La MaMa Blogs: 2015

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Bid on tickets to HAMILTON on Broadway!



Here is your chance to get your hands on a pair of tickets to see the hottest show on Broadway, HAMILTON, on Saturday, January 2, 2016.

We've got a pair of tickets that we are auctioning off on Bidding Owl - so you can see Hamilton and help support La MaMa at the same time.

Click Here to check out the auction.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

MDLSX Special Event w/ Kate Bornstein: Sunday January 10, 2016



There will be a special post-show conversation following the 4pm performance of MDLSX with Kate Bornstein and Silvia Calderoni, Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò of Motus.

This event is free for ticket holders to this performance.  Click Here to buy tickets for this performance.



La MaMa in association with Watson Arts present

MDLSX
by Motuswith Silvia Calderoni

January 7 - 17, 2016

The Downstairs @ La MaMa66 East 4th Street(between Bowery and Second Avenue)New York, NY 10003

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors; ten $10 tickets are available for every performance (advance sales only - while they last) as part of La MaMa's 10@$10 ticketing initiative.
For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Video Preview: MDLSX by Motus

 
MDLSX by MOTUS from La MaMa on Vimeo.

Called "the most truly revolutionary troupe in town" by Ben Brantley of The New York Times, Motus returns to La MaMa with MDLSX from January 7 - 17, 2016, in The Downstairs @ La MaMa.

MDLSX is an 80-minute performance/monologue/ DJ set performed by the award-winning actress Silvia Calderoni, and directed by Motus founders, Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolo.  MDLSX  weaves autobiography and literary evocations in a wild and fervent paean to the freedom of becoming, to gender-blending,  to a being that cannot be contained within the  borders of the body, skin color, sexual organs, or boundaries of national identity. 



La MaMa in association with Watson Arts present
MDLSX
by Motus
with Silvia Calderoni

January 7 - 17, 2016

The Downstairs @ La MaMa
66 East 4th Street
(between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10003

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors; ten $10 tickets are available for every performance (advance sales only - while they last) as part of La MaMa's 10@$10 ticketing initiative.

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

Friday, December 18, 2015

Get to Know Hildegard of Bingen: One of the Most Remarkable Women of the Middle Ages


Tonight begins the final weekend of performances for Pioneers Go East Collective's Hildegard (vision) follows the story of Hildegard of Bingen, a medieval nun, composer, and philosopher, who experienced divine visions. The structure piece mirrors the scientific phases of the body during a migraine attack, represented through an integrated mix of piercing sound, motion and surreal imagery, to examine the ways in which context combined with physiological processes shape how we perceive and affect change within the world around us. Before you see the show, find out more about the life of this incredible woman:

1. Hildegard of Bingen, was one of the "great creation-centered mystics of the West."

A 12th century Benedictine abbess, mystic, visionary, prophet and polymath known for her work as a writer, philosopher, composer, poet, playwright, linguist, scientist, physician.

2. One of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages.

"We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a home. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light."

"Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is not long, but the way is deep. You must not only walk there, you must be prepared to leap."

3. She coined the term viriditas, or greening power, connecting it closely with creativity.

"The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature.”



4: She had visions caused by migraines.

"These visions which I saw were not in sleep nor in dreams, nor in my imagination nor by bodily eyes or outward ears nor in a hidden place; but in watching, aware with the pure eyes of the mind and inner ear of the heart.
  
5. She was an active preacher (unusual for a woman of her time)

Hildegard embarked on various preaching tours of the country. Reform of the clergy was one of her main aims.


6. At the heart of Hildegard von Bingen's extraordinary creativity was her accomplishment in music. 

In the poetry and melody of her songs, she reveals the full authority, intelligence and striking originality of her genius. She wrote profusely as no woman before her. Even though she received no formal training in music, her talent and motivation drove her to write 77 chants and the first musical drama in history, which she entitled The Ritual of the VirtuesUnlike the mild, mainstream music of her day, her lyrical speech breaks into rhapsodic emotion; her zesty melodies soar up to two and one half octaves, leaping and swirling into flourishing roulades which leave the singer breathless.

“All the arts serving human desires and needs are derived from the breath that God sent into the human body."

"When the words come, they are merely empty shells without the music. They live as they are sung, for the words are the body and the music the spirit."



7. She frequently wrote about nature.

"Glance at the sun. See the moon and stars. Gaze at the beauty of the green earth. Now think."

"The earth is at the same time mother, She is mother of all that is natural, mother of all that is human. She is the mother of all, for contained in her are the seeds of all."

8. At last she has been canonised in May 2012.

This made her the record holder for the longest canonisation process in history! She was also made a 'Doctor of the Church' - a rare honour for a woman.

- - - - -


La MaMa in association 







HILDEGARD 

(VISION)

Created and Designed by Gian Marco Lo Forte, Abby Felder and John Sully
Directed by Gian Marco Lo Forte
Written by Abby Felder
Composed by John Sully
Featured Performers: Marina Celander, Nehprii Amenii, Seth Gilman, Kamala Sankaram, Daniel Diaz, Tali Custer


December 3 - 20, 2015
Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30; Sundays at 2pm

La MaMa First Floor Theater
74A East 4th Street
(between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10003

Tickets: $18 Adults; $13 Students/Seniors; ten $10 tickets are available for every performance as part of La MaMa's 10@$10 ticketing initiative (advance sales only)

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

La MaMa Winter 2016 Brochure!



The Winter season includes:

MDLSX by Motus
La MaMa Squirts 2016: New Voices in Queer Performance
Yesterday Tomorrow by Annie Dorsen (part of COIL)
Imagining The Imaginary Invalid by Mabou Mines and Trick Saddle
Burnished By Grief: A Romantic Comedy by Talking Band
To the left of the pantry and below the sugar shack by Harunalee Theater Company
The New World Symphony: Dvořák in America by Czech-American Marionette Theatre

and much, much more!



Thursday, December 17, 2015

The Legacy of Pier Paolo Pasolini: Post-Show Panel Discussion



A post- show panel discussion about Pier Paolo Pasolini, the writer of 'Pylade', and his legacy was held following the performance on Sunday, December 13th. A large portion of the audience stayed to hear the panelists, Pietro Bocchia, Francesca Cadel, Mark Epstein and Luca Peretti, discuss the history of 'Pylade' in performance, the artistic process, and the audience experience after this show that has critics raving! Only two performances remaining on December 17 & December 18th at 7pm!

On the history of performances of “Pylade”:
Mark Epstein:
"His ideas, the cultural right, is precisely to involve people, involving people in the dialogue. Pasolini was the last person to want to close something, or the last person to want to write the recipe. You can have the high level of plutonic, or socratic dialogue or you can have the most bodily, popular level involving people- They are just as much dialogic, on different levels...."

Luca Peretti:
"It's important to emphasize, he's not necessarily known in Italy as a playwright... Novelist, film-maker, essayist, public intellectual, and some of these things are known abroad. I mean, he's definitely known in the US and elsewhere as a director. His films are well-known. Many of the other aspects of his life, including his role as an essayist with a say on politics and society, are well-translated. His part in theatre somehow minor. It's not, in Italy, that we deal with his theatre everyday. It's very rare to see it represented. That's why it's great to be here! And it's a great opportunity- even for Italians."




On audience experience:

Mark Epstein:
"I like the connection between corporeality and his materialism and then, obviously, I think the director pulled from other parts of Pasolini- like when you had those first sexual scenes and he's talking about industry and the economy of the city, this classically refers to Salom. There are parts where he took references and placed them to other words. Overall I thought it was successful and the way you embodied different arts that also have strong populist roots, like dance, song, I thought that was successful. Nobody can dare speak for Pasolini, but I think maybe in the spirit of that, he would have appreciated it."






On artistic process:
Mark Epstein:
“One  brief thing: Pasolini virtually didn’t direct. I mean, he directed when he was a young man. He directed in 1968 and in the program he very much insisted to have a dialogue with the public afterwards so I think that’s very, very important.”

About the Panelists:

Doctor Pietro Bocchia obtained his master-degree in 'Italian and Romance Philology, Literature and Linguistics' from the State University of Milan, with a thesis on Dante, entitled: "The Semantic Field of War in Dante's 'Inferno': The Interior Struggle (Pugna Spiritualis) in cantos 2nd and 9th", in 2009. He obtained his doctoral degree in "History of Italian Language and Literature" from the State University of Milan, with a dissertation on Petrarch, entitled "The Theme of Interior Struggle in Petrarch's Familiares, Secretum,    Canzoniere and Trionfi,” in 2013. He is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. in Italian Studies at Notre Dame University. His dissertation will focus on Pasolini's intellectual formation throughout the Sixties and, in particular, on Pasolini's 1968 works. Doctor Pietro Bocchia has published articles on Dante and Petrarch in peer-reviewed journals and in miscellaneous books (Il Censimento dei commentatori danteschi.Naples: Salerno. 2014, Esperimenti danteschi 2008. Genova: Marietti. 2009). Also, he collaborates with the ''Opera del Vocabolario Italiano', a prestigious Florentine institution, which is working on the "Dictionary of Ancient Italian". His article "The Relationship between Reason and Religion in Pasolini's Works: the Case of 'Theorem'" is forthcoming on the international journal 'Rivista di Studi Pasoliniani'.

Francesca Cadel teaches Italian Studies at University of Calgary. She received her Doctorat in Italian from the University of Sorbonne-Paris IV and her PhD in Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center. She has published a monograph on Pier Paolo Pasolini (La lingua dei desideri. Il dialetto secondo Pier Paolo Pasolini, Manni, Lecce, 2002), an anthology (with Davide Rondoni: Poeti con nome di donna, BUR, Milano, 2008), articles on Pasolini, Zanzotto, Pound, Morante, and several interviews (with Andrea Zanzotto, Pina Kalc, Nico Naldini, Antonio Negri. With Paola Nastri she editedCarlo Collodi’s masterpiece (Pinocchio. Storia di un burattino, New York, Farinelli, 2013). Her current book project is entitled Cultural Landscapes in Post Fascist Italy: Umberto Saba (1883-1957), Elsa Morante(1912-1985), Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975).

Mark Epstein is a translator and researcher in Italian culture, literature and film. He has translated a number of volumes for Princeton University Press, and currently several works are in progress for University of Minnesota Press. He has written on Galvano della Volpe, Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, Claudio Magris, Igino Tarchetti, Carlo Dossi, Giuseppe Rovani, Alberto Moravia, Sebastiano Timpanaro and recently especially on Pier Paolo Pasolini. His most recent essay, which appeared this October is “Uccellacci e uccellini: vie nuove verso il realismo” which appeard in Pier Paolo Pasolini: prospettive americane, with Metauro publishers.

Luca Peretti is a PhD candidate in Italian and in Film and Media Studies at Yale. He works on industrial cinema, Jewish Italian culture, and Italian intellectual history.He co-edited a volume on terrorism and cinema, and a dossier for Senses of cinema on Pasolini. He is a freelance journalist and festival organizer.




La MaMa presents
PYLADE 
by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Director Ivica Buljan
English Translation Adam Paolozza and Coleen MacPherson
Assistant Director Arthur Adair 

Music Composer Michael Sirotta 
Additional Music Yukio Tsuji and Heather Paauwe 
Light Designer Mike Riggs 
Costume Designer Ana Savić Gecan
Company Coach George Drance 
Dramaturg Zishan Ugurlu 
Stage Manager Zulivet Diaz

Great Jones Repertory Company Performers Eugene the Poogene, Maura Donahue, Cary Gant, John Gutierrez, Valois Mickens, Tunde Sho, Chris Wild, Mia Yoo and Perry Yung
Special Guest Artist Marko Mandić 

Thursday December 17, 2015 at 7pm
Friday, December 18, 2015 at 7pm

The Ellen Stewart Theatre

66 East 4th Street

(between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10003 

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors

For Tickets and info: CLICK HERE

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Reviews are in for PYLADE!

e1I3yrthCDSI_TF4caN7EBI7ZJUxRrgSvbgvgsMmklY

"Pylade is a one of a kind production, that shines because of its fearlessness and commitment."



"under Ivica Buljan’s fine direction and the company’s terrific performances—especially that of Marko Mandić in the lead role—it also makes for an intense and entertaining (if difficult to digest at times) evening of theater."



"This production achieves this mixture of sacrilegious and transcendence through an alchemy of sound, movement, and acting...Marko Mandic is one of the bravest actors in the city."



"The clarity of the Greeks, the raw intellectuals of Pasolini, and the boldness of La MaMa make up for an invaluable spectacle in New York City."



“A grand display of dynamic staging combining dance, physical combat, and glorious tableaux!”
Darryl Reilly, TheaterScene.net


"Pylade is the tragedy of the hubris of the liberal elite and the nihilism of the disenfranchised — a tragedy our world is presently living through again as people across the globe increasingly turn to extremist ideology....we feel the full brunt of this tale of cyclical cataclysmic confrontation."
~Zachary Stewart, TheaterMania




La MaMa presents
PYLADE 
by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Director Ivica Buljan
English Translation Adam Paolozza and Coleen MacPherson
Assistant Director Arthur Adair 

Music Composer Michael Sirotta 
Additional Music Yukio Tsuji and Heather Paauwe 
Light Designer Mike Riggs 
Costume Designer Ana Savić Gecan
Company Coach George Drance 
Dramaturg Zishan Ugurlu 
Stage Manager Zulivet Diaz

Great Jones Repertory Company Performers Eugene the Poogene, Maura Donahue, Cary Gant, John Gutierrez, Valois Mickens, Tunde Sho, Chris Wild, Mia Yoo and Perry Yung
Special Guest Artist Marko Mandić 

Thursday December 17, 2015 at 7pm
Friday, December 18, 2015 at 7pm

The Ellen Stewart Theatre

66 East 4th Street

(between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10003 

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors

For Tickets and info: CLICK HERE

Monday, December 14, 2015

MDLSX by Motus comes to La MaMa in January 2016










Motus brings their show MDLSX, featuring Silvia Calderoni, to 
The Downstairs @ La MaMa in January 2016. 



"In MDLSX - created and performed by MOTUS company member Silvia Calderoni and directed by MOTUS founders Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolo - Ms. Calderoni is part actor, performer and DJ as she weaves autobiography and literary evocations in a fervent paean to the freedom of becoming, gender-blending, being what cannot be contained within the borders of the body, skin color, sexual organs or national identity."

Read the full BroadwayWorld preview: HERE

- - - - -

La MaMa in association with Watson Arts present
MDLSX
by Motus
with Silvia Calderoni

January 7 - 17, 2016

The Downstairs @ La MaMa
66 East 4th Street
(between Bowery & Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10002

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors; ten tickets priced at $10 each are available (advance sale only) for every performance.

For tickets and info: CLICK HERE