Downtown Variety: X
La MaMa and CultureHub Present
Downtown Variety
Powered by LIVE Lab
Over the past two and a half months, La MaMa and CultureHub have teamed up to create Downtown Variety, which uses emerging technologies to create a new venue for artistic expression and creative connections. In response to national protests, La MaMa and CultureHub will pass the mic to past CultureHub Resident Artist Mx. Oops who will curate and host Downtown Variety: X, which will focus on artistic and healing responses to systemic oppression.
Downtown Variety: X will feature: Olubode Shawn Brown, founder of BLOOM; a screening of the short film, Bloom: The Return, and conversation with director, Sekou Luke; Burn It Down, a new song produced by Xavier Ryan, of Triggered Music; and a live soundbath with singing bowls and gongs. This event reflects on the importance of collective action, provides tools for self-care, and resources for you to support the movement.
Powered by LiveLab, a browser-based media-router CultureHub is developing for networked collaboration between artists, technologists, and audiences.
Creative Technologist — Sangmin Chae
Lead Technician — DeAndra Anthony
Video Production Coordinator — Jean Garcia
ABOUT CULTUREHUB & LIVE LAB
CultureHub is a global art and technology community that was born out of decades of collaboration between La MaMa and the Seoul Institute of the Arts, Korea’s first contemporary performing arts school. These two pioneering institutions sought to explore how the internet and digital technologies could foster a more sustainable model for international exchange and creativity.
Now in its 10th year, CultureHub has grown into a global network with studios in New York, Los Angeles, Korea, Indonesia, and Italy, providing connected environments for artists to critically examine our evolving relationship to technology. Through residencies, live productions, and educational programming, CultureHub advances the work of artists experimenting with emerging technologies in search of new artistic forms. CultureHub builds new partnerships that expand our network and provide increased access to online and offline platforms that fuel artist mobility, create opportunities for cultural exchange, and broaden human understanding through the convergence of art, technology, and education.
Click Here to Learn More About CultureHub
CultureHub is deeply committed to the use of open source and consumer-based technology to make electronic media art accessible to artists and audiences. In the past year, CultureHub collaborated with resident artist Olivia Jack to produce LiveLab, an open source video call software designed specifically for artists, educators, and cultural organizations. The LiveLab toolkit provides a flexible and artful environment for producing multi-location performances, workshops, and cultural exchanges. Built as an alternative to hardware video conferencing systems, LiveLab is customizable, free of cost, and as easy to use as Skype or Google Hangouts.
Click Here to Learn More About Live Lab
Online Happenings
Presented by La MaMa and CultureHub, La MaMa is exploring ways to respond creatively to a situation that is potentially changing how we gather as a community in our theatres. La MaMa is working with CultureHub to provide online streaming of select productions and events on Howlround Theatre Commons.
Downtown Variety
La MaMa and CultureHub are teaming up to create a Downtown Variety, a weekly online live performance series that will feature short acts of dance, music, theater, new media, comedy, A/V performance, and more. Responding to calls for social isolation, Downtown Variety brings La MaMa's 1960s café aesthetic to a virtual platform that links performers and audiences in real time across distance.