La MaMa Kids: Folktales of Asia and Africa
Object Theatre Performance
By Jane Catherine Shaw
Ages 6+
While she is making bread, the hostess discovers that she has guests. As they all wait for the dough to rise she tells them three stories using kitchen utensils to play the characters, in the style of found object puppetry. Audiences love to see egg beaters hop into cloth napkins to become Japanese sisters dressed in kimonos, or watch as a flour sifter becomes an old man, with a cookie cutter for a pet rabbit. Among the many notable characters are wooden salt and pepper shakers as sisters in "The Dragon with Five Heads" from Zimbabwe, 4 steak knives that become the wise man in the Japanese tale "The Lantern and The Fan," and an unusual doughnut maker becomes the moon goddess disguised as an old women in "The Old Man and the Moon" from Myanmar.
Children and adults delight in the imaginative use of everyday objects to portray the characters in the three stories. Folktales of Asia and Africa brings puppetry to its essence, in which common objects of daily use assume fantastic character through the artistry of puppetry and the puppeteer.
Jane Catherine Shaw is a longstanding La MaMa resident artist. She interweaves imaginative characters and stories to make one exciting piece of theatre for young audiences. She is the curator of La MaMa Puppet Slam.
La MaMa Kids
La MaMa Kids Online presents kids performances and hands-on workshops online, timed especially for “after school” viewing! La MaMa will continue to use emerging technologies to create a new venue for artistic expression that questions how art can function and how we as a society can survive challenging periods of history.