Jonathan Kay’s work is nomadic in nature, travelling to ten places around Europe and the UK throughout the course of a year, spending nine days each month working with the Nomadic Academy of Fools, performing his individual shows and running two weekend workshops for the public.

Catalonia Template – The Actor’s Space is run by Marian Masoliver (Catalonian) and Simon Edwards (English). Simon Edwards started out, age 14, as a ‘punk clown’ in the UK street arts/festival scene; later working as a performer/ company trainer for Kneehigh Theatre, and its offshoot, Wildworks. Marian Masilover worked as a performer with many legendary Catalan companies, including La Fura Del Baus, and with American/Mexican puppetry companies such as Los Titititeros. They met at Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, and have been partners in work and in life since, founding The Actors Space in 1999 – a centre dedicated to the professional training and development of the creative actor, set in a beautiful residential medieval farmhouse on the edge of the Pyrenees Mountains and with stunning views. It’s a peaceful and serene place for the Academy to form and a great start to the touring cycle.

South France Template – After bumping into a pair of clowns on the road the Academy discovered a circus school in Nime called ‘ecole de cirque de Nimes and a wonderfully warm community of performers. We then found a gorgeous town further down the road called Pezenas, filled with artists and ex-pats, plus a wonderful woman called Agnes who is passionate about compost worms and the arts. She is the creator and organiser of Artbio, an annual arts festival, and she loves the work of the Academy! She has invited us to come and spend a week in Pezenas with her this year.

Berlin Template – We are mainly based at KuLe, a social housing project in the hip area of old East Berlin, where resides a large number of artists. The project is an ex-squat that has battled for legal status. We also work in Theatrehaus Mitte, a progressive venue with big ideas. Everyone in and around the spaces are creatives who are developing work. acommunity of ‘yes’ people who turn up to participate in everything they can get their hands on. It’s an incredible experience being in and around such fertile ground.

Brighton Template – Brighton is an obvious location for a Template having been home at one time or another to many of the Fools. Jonathan is well known within the community and his work taps right into the open minded and creative nature of the city, working within the Coachwerks, a creative, collaborative, experimental and beautiful project space close to the town centre in Brighton.

London Template – Battersea Arts Centre helped to birth us by running a series of workshops three years ago where we looked for people to help us form a company. Two of the Fools found at these workshops are still with us today, three years later, and have been integral in supporting the Academy into fruition. BAC will always have our hearts but we try to spread our love about the city and perform at venues all over. Our love also goes out to the Rag Factory, where Silas - the most helpful man in the world ever, makes us feel at home and that all our requirements are not only acceptable but actually expected. Brilliant!

Glastonbury Template – Liz at the Phoenix Project is a force to be reckoned with and has been supporting Jonathan’s work for many years. She is strongly passionate about working on donation and introduced us to a style of donation that we have incorporated into the fibre of the Academy.

Birmingham Template - Friction Arts make what we call ‘art where you live’.  We aim to make quality, contemporary arts in real world settings, outside and alongside arts and cultural institutions and along with a diverse range of people.  We do not make traditional community arts, though we always work with people and encourage participation in all kinds of ways. We work with diverse groups of participants and artists to make our work.  We recognize that, as professional artists of over fifteen years standing, we have gained the expertise to create the artworks we wish to produce and are recognized internationally as experts in our field.  So through discussion, listening and dialogue with a whole range of people we aim to interpret and create contemporary arts, interventions and performances along with the people we work with, including other artists, experts from other fields and members of the communities in which we work. For a full history of our work and links to our projects please click around.

Liverpool Template – Arts Organisation (TAO) shows concern for the regeneration of derelict property and the support of the arts and education in art for the benefit of the community. For ten years TAO has pioneered a portfolio of community access buildings, supporting the arts and art in education. In each project TAO creates opportunity for artists and arts related practitioners to access affordable (and occassionally free) space, from which they can teach workshops and classes, prepare new artwork, exhibit, perform, sing and play - a platform for creative expression, and understanding, for the benefit of the wider community. To date the projects remain un-funded, as TAO have prefered a practical hands-on approach to the work, recycling whereever possible and working voluntarily to achieve sustained success. In 2010 we will also be working with Metal; founded by Jude Kelly OBE in 2002 and was created as an artistic laboratory to champion the need for continual investment in artistic investigation and the development of innovative ideas that could shift the thinking in the UK cultural sector, with the Black-E; The Black-E (formerly The Blackie) - a combination of a contemporary arts centre with a community centre - was launched in 1968 as the U.K.’s first community arts project. The commitments made then remain the commitments today - to young people (offering, in the words of The Last Poets, “affection, protection, direction”) - to a cultural programme emphasising participation and involvement (”do-ing” as well as “viewing”) - to education (formal and informal) - and to quality of work with equality of provision. And also with support from NOVA.

Manchester Template – Dancehouse Theatre is a great little venue running from the Dancehouse Ballet School during the evenings when the students have all gone home. The organisers are very helpful and the theatre has a great reputation for putting on events that challenge and encompass the community.

Edinburgh Template – Tepooka supports our work as does the Forest Cafe. Both are communities of artists. Tepooka is a circus skills company and school specialising in fire performances and Forest Cafe is a grass roots run organisation that does everything on donation and offers a great supportive space to work in and network of people.

Hampshire Template - The Sustainability Centre is a magical place that is running on their own filtered water, compost toilets, yurt housing, youth hostel and eco-friendly graveyard (the graves being trees). We have hooked up Agnes from Pezanas with the centre so she can run compost worm workshops for them and supply worms (Fooling is not just about performing!).

Norfolk Template - In the heart of the Norfolk countryside resides a large community of old skool festival organisers, artist, alternative housing projects and a wonderful arts centre that the Academy helped in the formation of, and launched as its opening event in 2006, called the Compass Centre. We set up shop in a campsite opposite the Shrub Farm community and spend the week working in a yurt.

Birmingham Template - We are hoping to be working with Friction Arts, but this is still in the pipeline!