50th Anniversary Season
Posted July 25, 2011 at 11:03 am
LA MAMA 50 WORLD BLOCK PARTY: October 16, 1-6pm
LA MAMA 50 GALA: OCTOBER 17, 6:30 – 10PM
La MaMa’s 2011-12 theatre season
Homecomings will offer new productions and revivals by a wide array of artists who have called La MaMa “home” since its inception in 1961, including PING CHONG, MEREDITH MONK, JOHN JESURUN, THE TALKING BAND, Tony-winning composer SCOTT WITTMAN, TAN DUN, DARIO D’AMBROSI, THEODORA SKIPITARES, ELIZABETH SWADOS, KAREN FINLEY, JULIA ATLAS MUZ, GREAT JONES REPERTORY, THEATRE OF THE 2-HEADED CALF, the CZECHOSLOVAK-AMERICAN MARIONETTE THEATRE, and UNDER THE RADAR FESTIVAL. This season will also see works by artists who will be making La MaMa their “home” for the first time: KARIN CONROOD, RAINA VON WALDENBURG, England’s THE GATE THEATRE, JOMAMA JONES, and ORLANDO PABOTOY.
Monday Nights at La MaMa
New to the La MaMa season this year will be MONDAY NIGHTS AT LA MAMA, a series of intimate evenings featuring La MaMa artists in conversation about their work, including such alums as TAN DUN, JULIE TAYMOR, PHILIP GLASS, ELIZABETH SWADOS, and MEREDITH MONK.
Korean ‘Hamlet’ casts shaman’s spell over Shakespeare’s long shadow
Posted July 19, 2011 at 5:10 pm
by Scott Stiffler, The Villager
Cacophonous sound? Check. Ample fury? Check. But what does it all signify — other than referencing a line from “Macbeth” when the play that’s the thing is “Hamlet?” READ MORE >>
Tribute to La MaMa: Spoleto Festival
Posted July 6, 2011 at 2:47 pm
Tribute to La MaMa
Spoleto Festival 2011
An evening dedicated to Ellen Stewart, La MaMa of Avant-garde that passed away on 13 January 2011
A tribute in memory of Ellen Stewart founder and artistic director of the legendary Cafè La MaMa in New York, considered one of the temples of international avant-garde theater. In the course of fifty years of work, with her passion and creativity, she influenced artists all over the world. Tireless traveler, she was very close to the Festival, where she had presented her performances on several occasions, and it was Spoleto, she had chosen as her residence of choice and where in 1990 she founded the Artistic Residence of La MaMa Umbria International, still active today as a Study Centre and residency in the field of the arts of theater. READ MORE >>
Random Postcards: “He Who Laughs: Live!”
Posted at 2:23 pm
From Dixon Place’s HOT! Festival
By Jarrett Lyons
Each week we pick at random a postcard for a show happening in New York City this summer and provide a run-down of what you can expect to see when you attend. READ MORE >>
Glank
By Glank
July 22 – July 24, 2011
*Please note: This is a rental event.
Tickets $10
Fri July 22 at 8 pm
Sat July 23 at 3 pm and 8 pm
Sun July 24 at 3 pm
GLANK: INDUSTRIAL – PERCUSSIVE – ALCHEMY
“It’s a cross between a techno dj and an automotive assembly line.”
“GLANK hijacks your inhibitions and makes you want to jam with the group.”
“It’s industrial junk funk!”
GLANK is a “green” percussion performance art group that utilizes multiple anonymous performers in Clean Room Suits, audience interaction, multi-media elements, unique percussion inventions, and recycled materials. GLANK instruments include found object metalophones such as tuned saw blades, LP tanks, motorcycle gears, artillery shells, brake drums, air vents, etc…
Audience interaction is a key element of GLANK. The audience is engaged in many ways, including instrument activation, instrument creation from recycled materials, and wardrobe alteration. In fact, the audience becomes anonymous during performances.
GLANK: created by composer / instrument builder Paul H. Rudolph
Hamyul/Hamlet
June 23 – July 10, 2011
“A highly stylized adaptation of Hamlet performed in Korean, Hamyul feels like a traditional drama that could have been performed in the ancient Korean court.” – nytheatre.com
Thursday – Saturday at 7:30pm
Sunday at 2:30pm
Hamyul/Hamlet is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The play is set in one of the ancient dynasties in Korea. The original Prince Hamyul, a Korean adaptation of Hamlet by William Shakespeare was presented to Western audiences in the United States and Europe in 1977. Adapted and directed by Minsoo Ahn, Prince Hamyul was the first Korean theatrical production ever performed outside Korea, making an indelible mark on the history of Korean theater thanks to the late Ellen Stewart at La MaMa.
Maintaining the basic framework and integrity of the 1977 original play, Hamyul: Hamlet has been reinterpreted and reconstructed in order to engage contemporary intellect and emotionally communicate to a 21st Century global audience by Byungkoo Ahn, who is a son of Minsoo Ahn.
This production re-examines and re-interprets the inner journey of Prince Hamyul, and manifests it into a unique theatrical ritual adapting Korean shamanic ceremonies, court dances and music with the ensemble of multi-cultural artists from Korea, Japan, and the United States.
Hamyul/Hamlet creates a kaleidoscope of characters seen through parallel and simultaneous rituals: the performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and the ritual healing of Hamlet’s character and the subsequent healing of other characters. Watching this ritual will awaken the viewer’s inner Hamlet, and undergo a magical experience that confronts the question of the viewer’s own life experiences, with the hope to take a step closer to personal healing and redemption.
This hauntingly beautiful new production will give you a chance to observe the psyche of one of the most complex characters (fictional or non-fictional), and the mindscape of Korean Hamlet recreated on stage is in its purest and most austere aesthetics just as one can find in the Asian arts.