SURVEILLANCE PUNISHMENT AND THE BLACK PSYCHE
January 24-26, 2014 | The Club at La MaMa
photo by Blioux
M Lamar talks to Sam Alper about performance, comic books and who we really love.
Are you excited for your show? Any feelings about doing it at La MaMa, in particular?
One of the things that excites me about the idea of performing at La MaMa is that when I moved to New York seven and a half years ago it was really to do shows at places like La MaMa, or the Kitchen, or PS122, Dixon Place. These places that have a history of showing work that I thought was really important. Or at least that was important to me, even though I wasn’t born yet when most of that work was made. The history of La MaMa is especially poignant to me because of Meredith Monk's history with the theater.
I’m just so thrilled that I get to have a platform to do work that I think is a little more challenging - where the audience isn’t just getting into this party. It’s not like you get to laugh and have ideas that you believe affirmed. Sometimes a lot of theatre in the downtown context involves a sort of Bohemian sensibility / liberal sensibility where audiences are going to these shows to have their lifestyle and viewpoint reaffirmed. There is nothing wrong with that but I think my works hoovers in a different place where I think you may come away not sure what you feel about a whole host of issues. In my work there are no easy answers.
One of the big reasons I’m excited about the show is that in many ways it’s the show i always wanted to do since I started performing when I was 19 or 20, but I haven’t been able to do until now because I didn't have enough information or enough technical skills. It brings together so many ideas that have been so central to my work. So I’m really excited to get to do what it is that I do and really get at the core of many of the ideas that have been floating around in my work for over a decade.
It seems like you’re getting at the basic mission of La MaMa - it’s a theatre for the artist. It’s not for the audience, in terms of like, a service relationship. It’s for you to challenge or - do whatever you want.
I completely agree. I always have to be my first audience. I to be making with what I want to hear and see first. At the same time, I do think there’s something there for the audience - for an audience that wants to think and wants to be moved and go on a different kind of journey. I’m thinking about history a lot - at the core of my work are these historical narratives. And that’s been going on in my work since - When I was making visual art back in art school. So there’s an interest in history - and history is always now -, the plantation is always now,- and having these moments where you get to contemplate that in a very interracial context is very American.
