ABOUT VANESSA CARDOSO -WHELAN
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Vanessa Cardoso-Whelan is a playwright, multidisciplinary artist, street performer and clown hailing from Brazil, with a passion for contemporary theatre and body movement awareness, especially related to Flamenco dancing.
Graduating in Theatre Arts in 2004, she has performed with several artistic groups onstage and in street productions, as an actress, Flamenco dancer, puppeteer and fire flow dancer. Vanessa has been actively engaged in the local arts scene since moving to NL in 2014, participating in diverse artistic workshops and festivals. Currently wearing different hats she’s involved in theatre productions, Tv shows, dance adventures and clown studies. Vanessa also loves to perform as a Living Statue in the streets when the weather is nice. |
Vanessa is host to a multitude of characters. Her personas of clown, living statue, dancer, actor, writer, all share one thing in common: a fascinating depth of character and story.
She is constantly in motion. Her clown “Fuah” appears at many events. (Fuah, loosely translates to mean ‘like a birch broom in the fits.) She is working on “NewFoundlanded” with TODOS, just one project with that company. She is about to star in “URN” alongside of TODOS creator and artistic director, and the author of the play, Santiago Guzman. She embraces her popular street performances, and her elaborate costume builds are inspired by nature,by things found on the beach, by seeing ordinary objects through a different lens. Vanessa can be found scouring the city for props, sitting in nature with her journal, and happily, on stages as a performer. She recently was in the news for her stance against racism, when she discovered racist slurs written in graffiti on a Gazebo along the Manuel’s River. She took pictures and brought them to the Anti Racism Coaliton of NL. The graffiti has since been removed. Of all of her gifts, her love of theatre is the greatest. Like many artists in our province, she does wish for a collective theatre group that gets together and stays together for years to create plays, like a repertory company that creates stories and gives them a long shelf life.
She is constantly in motion. Her clown “Fuah” appears at many events. (Fuah, loosely translates to mean ‘like a birch broom in the fits.) She is working on “NewFoundlanded” with TODOS, just one project with that company. She is about to star in “URN” alongside of TODOS creator and artistic director, and the author of the play, Santiago Guzman. She embraces her popular street performances, and her elaborate costume builds are inspired by nature,by things found on the beach, by seeing ordinary objects through a different lens. Vanessa can be found scouring the city for props, sitting in nature with her journal, and happily, on stages as a performer. She recently was in the news for her stance against racism, when she discovered racist slurs written in graffiti on a Gazebo along the Manuel’s River. She took pictures and brought them to the Anti Racism Coaliton of NL. The graffiti has since been removed. Of all of her gifts, her love of theatre is the greatest. Like many artists in our province, she does wish for a collective theatre group that gets together and stays together for years to create plays, like a repertory company that creates stories and gives them a long shelf life.
The Thriving Together initiative has been made possible through support from the Canada Council for the Arts.
