First Look: SEOUL COUNTERPOINT

  Seoul Counterpoint: Piri from CultureHub on Vimeo.
SEOUL COUNTERPOINT featuring DJ Spooky, was developed while in residence at longtime La MaMa partner the Seoul Institute of the Arts. It juxtaposes the diverse landscapes, histories and sonic cultures of Seoul and New York, and features artists in both cities performing together in real time.

La MaMa presents

Seoul Counterpoint

created & performed by DJ Spooky 
visuals & installation by Culturehub

April 11 – April 13, 2014
Friday – Sunday: 7:30pm

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors; ten tickets prices at $10 are available for each performance, in advance only via phone, web or box office. 10 @ $10 not available day of show.

The Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East 4th Street
(between Bowery and 2nd Avenue)
New York, NY 10003

For Tickets and Info: Click Here

6 Questions: Paul D. Miller a/k/a DJ Spooky

Paul D. Miller, a/k/a DJ Spooky, was kind enough to answer 6 Questions for our blog in advance of his show SEOUL COUNTERPOINT a co-production with CultureHub that comes to The Ellen Stewart Theatre April 11- April 13, 2014.

1. How did SEOUL COUNTERPOINT come about? 
I'm really interested in the way countries recover from colonialism. In so many ways, there are some seriously interesting resonances with Korean culture and the way I think of "diaspora" - the Seoul Counterpoint project came about because of a lot of dialogs and good conversations on topics on everything ranging from urban planning (Korea has amazing design for urban contexts), architecture, and cloning, plastic surgrey, and film. Korea has some serious paradoxes in all those contexts. 

2. How/When did you become interested in Korean culture/music? 
I've been Dj'ing in Asia for the last 15 years, and I've worked with artists like Ryuichi Sakamoto, Talvin Singh, Karsh Kale, Vijay Iyer, Ai Weiwei, Yoko Ono, Dj Krush, Ken Ishii, Mariko Mori etc Some of my favorite Korean composers and artists are folks like Choi Sun Bae, an amazing Jazz composer, Drunken Tiger, Love X Stereo, and more experimental composers and artists like Isang Yun and of course, Nam Jun Paik have influenced my music and my art. So I guess, long story short, I've always had a deep interest in Asia. 

3. How does the venue in which you are performing affect you? 
All of my compositions reflect ideas about philosophy and intellectual engagement with issues that are not specifically about one place. That's what makes Seoul Counterpoint so different from my normal range of work. Electronic music is usually really broad. With this project, I wanted to totally revamp my normal process of composition. 

4. What will the audience experience at SEOUL COUNTERPOINT? 
A wild situation.... 

5. Who has inspired you? 
My inspiration comes from so many sources. I worked with an interesting Korean composer named Woody Pak from MIT, John Hong and Jinhee Park who have a great book on the history of Korean architecture, and Daniel Tudor who has a great book called "Korea: The Impossible Country". For Korea, I look at ancient texts like Samguk Yusa, a collection of documents based on historical stories, myths and folktales from the 13th Century, on over to stuff like the Chun Bu Kyung, a compendium of symbols that are used as divination tools for shamans and for yoga! The rest comes from studies of data about open source material readily available about Korea because it has a tremendous amount of collected data about its populace. I tried to reflect that, plus the wild obsession Korea has about hip hop and other African American art forms like breakdancing into the mix. 

6. What does working at La MaMa mean to you? 
I deeply respect its history as a place for independent theater and art. I try as much as possible to support independent spaces in the arts. Hopefully this is the beginning of a long relationship!

La MaMa presents
Seoul Counterpoint
By DJ Spooky

created & performed by DJ Spooky 
visuals & installation by Culturehub

April 11 – April 13, 2014
Friday – Sunday: 7:30pm

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors; ten tickets prices at $10 are available for each performance, in advance only via phone, web or box office. 10 @ $10 not available day of show.

The Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East 4th Street
(between Bowery and 2nd Avenue)
New York, NY 10003

For Tickets and Info: Click Here

Win a solo exhibit at La Galleria!

La MaMa Galleria is having a very unique lottery: you may enter to win a three-week exhibit at La Galleria, complete with opening reception. This prize if fully transferible to the artist of the winner's choosing.

Tickets to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity are $100. 

Click Here to purchase!

First Look: The Maiden

Luscious photos by Raymond Haddad 
from The Nerve Tank's production, THE MAIDEN
now through April 13th at The Club.

La MaMa presents
The Maiden
Created by The Nerve Tank

Now – April 13, 2014
Friday - Saturday at 10pm and Sunday at 5:30 

The Club @ LaMaMa
74 East 4th Street
Between Bowery and 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10003

Tickets: $18 Adults; $13 Students/Seniors; ten $10 tickets are available for every performance, in advance via web, phone or box office. Not available day of show. 

For Tickets and Info: Click Here

Inside CultureHub: Meet Billy Clark, Artistic Director

Watch the CultureHub promo video: HERE

Founded in 2009 by the Seoul Institute of the Arts in Korea and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City, CultureHub is an incubator for creativity focused on the intersection of art and technology. CultureHub connects artists from diverse disciplines and cultures and provides them with environments in which to collaborate, experiment and explore. CultureHub serves local and global communities by providing an open space for creative research, artistic exchange and learning.

CultureHub brings Seoul Counterpoint featuring DJ Spooky to The Ellen Stewart Theatre April 11 – April 13, 2014. Seoul Counterpoint is an audio/visual anthropology, a breathing composition that juxtaposes the diverse landscapes, histories and sonic cultures of Seoul and New York. DJ Spooky’s unique style of “turntableism,” traditional Korean elements, robotics and computer-generated visuals by CultureHub collide in the New York premiere of the project developed during a two month residency at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.


La MaMa presents
Seoul Counterpoint
By DJ Spooky

created & performed by DJ Spooky
visuals & installation by Culturehub

April 11 – April 13, 2014
Friday – Sunday: 7:30pm

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors; ten tickets prices at $10 are available for each performance, in advance only via phone, web or box office. 10 @ $10 not available day of show.

For Tickets and Info: Click Here

In conjucntion with Seoul Counterpoint, CultureHub is also presenting

Heavenly Code

Heavenly Code is an interactive installation designed by CultureHub that is inspired by the Chun Bu Kyung. The Chun Bu Kyung is an ancient Korean text that dates back nine thousand years and can be interpreted as an exercise in mathematics, philosophy, or energy. The viewer becomes immersed in a pattern of light and darkness generated by their relationship to the 81-character system that seeks to make sense of the cosmos.

Heavenly Code 
Free admission
Saturday: 12-4 pm

Ellen Stewart Theater
66 East 4th Street
(between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York NY 10003