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Dawn Kasper in a yellow jacket and bare legs moves equipment

Become What You Are

Become What You Are

Slapstick comedy, monologue, and a kind of live sculpture transformed through video, props, musical instruments and make-up.

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Who

Dawn is a visual/performance artist from LA. We’ve had her described to us as the performance artist every performance artist in New York wishes they were (even if they don’t know it). Or seen her described as “being shot through with a certain aggression, which may also be frustration and most definitely is a deep emotional urgency”. She often fakes death.

What

The performance of a series of characters and personas (each with a task and an action to accomplish), and the enactment of their death scenes. Slapstick comedy, monologue, and a kind of live sculpture transformed through video, props, musical instruments and make-up.

Why

“The evidently paradoxical task of ‘becoming what you (already) are’ lends itself to interpretation in existentialist terms: the ‘natural state’ of man is ‘bad faith’; the purpose of your life should be to engineer the coincidence of your existence with your essence (fate) by leading your life as a voyage of self-discovery, towards authentic self-realization.”
Ecce Homo
by Friedrich Nietzsche

“What’s real? What’s not? That’s what I do in my act; test how other people deal with reality.”
Andy Kaufman

“Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that’s why I made works of art.”
Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Documentation

7 images, 1 video, 1 audio
Audio Recording
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Dawn pushing some equipment in a space, audience in the background

▴ Credit: Alex Woodward

Dawn moves a green chair in a space with audience, the photo has blurred

▴ Credit: Bryony McIntyre

Dawn Kasper in a yellow jacket and bare legs moves equipment

▴ Credit: Alex Woodward

A long shot of Dawn Kasper in a performance space with working lights

▴ Credit: Bryony McIntyre

Dawn uses equipment whilst in a white shirt, white horse hat and bare legs

▴ Credit: Alex Woodward

Arika_Episode2_DawnKasper_BecomeWhatYouAre_AWoodward-7
Dawn lifts a sloping platform with drum equipment on it

▴ Credit: Alex Woodward

Dawn pushing some equipment in a space, audience in the background

▴ Credit: Alex Woodward

Dawn moves a green chair in a space with audience, the photo has blurred

▴ Credit: Bryony McIntyre

Dawn Kasper in a yellow jacket and bare legs moves equipment

▴ Credit: Alex Woodward

A long shot of Dawn Kasper in a performance space with working lights

▴ Credit: Bryony McIntyre

Dawn uses equipment whilst in a white shirt, white horse hat and bare legs

▴ Credit: Alex Woodward

Arika_Episode2_DawnKasper_BecomeWhatYouAre_AWoodward-7
Dawn lifts a sloping platform with drum equipment on it

▴ Credit: Alex Woodward

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