Tara's profile
Tara Cariaso is a performing artist and movement worker, binding her work as a director, educator, mask maker, performer, and writer to create new anti-oppressive principles for stage work and cultural representation using theatrical mask. A Baltimore-born Filipina-American, she is a queer theatre artist whose aim is to create transformational, imaginative theatre practices that centers justice and joy. She has been the recipient of two Maryland State Arts Council Awards, a Baltimore BASE grant, and a Grit Fund grant.
She is the author of a blog entitled, “Tara in Whiter-land”, unpacking harms encountered by theatre artists of color in institutions of higher learning. One of her articles on the subject of Reimagining Commedia has been published by HowlRound Theatre Commons, with additional articles forthcoming with other national and international journals. Influenced by the work of Jacques Lecoq, clown performance, and diverse mask traditions around the world, Tara continues to invent new theatre mask pedagogy centered on liberation, using original mask sets, expanding the use of mask and authentic embodiment in traditional American theatre education, connecting social justice movement and creative embodiment practices.
In 2010, she created the Waxing Moon Masks Company as a way to birth more mask work in Baltimore, and introduce area actors and audiences to larger stylized mask play. As WMM, she has created more than 200 original designs for clients around the world, and have collaborated with numerous companies and university classrooms via workshops/residencies across Maryland and the US. (See www.waxingmoonmasks.com).
She has been awarded membership in the NET/NEXT 2022 Cohort, and the WOCA Leadership through Mentorship 2020 cohort. Tara received her MFA from the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre with an emphasis on Ensemble-generated work, a BA from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in Drama (acting), and a certificate of achievement for mask making and performance instruction from the Sartori Centro Maschere e Strutture Gestuali in Abano Terme, Italy.
