Sonia Norris
Sonia Norris is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre at California State University Northridge, teaching acting, le jeu, mask, clown, devising, and directing. She works internationally as a director, creator, writer, dramaturg and performer with theatre, circus, clown, mask, and puppetry companies. She has taught mask performance around the globe for 25 years, exploring how the mask allows us to become present with each other, our individual stupidity, and our shared humanity, while simultaneously revealing difference and diversity. Projects in communities have taken her to Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the Arctic.
Recent productions include: Rogue Artists Ensemble, Los Angeles (Reckless Sea of the Brain), Handspring Puppet Company, South Africa (Olifantland, Renosterbos), Banff Centre Indigenous Dance Program (Transformations), Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Canada (Cymbeline), Cirqiniq Arctic Circus (The Three Girls), Red Sky Performance, Toronto (Mistatim), Common Boots Theatre, Toronto (Ballad of Weedy Peetstraw), The Assembly Female Clown Collective, Vancouver (In a Nutshell), LEGacy Circus, Kingston (Cyborg E.R.I.N.), and SoCirc Social Circus Company, Toronto (Carnival of Life).
Sonia has been invited to present at female clown festivals in Helsinki, New York City, and Montreal, and her clown, bouffon, and puppetry research has been published in performance journals: Canadian Theatre Review (Re-Contextualizing Canadian Clown: In Conversation with Monique Mojica, Jani Lauzon, Rose Stella, and Gloria Miguel), Puppetry International (Lara Foot: Economy of Storytelling and Abundance of Hope), and book chapters: Judith Rudakoff’s Performing #MeToo: How Not To Look Away, Intellect, 2021 (“Les Zoubliettes: Raging Through Laughter – A Feminist Disturbance”), and Tim Prentki and Nicola Abraham’s Applied Theatre Reader 2nd Edition, Routledge, 2020 (“Laughing and Yelling in the Trouble”), co-written with Julie Salverson.
Sonia trained at Ecole Jacques Lecoq in France, Ecole Philippe Gaulier in England/France, the Dell’Arte School of Physical Theatre in California, and is a graduate of the Playhouse Acting School in Canada. She holds an MFA in Directing from York University and is completing her PhD at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies researching female clown as a performance of failure/practice of survival.
She is currently writing her Clown in Quarantine Survival Journal, documenting the gong-show of her life moving to America just as the world fell apart. It will be bouncing onto stages when that is next allowed!