Caden Manson
| Caden Manson | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | United States |
| Notable works | Flicker, House of No More |
| Website | |
| http://bigartgroup.com | |
Caden Manson is the co-founder and director of Big Art Group, an experimental theatre ensemble based in New York City. Dedicated to advancing the boundaries of contemporary theatre, Manson has expanded the field of contemporary performance through his use of digital media, creative interdisciplinary collaborations, and teaching. Manson is the Editor in Chief and co-curator at Contemporary Performance Network, a community organizing platform and social network dedicated to facilitating collaboration among artists, presenters, scholars and festivals. He is the co-Artistic director of the Special Effects festival, an experimental performance festival which premiered in January 2014
A Texas native, Manson attended University of Texas at Austin, where he earned awards in acting and a Presidential scholarship that supported his Bachelor of Arts in Theatre. Manson moved to New York in 1995, and in 1999, along with Jemma Nelson, he founded Big Art Group. Initially a small underground performance group, the company has since burgeoned into an internationally appreciated and critically acclaimed ensemble.
Manson has been responsible for the direction, co-creation, set and media design of Big Art Group's productions since its initial original work, CLEARCUT Catastrophe in 1999. Since CLEARCUT, the company has produced eighteen original works with repeated tours. The People, a serial production adaptively rewritten for each city it is presented in has enjoyed success in Polverigi, Halle, San Francisco, Portland, and most recently New York.
Manson's work is characterized by its intense visual spectacle, savvy blending of video and live acting to produce self-reflective commentary on its own genre, and technical sophistication. At its birth, Manson envisioned Big Art Group as a means to, 'aggressively attack the boundaries of performance and art through its experimentation with structure, medium and process." Big Art Group's unique integration of live acting and video, known as Real Time Film, was pioneered and titled by Manson himself, and has remained a characteristic element of the artist's work, revisited and developed in new productions. Much of Big Art Group's work blends elements of popular culture and current events with scenes inspired by literature or Classical mythology. Manson's work seeks to actively engage and challenge its audience and to confront expectations constructed by traditional theatre:
"Unlike traditional theatrical performance, Big Art Group's extended mediated performances reposition viewers into active editors, challenging audience members to problem-solve complex issues of sexuality, race, narrative and truth as a theatrical mirror to the process of navigation through contemporary society."
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