Mark Anderson is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work includes writing, performance, theatre, video, and book art. He has an MFA from the University of Michigan School of Art & Design, and is Artistic co-Director of Theatre Gigante, a hybrid theatre company based in Milwaukee. MIAD faculty since 1999, Anderson regularly teaches Introduction to Humanities for first-year students, and upper-level Art History electives, such as What’s Up? He has also taught independent studies in performance and writing. Anderson enjoys working with students both at the beginning of their MIAD career, and towards the end, finding/making connections between philosophy, psychology, sociology, citizenship, creativity, collaboration and contemporary conceptual, visual, literary and performance art. These are also the primary elements in his own creative work, and in the work of Theatre Gigante, where he regularly collaborates with his wife, Isabelle Kralj, in the creation of hybrid theatre productions, such as Petrushka, The Lears, The Beggar’s Opera, and The Way Things Go.
Anderson performs White Clown
Anderson’s work as a monologist, playwright, and interdisciplinary artist has been seen in over thirty cities around the country. He’s worked as a soloist, or in collaboration, with many Milwaukee performing artists and groups, including Present Music, Wild Space Dance Company, Inertia Ensemble, Boulevard Ensemble, Renaissance Theaterworks, and Theatre X. He has been commissioned by the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, to create site-specific performance works and in 1995, wrote, directed and produced a ninety-minute entertainment for the Pabst Theater Centennial Ball.
Anderson performs Spalding Gray
Anderson’s monologues, such as Eighty Words for Snow, Manual, and Me, You, Art and Trout, derive from personal experience and reflection, and use humor and movement to articulate anxieties of modern living. He has performed solo many times in Milwaukee, and elsewhere, including Madison, Chicago, Buffalo, New York, Houston, Los Angeles and Seattle. He has received numerous grants and commissions, including the Wisconsin Arts Board Interdisciplinary Arts Fellowship, and was twice selected for inclusion in the Wisconsin Triennial Exhibition at the Madison Art Center.