“La MaMa Puppet Series IV — Built to Perform,” the latest in La MaMa’s celebrated annual puppet program, will premiere five adult puppet theater productions and remount a popular children’s attraction this fall, exploring the artistic and creative possibilities of puppetry in all its forms. The series will run from October 14 to November 28, 2010.

The series will open with the latest work by Italy’s Dario D’Ambrosi (Pathological Theater), “Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads,” from October 14 thru October 31. There will be two works from Poland presented in association with The Polish Cultural Institute, “Chopin-An Impression” by Bialystok Puppet Theatre October 21 to November 7 and “Broken Nails. A Marlene Dietrich Dialogue” by Wiczy Theatre from November 11 to 21.  From Brooklyn comes “Wake Up, You’re Dead,” directed and designed by Aaron Haskell, October 29 to November 7. The family and children’s puppet theater attraction will be “Folktales of Asia and Africa” by Jane Catherine Shaw October 23 to November 7. The festival will conclude with “In Retrospect” by LOCO7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company, directed, choreographed and designed by Colombia-born Federico Restrepo with music composed by Elizabeth Swados, November 11 to 28. There will be Gallery Exhibit at La MaMa’s La Galleria, 6 East First Street, with puppets displayed from artists of the series, from October 21 to November 7.

La MaMa will have its fall gala October 25, celebrating its 49th season by honoring Cheryl Henson of the Jim Henson Foundation.

The La MaMa Puppet Series is now an annual event, curated by Denise Greber. It carries on La MaMa’s tradition, since its inception, of supporting puppet theater artists from all over the world.

The series is supported by the Jim Henson Foundation, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, NYSCA and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

To encourage audiences to see multiple productions during the festival, La MaMa will offer a Festival Pass subscription and incentive pricing for the Series (to be announced). Tickets can be purchased online at www.lamama.org. The phone number for audience information is (212) 475-7710. La MaMa is located at 74A East Fourth Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery, in the East Village.

Schedules and descriptions of eight events follow:

“Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads” by Pathological Theatre, Italy
October 14 thru October 31, First Floor Theatre
Written and directed by Dario D’Ambrosi
Set and Object/Puppet design by Aurora Buzzetti
Thursdays through Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sundays at 2:30; $18
Running time: 60 minutes.

“Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads” is the kind of play that could only be written from the experience of Dario D’Ambrosi, who for over 30 years has worked with mentally disabled people in Italy. It is the American debut for Set/Puppet Designer Aurora Buzzetti (Rome).  Translation is by Celeste Moratti.  It is a theatrical fantasy about mentally ill children in institutions, whose thoughts are cloudy but whose souls are clear, who are bespattered with pain but whose dignity shines.  In fairy tale style, it dramatizes how their imaginations are limitless and how they flourish when they are loved.  The story is told with live music, singing, dance and puppets.  Although it deals directly with lives of most troubled people, the play is fantastical and nonthreatening.  It is recommended for audiences of all ages.

In the ’80s and ’90s, Dario D’Ambrosi marched irresistibly into the forefront of Italy’s theatrical ambassadors, a cohort led by Pirandello, DiFilippo and Dario Fo.  In 1994, he received the equivalent of a Tony Award in his country: a prize for lifetime achievement in the theater from the Instituto del Drama Italiano.  D’Ambrosi first performed at La MaMa in 1980 and has been in residence there nearly every year thereafter. Rosette Lamont wrote in Theater Week, “The yearly appearance of the Italian writer/performer Dario D’Ambrosi at La MaMa is cause for celebration.”

Last October, D’Ambrosi opened a new theater in a converted warehouse in a norther section of Rome.  Named The Pathological Theater, it is home to his resident company of professional actors and a drama school for psychiatric patients.  Set/Puppet Designer Aurora Buzzetti, a fast-emerging artist of Rome’s theatre crafts community, is a resident artist there.  This world premiere, however, will be performed by American actors, as has been D’Ambrosi’s practice in each of his New York productions since 2004.
“Chopin-An Impression” by Bialystok Puppet Theatre
Presented in association with The Polish Cultural Institute in New York
October 21 thru November 7, Ellen Stewart Theatre at The Annex
Conceived by Wojciech Szelachowski
Written by Leslaw Piecka, Wojciech Szelachowski
Directed by Leslaw Piecka
Set and puppets designed by Joanna Braun
Choreographed by Jolanta Kruszewska
Music by Fryderyk Chopin
Thursdays through Saturday at 7:30 PM, Sundays at 2:30; $25
Running time: 60 minutes.

“…it is absolutely inconceivable how two genius abilities became united in Chopin’s person: that of the greatest melodist and of the most original master of harmony.” –Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Presented with the Polish Cultural Institute in New York “Chopin-An Impression” is an essay for the stage that unites music, visual art, and marionette performance. This extremely challenging technique in puppetry requires unusual mechanical design and extraordinary skill in animating the marionettes. Compositions by Fryderyk Chopin will be rendered both by a pianist and by a marionette representing the composer – a marionette controlled with strings, measuring about a foot and displaying agility and virtuosic perfection in the hands of its master.

The production premiered March 7, 2010, in Bialystok, Poland. The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage commissioned the work as part of the worldwide celebration of The Year of Chopin 2010, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Poland’s greatest composer. The official opening of this year-long celebration took place on January 1 in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, where the artist was born and where his father worked as a tutor for a local aristocratic family.

The Bialystok Puppet Theatre, one of the best puppet theaters in Europe introduces the audience to Chopin’s world through a series of Muses who serve as guides through the worlds of dreams and sounds produced by his music. They also present his artistic friendships, musical impressions, and life experiences. The show refers to Chopin’s fascination with Paganini, his friendships and relationships with George Sand, with his fiancée Maria Wodzinska, his longings for the lost “country of his childhood,” his creative dilemmas, Impressions, artistic visions, moods that range from the poetic to the paranoid, the feeling of success, and the sense of despair. Apart from Chopin’s music performed live by one of Poland’s most talented pianists, Krzysztof Traskowski, the show features actors, marionettes, art objects and visual presentations.
“Wake Up, You’re Dead!” by Brooklyn Art Department
October 29 thru November 7, The Club
Directed and Designed by Aaron Haskell
Fridays and Saturdays at 10:00 PM, Sundays at 5:30 PM; $15
Running time: 45 minutes.

What puppeteer doesn’t wonder what will happen to him as he impersonates the creator?  In “Wake Up, You’re Dead!,” Aaron Haskell of Brooklyn Art Department, one of the original designers of Nightmare: NYC’s Haunted House, gives us a Halloween-flavored creation myth.  It’s performed as a dark ceremony by a weird tribe.  The Ancestors–Haskell’s own version of the Greek Titans–are life-sized skeleton creatures that create great balls of light (the life force).  Mankind is born by sliding down a Jungian sluice to the earth.  There are black light effects, dancing skeletons (that show the cyclical nature of life), primal movement (costumed creatures locomoting on all-fours, animal-like), bass-heavy loud music, Butoh and technical modern dance.  Puppets bring puppeteers to life and vice-versa.  Following this spectacle of evolution, an ultimate being is created at the end of the show.

It’s all staged as a De La Guarda-type event and spectacle:  a boisterous party that will have you on your feet!

Haskell has invented myths since childhood.  “It’s a cool way to make up your own stories, especially since you can also make up your own creatures.”  In “Wake Up, You’re Dead!,” they’re all constructed from eco-friendly, greenlist ingredients, including skeletons of sawdust and cardboard that look like bones dressed in cornflakes.
“Broken Nails. A Marlene Dietrich Dialogue” by Wiczy Theatre
Presented in association with The Polish Cultural Institute in New York
November 11 thru 21, The Club
Conceived and performed by Anna Skubik
Written and directed by Romuald Wicza-Pokojski
Set designed by Romuald Wicza-Pokojski
Music arranged by Igor Nowicki
Puppet designed by Anna Skubik and Barbara Poczwardowska
Thursdays through Saturdays at 10:00 PM, Sundays at 5:30 PM; $15
Running time: 45 minutes.

Beautiful, determined, intelligent, controversial–Marlene Dietrich was a transcendent symbol of femininity, a lady of strong character and clear mind, a woman with claws. A fascinating figure to both men and women, Dietrich’s personality has also seduced Anna Skubik, a young Polish actress and puppeteer who brings this German star to life by animating her as a life-size doll. Presented with the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, “Broken Nails. A Marlene Dietrich Dialogue” portrays Dietrich and her maid Gloria (both played by Skubik) in a co-dependent relationship during the star’s last days in her Paris apartment.

Ms. Skubik slips back and forth between her roles as meek servant and haughty star with such virtuosity that it is easy to forget there is only one woman on stage. The play is a compelling study of womanhood – from all that is eternal and archetypal about women to their more ephemeral, fragile, and unsustainable personal qualities. The actress, under the direction of the play’s author, Romuald Wicza-Pokojski, is less interested in resurrecting Marlene Dietrich than in showing the legendary star as she deals with her fading beauty and imminent death.

Anna Skubik is a one-woman tour de force in this show, always in intimate contact with the puppet. Skubik gives Dietrich a deep, slightly hoarse voice, while Gloria’s voice is shy and girlish. The dynamic of the dialogue, the rapid shifting of views and opinions, the transition from high emotion to peace and tranquility, as well as Dietrich’s diverse costumes and singing gives the audience no choice but to fully immerse itself in Skubik’s theatrical fiction.
“Folktales of Asia and Africa,” created by Jane Catherine Shaw (Children’s Puppet Theater)
October 23 & 24, October 30 & 31 and November 6 & 7, Ellen Stewart Theatre at The Annex
Saturdays and Sundays at Noon; Tickets $10 Adults/$5 Children
Running time: 45 minutes

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 Burma.

This one woman show was created, designed, and performed by Jane Catherine Shaw nearly twenty years ago and has been an audience favorite wherever she has performed it. 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.
“In Retrospect” by LOCO7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company
November 12 thru November 28, First Floor Theatre
Conceived by Denise Greber and Federico Restrepo
Directed, choreographed and designed by Federico Restrepo
Music composed by Elizabeth Swados
Thursdays through Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sundays at 2:30 (no show Thanksgiving Day); $18
Running time: 60 minutes.

With its newest production, “In Retrospect,” LOCO7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company investigates how we each construct our personal memory box:  how we keep our memories fresh and preserve the things that made us who we are.  These include our mothers’ embraces, lost loves, childhood dreams, ideals of youth and struggles of age, loss and birth.

The production features giant puppets, marionette scenery, masks, choreography, acrobatics, live original music and video.  A large marionette tree dangles fruits high above our reach which, when dropped, grow into our memories.  Some of them summon feelings of being loved and secure, others evoke the opposite.  For example, one scene depicts a huge Mother marionette and her little children, revealing the pleasure of hiding within the safety of her giant legs.  Another scene has a puppet telephone and a character waiting for a call with a mixture of dread and excitement.  We are reminded of our emotional dependence on the appliance as a “life line” which can be either a comfort or a monster.

Reflecting the compartmentalization of our feelings, the stage will have a room-within-a-room where a person lives her life locked behind a wall. With this self inflicted alienation, she watches the world living yet remains cut off, unable to interact with society, hiding behind to safety zone of technology.

The production will be designed, choreographed, and directed by Federico Restrepo, a Colombian-born master of puppet theater and physical theater. The piece is being written and developed by Federico Restrepo and Denise Greber. Music will be composed by Elizabeth Swados; this is her fourth collaboration with Restrepo.
Gallery Exhibit at La Galleria, 6 East First Street.

Exhibition of puppets by Federico Restrepo, Theodora Skipitares, Jane Catherine Shaw, Dan Hurlin, Lake Simmons and more, October 21 – November 7, 2010.
La MaMa Fall Gala honoring Cheryl Henson
Ellen Stewart Theater, Monday, October 25, 8:00 PM

The evening will honor Cheryl Henson of the Jim Henson Foundation for her contributions to the art of puppetry.  The evening will have performances by Basil Twist, Dan Hurlin, Erik Sanko & Jessica Grindstaff, Federico Restrepo, Lake Simmons & John Dyer, Roman Paska, Tom Lee, Mark Russell, Theordora Skipitares and surprise guests.  (Note:  time has been changed from 7:30 to 8:00 PM.)

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The fifth LaMama Moves Festival is well underway, people. With over two weeks of programming, over 50 artists, and showtimes ranging from 2 to 10pm, there’s little reason to not catch something, be it The Power of Hula, a Jack Ferver curated Cabaret Evening, or a Movement Studies Research Studies Project on Improvisational Practice.  Last night, the indomitable Nicky Paraiso welcomed the audience to the Mavericks in Motion Program A (there will be B, C, and D programs too) by pointing out that we are a form with history (dig one to Alastair Macaulay) out to reclaim the co-opted nickname (dig two to John McCain).  I’m not sure the four works shown represented much dissent, but there was plenty of fascinating movement exploration to chew on.

Lionel Popkin showed an excerpted solo, with fellow UCLA faculty member Robert Een accompanying on cello and voice, of last year’s Danspace Project quartet, “There’s an Elephant in this Dance,” which Andy has already written a bit about.   After Popkin’s huge, fuzzy elephant suit falls away, he begins a compelling journey through breath, rebound, and spiraling pathways.  Standing mostly in place, with his hands in his pockets, he blows and sucks in air in increasingly more complicated rhythms. Even without original cast members Ishmael Houston-Jones, Carolyn Hall, and Peggy Piacenza Popkin and Een (and the elephant) provide a sense of communal dialogue and multiplicity.

David Capps, my colleague at Hunter College, performs in his quartet “Now Sings the Garden,” set to part of Olivier Messiaen’s “Vingt Regards su l’enfant-jesus.”  Toby Hankin joins him on two chairs, and the two veteran dancers set a mood of mature quiet before Jamie Chandler and George Hirsch, bound into the space with youthful energy.  The dance continues primarily as simultaneous duets with Hankin occasionally gazing at the younger dancers.  Her benevolent smile hints at the contemplative theme of the music into some focus. However, Capps seems most often agitated by the other couple who, in turn, never acknowledge the older dancers. This provides an interesting spatial tension while allowing me ruminations about agility, rigidity and, parenthood.

Rashaun Mitchell showed “Nocturnal Excerpts,” a work in progress duet, performed and created in collaboration with fellow Cunningham Co. member Silas Riener.  The two begin slumped against the front brick wall of La Mama’s First Floor Theater.  Riener collapses and pushes against the wall, before both dancers push away from it and explore a strong backwards pull of the head, attending to sharp, fast, jerks of the cervical spine. And, I only get anatomic here because later in the dance Riener rolls himself backwards over the top of his head and onto his face, while laying on his back, in a spinal contortion that I found (this morning in the studio) is, indeed, as unlikely to achieve as it looked. The sonic landscape by Ablehearts and the physical crumpling and contortions imbue the space with sweet violence and a kind of late-night loneliness.

Luke Gutgsell performed “Two Habits,” his sensuous duet with Elise Knudson.  He states in the program that the work is an embrace of his own movement habits.  I’d say they’re habits worth maintaining, except, perhaps for Knudson’s butt scratching…I mean, only, as a personal habit… I actually enjoyed the humor of her hiked shorts and ichy rear end in the midst of this silky dance work.  The two are well matched for the slow and seamless slides and gently persistent pushes.  I found myself thinking they could continue on forever and I’d watch; it was like a raspberry dark chocolate mousse, absolutely luscious.

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(l to r) Penny Dannenberg (seated), Jamie Graham, Rebecca Woll, Moses Kaplan, Alex Schell, Maggie Ronan, Jessica Thomas, Betty Williams (obscured) Photo by Eric Bandiero

Stretch.  And be smart about it.

Translate into Latin  (Tendo, Quod operor is purpureus?), and that might become a motto for NYU Tisch School of the Arts Dance Program.

Over the past several months I have encountered Department Chair Cherylyn Lavagnino, and faculty member Jaclynn Villamil with graduate students in tow both at DIA Beacon for the dress rehearsal of the Trisha Brown Dance Company‘s performances there in February, and at Danspace St. Mark’s.  Granted, the latter happens to be just up Second Avenue from the Department’s home at 6^th St.  But wouldn’t that be a smart stretch?

Last Friday, those two along with faculty project facilitator Jim Sutton could be found in the first and second rows of La Mama Annex around the corner on E. 4^th St.  And some of the graduate students, along with a number of newly minted BFA’s  and MFA’s could be found on the stage. There, in the evening’s most intriguing and compelling spectacle four of them found themselves fully integrated into Naomi Goldberg Haas’ “Uprooting,” a piece that incorporates three generations of performers to suggest passages both physical and metaphysical.

at rear: (l to r) Moses Kaplan, Jamie Graham, Maggie Ronan, Jackie Ferrara. front: Penny Dannenberg, Ani Javian Photo by Eric Bandiero

Goldberg Haas has been directing her Dances For A Variable Population since 2005, with professional company members ranging in age from 25 to 81.  The seamless addition of NYU dancers Moses Kaplan, Maggie Ronan, Alex Schell and Jessica Thomas highlights one of the choreography’s strengths.  Set to several propulsive folk-inspired recordings by the Polish combo Warsaw Village Band, “Uprooting” manages to find and challenge each of its 13 performers at or near the limit of her/his technical and expressive potential, and to transcend this challenge by suggesting the existential humanity of yearning, striving, transformation, and reflection from youth to age and memory back to immediate experience.

(l to r) M. Lindsay Smith, Jackie Ferrara Photo by Eric Bandiero

The performances of senior members Penny Dannenberg, Jackie Ferrara, Judith Chazen Walsh and Betty Williams, while remarkable in their own right, create a frame of dimension and depth for those of their youthful collaborators.  Their regard of the youngsters manages to encompass a mixture of dispassionate assessment with intimations of mentoring, longing, and sassy competitiveness and even one-upmanship that leavens the poignancy of both the music and the dancing with pith and wit.  In one exquisitely simple and memorable moment Dannenberg and Geraldine Bartlett slowly sit down back to back to share one of the folding chairs that has been brought on to the stage.  Their mirror images present in such a way as to leave open the question, expertly poised, of who might be a reflection of whom.

Add to this interplay the lusty way in which Goldberg Haas’ young professionals Jamie Graham, Ani Javian, M. Lindsay Smith and Rebecca Woll bite into the music and movement as if to both throw down a challenge and lead the way among their younger and older counterparts, and you have a work that begins to transform the creative potential energy of Dances For A Variable Population into a power to move and inspire its audience as much as its own members.

In this, rehearsal director Smith, of the high-arched and articulate feet and whip-smart torso, and the equally fiery Graham set the tone as firsts among equals.  With any luck, this cross-generational ensemble, including its new-found Tisch quartet, will manage to hold together long enough to re-present an outdoor version of this work at the end of September in cooperation with Hudson Guild Fulton Senior Center along the High Line Park in Chelsea.

(l to r): Ani Javian, M. Lindsay Smith, Jamie Graham, Rebecca Woll. Photo by Eric Bandiero

One can only wish as much for Selina Chau’s “The New York Exchange.” This witty, cheeky, extremely well crafted send up of everything from dance style pretensions to kung fu movies features fine performances by Monica Barbaro as a wayward ballet princess, Austin J. Diaz and Gierre J. Godley, as various NY dance, street and martial arts types, and Mandarin Wu as the archetypal femme fatale with the fan.

Mandarin Wu (with fan) Gierre J. Godley, and Monica Barbaro photo by Tony Dougherty

Chau displays a sharp eye and a supple mind for theatrical type and form, fable, kitsch, and the way pop culture co-opts all of the above. Set to an ingenious score by Kyle Olson that mashes up his own “New York Exchange” with passages from Adolphe Adams’ score for Giselle and Romani and Bellini’s “Costa Diva” from Norma, interrupted by Chinese text passages written by Chau and comically delivered by co-writer Wu, the work sets up and then undermines expectations in a way that satisfyingly compliments that of Goldberg Haas. Like the latter dance maker, Chau has keen sense of theatrical and, especially in her case, comic timing and the delicacy of gesture that allows us the comfort of recognition just as she twists to tickle and subvert our prejudice.

Such rare gifts more than justify Tisch’s repeated presence in the annual LaMama Moves Festival.  When you’ve got it, why not go the extra mile — or two blocks – beyond your building and perhaps your comfort zone to flaunt it?

More of DJ McDonald’s commentary can be found at City of Glass.

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Starting January 6th you can see THE DEVIL YOU KNOW at LaMama.  This show marks the first collaboration between the legendary Ping Chong and the increasingly renowned Phantom Limb Company.  On a recent snowy Sunday, Jessica and Erik from Phantom Limb invited Culturebot into the studio for an interview.

[BTW - Culturebot's former intern Meryl did a great interview with Ping Chong and Michel Rohd in June of 2004. Check that out here. ]

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Okay. So long story short. Some of you saw my lecture at JTS (I will post the video soon) where I demonstrated how The Wooster Group’s Hamlet was more Jewish than The Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre’s staging of Gimpel Tam. Trust me, it makes sense. Basically, the idea is that the Talmud (see picture below) is the archetypal embodiment of Jewish intellectual and creative construction; the source text is in the middle and it is surrounded by commentaries spanning millennia, all on the page at once, speaking to each other, often in disagreement.

The Talmud is a living, hybrid, trans-temporal, intercultural, evolving document that is “performed” through study and engagement. Thus one might posit that this mode of constructing theater – multiple texts in conversation in around a source text, with multiple authors, commentaries and perspectives, from different eras, in different languages and different geographies – is deeply Jewish. I have also written about the idea of Jewish Diaspora Culture as pre-technological networked society where the “meme” of Judaism replicated throughout the network, constantly mutating and evolving, integrating elements of the dominant cultures while retaining an essential Jewishnesss. Look at hybrid languages such as Yiddish and Ladino, hybrid musics, cooking – even philosophy. If we look at the history of Jewish thought we see the influences of Hellenism, the Enlightenment in Western Europe (Haskalah).

And yet, most cultures insist on telling “the story of our people” using the tools of modern drama to reinforce simplistic dominant narratives, manufacturing nostalgia and constructing authenticity  through consensus. So, while Gimpel Tam appears to be “Jewish” in that it reinforces a dominant narrative built on manufactured nostalgia, TWG’s Hamlet is actually more Jewish, in that it involves a source text (Hamlet) which in itself comes from an oral tradition/folk story, which is staged with commentary, referencing Burton & Gielgud’s Hamlet on Broadway, the film of that Hamlet, plus the editing and mediation of multiple authors in performance during the theatrical event of TWG’s staging.

That is why Dan Safer and Witness Relocations‘s Haggadah at LaMama is such a breakthrough. It is the first intentional work of contemporary Jewish theater. Bringing together the traditional text of the Haggadah (the central text of the Passover holiday, it is the “script” for the Seder – a ceremonial meal recounting the story of the enslavement of the Israelites and their Exodus from Egypt. It, too, is a hybrid text, written in multiple languages by multiple authors over millenia, a performance unto itself) with radically edited footage from iconic swords & sandals epic The Ten Commandments,  the music of Metallica and contemporary performance practice, Safer has created what will come to be seen as a seminal work in the history of Jewish theater. 

This intensely physical piece puts the performers through their paces – an extended sequence where the entire cast runs in place for the entire 6 minutes and 36 seconds of Metallica’s “Creeping Death” (inspired by the band’s viewing of The Ten Commandments and its representation of the plague “the slaying of the first born”) is inspiring and exhausting. Haggadah, with its wrestling matches (the word “israel”, etymologically, can be translated as “wrestling with G-d”), a fantastic duet between Moses and Nefertiti where he rejects her advances and several dynamic group numbers, is Safer’s most physically adventurous and athletic work since Dancing vs. The Rat Experiment and in this case the physicality drives the piece with a sense of urgency and fun. (I am biased, I have always loved really physical theater from Grotowsky to Berkoff to DV8 and everything in between).

Safer not only uses this multitextual mode of construction to get at an essential Jewishness, he brings it to life in other ways, such as including a few moments of intense debate, or pilpul. Particularly striking is the moment, just before the Egyptian soldiers are to be drowned by the rapidly encroaching Red Sea, where two Angels debate their fate. Are they guilty, do they deserve this, or should they be spared? After all, they were just following orders. They were not responsible, they did not personally enslaves the Hebrews. Of course we all know how this ends. And having angels debate this not only reflects the Jewish character of the story but creates a link -however post-post-post modern- to the long history of theater engaging in theological and sociological debate, from the ancient greeks to archibald macleish and beyond.

This also is possibly my only moment of dramaturgical reticence, something I wish Dan had included, the postscript to the Egyptians drowning that I think is very important. Here it is described by Rabbi Jeremy Rosen:

“There is an amazing Midrash that tells us that after the Egyptians pursued the fleeing Hebrew Slaves and ended up drowning, the angels wanted to sing a song of joy but God said ‘No! My creatures are drowning in the sea. How can you rejoice’ And we do not say the full Hallel Prayer of Rejoicing on six of the days of Passover precisely because our liberation came at the expense of other human beings. And we are commanded despite everything not to hate the Egyptian.”

But that’s a small quibble. From the footage of Yul Brynner as Pharaoh radically edited to make him look like a queen working the runway to the hilarious staging of the burning bush and the cliffhanger ending Haggadah is an intelligent, enjoyable, exciting piece of theater. And historically it marks the moment where  the gauntlet has been thrown down, where Jewish theater has been reinvented for the Information Age, and the next part of this millenia-long conversation begins.

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Purim just ended and it’s already time to prepare for Passover! Bust out your matzoh and your mandel bread and sweep out that kitchen good because Dan Safer and his evil band of co-conspirators at Witness Relocation are taking on Passover, The Ten Commandments, Plagues, Cecil B. DeMille, Metallica, and more in:

HAGGADAH (or THE PASSOVER SHOW)

MARCH 20-29 ONLY!!!

La MaMa’s Annex Theater / 74A east 4th Street (Bowery & 2nd) / NYC

Week 1: March 20-22, Fri-Sat @ 7:30pm, Sun @ 2:30pm

Week 2: March 26-29, Thurs-Sat @ 7:30, Sun @ 2:30pm

Tickets $25, but use the discount code MOSES and get them for $18 at www.lamama.org

HAGGADAH – starring Abigail Browde, Heather Christian, Sean Donovan, Mike Mikos, Wil Petre, Sam Pinkleton, Orion Taraban, Laura Berlin Stinger set/lights Jay Ryan sound Ryan Maeker costumes Deb O video Kaz Phillips dramaturg Yoni Oppenheim director/choreographer Dan Safer

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TONIGHT!!! FRiDAY THE 13th!

LA MAMA E.T.C.

10PM

PERFORMANCES BY:

JOHN JESURUN with Black-Eyed Susan and Ben Forester

WU INGRID TSANG

BARB LANCIERS

THE NONSENSE COMPANY

RACHEL MASON

& A SPECIAL TEASER FROM DYKE DIVISION’S ROOM FOR CREAM

Bringing artists who have been working for 30-plus years into dialogue with those who have been working for two years and bringing works that are entertainment-based with those that specifically challenges the conventions of entertainment, Nostalgia Isn’t What it Used to Be, opens a space for theatrical and non-theatrical work to co-mingle and a space for works that address audiences in decidedly distinct ways to be in conversation with each other.

Curated and produced (I think) by Brooke O’Harra

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I’ve been meaning to post about this and totally spaced. Kudos to Nicky Paraiso and the gang at LaMama for putting together this fantastic dance festival, LaMama Moves!

There’s a great line-up of events all month long (sorry I missed a week or so!) also particularly cool is the “Dancing for Micki” celebration Micki Wesson on May 22:

dancing for micki

An evening celebrating micki wesson

The Annex

May 22, 2008

Thursday at 7:30pm

$100 for show and reception

$250 for show and reception and to provide a seat at the Gala for a La MaMa Moves! Participating Choreographer

purchase tickets online

to benefit La MaMa Moves dance festival and dance programs at La MaMa E.T.C.

complete info after the jump… Continue Reading

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