Finding the ‘clown state’

Pedro M. Almeida Siqueira’s masked performances move emotions without words

In a dark theatre in 2018, Pedro M. Almeida Siqueira found himself crying. The theatre filled with late summer air, but what the other theatre-goers called “warmth” on Vancouver Island was a far cry from Almeida Siqueira’s home back in Brazil. He was surprised to feel that sting behind his eyes, but couldn’t look away from the stage. 

The performers’ faces were entirely hidden and not a word was said, but their movements were enough to move the audience to tears. The show Almeida Siqueira was watching was The Wilds, a production put on by the WONDERHEADS, a Victoria-based physical theatre company that specializes in masked performances. 

Physical theatre is an art form where actors tell a story using their physicality — no dialogue. This style of performance immediately appealed to Almeida Siqueira. 

“It was one of those things that I didn’t think was possible,” Almeida Siqueira says about seeing the WONDERHEADS perform for the first time. “Their art really stuck with me for a while.” 

The WONDERHEADS have won multiple awards, and toured Canada and the United States — from Hawaii to Newfoundland — performing their unique, revered shows. But their home base is Victoria, B.C. 

The company’s shows typically follow a small cast of characters, made up of actors in full-face masks and puppets that range from one foot tall to the size of half the stage. They use a combination of puppets and people to immerse the audience in what feels like a fantasy land. 

The company was founded by Kate Braidwood and Andrew Phoenix in 2009. 

“We’re all about magic and awe and wonder,” Phoenix told the Martlet. The WONDERHEADS’ website corroborates that Braidwood and Phoenix “resolved to conjure a little magic and wonder into the world,” in creating their physical theatre company. 

And conjure a little magic and wonder they have. The impact that the WONDERHEADS’ shows have on their audience is undeniable: in one review, the Globe and Mail called their work “powerful, surprising and moving,” and CBC has said that it’s “utter magic.” Elated and moved audiences pouring from the theatre following a WONDERHEADS show speak for themselves. 

But perhaps the best evidence of this local theatre company’s impact is through the testimony of one of their star performers: Pedro M. Almeida Siqueira, professional clown. 

The first time Almeida Siqueira saw the WONDERHEADS perform in 2018, he was amazed by the ten-foot-tall puppets and larger-than-life paper mâché masks. The lack of dialogue in the shows, he says, encourages the audience to pay closer attention to what’s happening onstage. Their close attention can lead them to see things that aren’t there. According to Almeida Siqueira, the audience is often so entranced that they are convinced the masks must have been moving — they swear they saw them blink. 

“People are often surprised that they saw these static sculptures, the masks, shift emotion from joy to sorrow,” Phoenix explains. 

The whole point is to get the audience on board with the illusion — a difficult task, no doubt, but stunning when done right. This, he says, comes down to technique. 

“All the performers we work with, like Pedro, are trained in a very unique style of theater, and are able to understand how they can use their body and the mask to convey emotion and really simplify things down.” 

The opportunity of a lifetime

Almeida Siqueira first discovered the WONDERHEADS while studying at the Canadian College of Performing Arts (CCPA) in Victoria. But his roots in performance art lie deeper — while living in Brazil, he worked as a clown, initially performing in hospitals for children. 

However, he wasn’t always set on the path to becoming a performer. For seven years, he studied engineering in Rio de Janeiro. In 2013, as part of his engineering program, he moved to study at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. What started as a year abroad evolved into a catalyst that would launch him into a new realm.

“It was sort of like a quarter-life crisis, sort of like ‘What am I doing with my life?’” he says about his time in Melbourne. Although his crisis didn’t last for long. 

“From [then], I was like okay, I want to be an artist,” he says.

While still in Melbourne, a friend connected him to a local dance company that was creating a show inspired by Brazilian music and dance. He auditioned, and soon enough he was touring Australia with the company. His skills in Brazilian percussion and guitar, which he’d been cultivating since he was nine years old, paid off. 

From there, Almeida Siqueira was booking gigs in restaurants and bars that subtly introduced him to a new idea — that he could “actually live” as an artist. This thought pushed him to embrace what he had always wanted to pursue, but had seemed out of reach.

Seven years and an engineering degree later, Almeida Siqueira relocated to Victoria, B.C., and started training at the CCPA — not far from his home in Oak Bay — where he was able to focus on nothing but improving his acting and performance skills. 

“[It] was… the biggest step away, a transition moment away from all that I was in before and here.”

Through his background in engineering, he knew that pursuing any other career path was simply not an option anymore. He says that he is fortunate to be pursuing his art full time, whether that be through performance, photography, filmmaking, choreographing, or even running his new company, the Victoria Association of Mask and Puppetry (VAMP), which he recently co-founded with Jessica Hickman. 

Even with the uncertainty of performance opportunities, Almeida Siqueira prefers this lifestyle. Leaning back in his chair, legs crossed, he says, “I have gotten to the point that I am not too worried about it, because I know things are going to show up.” 

A year after he graduated from CCPA, the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself — the WONDERHEADS opened their auditions for the first time ever to welcome in new performers. Almeida Siqueira knew he couldn’t pass it up. After a successful audition, he joined the company.

“I am just so in love with what they do, and their artistry connects with mine a lot…. It [has been] a love story ever since.” 

Clowning around

Ordinarily, clowns are thought to have big colorful wigs and noses that squeak when they’re pressed. Almeida Siqueira, however, performs with a normal nose and is essentially bald, discounting his thick eyebrows and beard. 

While many people are most familiar with the scary horror movie version of clowns, Almeida Siqueira reframes the common archetype by saying, “Clown is the person that you want to go for coffee with. You know what I mean?” 

In other words, true clowns are meant to entertain. Although there are many different styles and techniques to clowning, they all share the same goal: get the performer to what is known as a “clown state.” 

“When you’re in a clown state, there’s just a few things that matter,” he says. “One of those is the laughter.”

Despite its silly nature, clowning is a high-stakes art. Upon entering the clown world, everything becomes a matter of life, death, and laughter, Almeida Siqueira says.

“Clown lives in a survivor mode. If I don’t get this cup of coffee, I’m going to die.” He picks up the coffee cup in front of him and stretches out his long arms. He mimes chasing after the mug as he simultaneously moves it further away from himself. Every movement is made with intention, as the performer has to be in tune with both themselves and the audience. 

There exists a “magical space” between the audience and the performer, and the goal is to engage the audience and pull them into that space, says Almeida Siqueira. He puts his hands on the table in front of him and gestures to the space in between: “We want to live here.” The gap represents where the audience is laughing, but the performer has not pushed so much that they invade the audience’s space. He says, “you have to be playing with people,” and not just “clowning around” in your own world.

A combination of theatrical disciplines go into the work that the WONDERHEADS do, says Phoenix. Their mask performances include the influence of commedia dell’arte, melodrama, and clown.

“Mask work is the kind of art form that you’re going to do for four years and you’re going to start to understand the very small basics of it,” Almeida Sequeira says with a smile. Despite this being his fifth year performing with the WONDERHEADS, Almeida Siqueira admits, “I am just starting to understand the complexities of mask itself.”

The constant flux of work has become a rather enjoyable space for Almeida Siqueira to live in. The downtime gives him more time to pursue training and workshops to help him better his craft, especially when it comes to mask. For example, Almeida Siqueira spent a month in Spain last summer and was introduced to new dimensions of masked performance that he still struggles with now, including the formidable half-mask that he says takes far more energy than the full-face masks. These challenges are welcome inspiration for Almeida Siqueira as he continues to grow as a performer. 

A Return to ‘The Wilds’

In 2024, Almeida Siqueira got to perform in the role that had originally inspired him to pursue masked theatre — Wendell in The Wilds. It was a full circle moment. 

The Wilds is centered around a man, Wendell, who goes on a journey through a mystical forest to find his missing wife. The show confronts themes of grief, loss, and how to cope with profound sadnesses, such as losing the love of your life. Working on this show made Almeida Siqueira aware of his own unprocessed grief, and spending time as Wendell helped him to move past it. 

He explained that because the character in the show goes through all the stages of grief, he was able to explore moving past the stage that he himself was “stuck” in. 

The possibility of separating the self from the character is something that Almeida Siqueira has considered many times, but can’t seem to find a concrete answer to. He says that it depends on the role, the person playing it, and where the performer pulls inspiration from. 

Of one thing he is certain: “There will always be some truth to living those lives and putting on those masks,” he says. When the actors are stripped down to one static face they have to take on the role of the magician: get the audience to buy into their illusion and forget that it’s really just a person with paper over their face. In essence, they have to become someone new on the outside.

“Physical theatre and mask performance asks the audience to do a little bit of work … and that work — the wordless work — gets people’s guards down,” he says.

Phoenix agrees that vulnerability is what makes mask work so compelling — for the performer and audience alike. Audiences, he says, “want to care about a character. They want to care about people in the world,” and mask performance has a disarming effect.

“If you watch a play and you know it’s going to be a tragedy,” Phoenix continues, “humans will put up this protective barrier and not allow themselves to feel.” The childlike wonder of mask opens audiences up to be emotionally affected.

Now, a year later, Almeida Siqueira has returned to the same role of Wendell with a newfound depth and appreciation for his character. Finding compassion for every character, no matter how good or evil, is a skill that Almeida Siqueira has learned from a lifetime of acting. 

“If you’re playing a villain, it’s really important to understand deeper why they’re doing something the way that they’re doing it,” he says. “Unless it’s like, Iago from Othello, who’s just a motherfucker.”

Almeida Siqueira has spent a fair share of his life clowning around, but recognizes that his ability to make connections with the audience is really where the heart of his work lies. 

“I feel like if I lose that vulnerability on the stage, I don’t know what I’m doing,” Almeida Sequeira says. 

After all this time, he has never second-guessed his decision to pursue what he loves. “Not after I chose, in Brazil, to do this,” he says without pause. 

“For me I just think, from having studied something else, that’s just not an option for me. I think it would just take the time and energy away from what I want to be doing, which is this.”