The founders of
the Clownmania NPO
Anne-Marie Mycke
President
Clown amateur since 2009, Anne-Marie is passionated about clowns and takes a lot of fun to choose for you artists and shows you will never forget.
Marc Vrydag
Secretary
Specialist in logistics and security, Marc oversees the perfect organization of the festival and is at the same time the first external eye when selecting shows.
Corinne Maerschalck
Treasurer
Always with a smile on her lips, she is the sunbeam of the festival reception.
Dominique Saffre
Always ready to laugh and have fun, Dominique is also a precious help in logistics, full of resources and ideas.
Steve
An ambulance attendant in the army and trained in emergency care, Steve is also Marc's right hand man and the youth asset of the founding team.
Our story
Like any story, that of the festival finds its departure in everyday life. Except that here it is about that of artists little known in Belgium at that moment: the clowns. Anne-Marie participates, from 2007 to 2009, in a workshop of discovery of the clown for adults. Through the meetings, the project takes shape and the artists contacted react enthusiastically. The vagaries of life mean that the project is abandoned until 2012. Living till 2010 in West Flanders with Marc, the clowns are missing her. Marc wants to help Anne-Marie, get to know the project, and from there everything is linked.
Many Belgian and foreign artists are contacted to express themselves on the idea and the enthusiasm is such that Anne-Marie is looking for founding members for the association needed to launch the project. For a national project, it’s necessary to find members representative of the whole country: Corinne and Dominique, long-time friends of Anne-Marie, live in Wallonia and are contacted; Steve, Marc's youngest son, supports with colleagues Flemish cliniclowns and gets excited about the project; Marc and Steve have been living in West Flanders for almost 20 years. Love and friendship, seduced by Anne-Marie's passion for clowns, unite to found the non-profit organization and bring Clownmania to life.
So was born our story. So was born the Clownmania Belgium Festival.