Meet Mark Caserta

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mark Caserta. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mark below.

Hi Mark, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

My resilience is a direct result of my queerness. Resilience for me exists because of constant, everyday barriers that I have to lift myself over while maintaining my strength, trust and self worth. And this is just a conditioning from childhood, that I was not normal. I didn’t meet the standards of society as far as being a boy who likes and excels at sports, and being hyper masculine goes. All of my friends were girls. I was feminine, and creative. I was bullied, even within my family sometimes. I never felt like I had a place to go to that made me feel like I wasn’t out of place, except maybe dance school. Even that had its hurtles. Though I had my grandma, and I think her presence and ease always helped. So possibly I channel her as I move through life, acknowledging that whatever she had experienced in her life was definitely worse than what I was experiencing.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I’m focused on making work that is impactful and representative of a queer experience, in hope of providing courage and understanding. I’m focused on collaboration and making sure the creative space stays creative and affirmative. I aspire to evolve with the times as an artist and person, and I do this through movement making and imagining queer worlds through dance expression. In short, I’m a choreographer, and I’m gay.

My project company BIGKID DANCE has a world premiere coming up January 24th at Maryland Hall, in Annapolis MD. ‘If I Die Before the Revolution’, an evening length contemporary dance theater work. We are also presenting this work at DancePlace in DC on February 6th and 7th. We would love to see some new and familiar faces there! Tickets and more information at bigkiddance.com and you can find out more about me, my work and my project company here markcaserta.com or on instagram @future.doodles @_bigkids

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I’m not great with narrowing things like this down, but… I would say 1) Learning (healthy) discipline and accountability in the dance space at an early age. 2) Learning as much as I could stylistically, historically, artistically, culturally and continuing that into the present. 3) Being aware of my presence, and being aware of everyone else’s presence.

I think I try to continue to stay grounded in who I am while being kind, open and thoughtful about the world around me. That’s in dance training, career, creative spaces and just everyday life. I think it always can be “both” things, or more than one finite answer. So allowing information to be retained and understood while also staying true to who you can happen. Advice, take the classes, listen to the lectures, read the books, watch the films, study, go to the audition, do all the things…and continue to find yourself constantly, all the while considering the people and world around you.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

My parents always made it work. They were extremely resourceful. This has been with me my entire life, in everything I do, I will find a way. I will have no money for a new work I’m making, and I will build a set out of scrap cardboard that I’ve collected over months. And, I love it! Greatest impact for sure.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://markcaserta.com
• Instagram: @future.doodles
• Other: @_bigkids
  bigkiddance.com

Image Credits

Matthew Caserta