Based in the UK, near Newcastle upon Tyne, Aron de Casmaker is a performer, specializing in clown and physical comedy. Among others, he has performed with Cirque du Soleil, Stufish Entertainment, and Slava’s Snowshow. Website As the COVID-19 pandemic began unfolding Aron de Casmaker was touring performances throughout the UK with Vamos Theatre, and these were forced to stop. He has subsequently been negotiating a number of potential future projects, including touring his solo military-themed show, working on a new piece with his wife based on wilding, and “developing a screenplay initiative that combines remote performance, animation and improvisation to produce a kind of comedic-drama that responds to the absurdity of modern times”. During lockdown, he has been adapting to live-stream performance conditions, teaching an online clown class as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This experiment forced participants to consider what audience interaction - central to clown performance - looks like online: where does a performer direct their gaze, how does one react to audience laughter, what impulses inform their performance? Aron remains unconvinced that online adaptations can be an effective medium for clown work, though he acknowledges that we are still in an early phase of experimentation. He continues searching for new opportunities during the lockdown, while concurrently balancing life with his wife and two children.
On rethinking his practice: “It has certainly made me feel a little like a dinosaur in the sense that I got into the business because I felt I had something valuable to offer and I enjoyed it. Online, I don’t feel this way necessarily but, as being a performing artist has been my bread and butter for so long, I feel forced to adapt in ways that diminishes my ability to contribute.” On digital interaction: “Part of the conversation seems to me to involve the conflict between our intellectual selves and our animal selves. Intellectually, we can comprehend that a Zoom conversation is a back and fourth between two or more people. I think our animal selves don’t understand this as we are, while on Zoom, still sitting in a room by ourselves talking to a screen. In the latter way, we are not interacting with anyone at all. The nature of watching anything on a screen is predominantly one way – we are taking in, one’s brain being is in a passive state. So, to trick it into being interactive is a very unnatural thing.” -- Sebastian Samur spoke with Aron at the end of August, 2020. |
AboutCheck here to read our profiles with artists under quarantine Artists
All
Archives |