island after the school on Manitoulin Island closed its doors, but Hazelton convinced him to return to northern Ontario.

"Jenny brought me in and I'm super excited about the work she's done," he said 

He said the style of clowning he teaches is unique to Canada and was perfected over 35 years of performance from him and his peers in clowning.

"There are several students of mine that I've taken through teacher training that are now starting to teach it as far away as Germany and Australia, as a matter of fact," Turner said.

Flores said the two-weeks he and his wife spent at the school were worth the trip from New Zealand.

"We're not talking about twisting balloons, or having a pie in the face, we're talking about trying to find a connection with an audience," he said.

"Not only in connection with the audience, but a connection within ourselves and learning how to trust the impulse that's inside of us to either take a risk or to keep safe."