Jul 3, 2020
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Downtown Variety: Take 12

La MaMa and CultureHub Present
Downtown Variety
Powered by LIVE Lab

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Over the past two and a half months, La MaMa and CultureHub have teamed up to create Downtown Variety, which uses emerging technologies to create a new venue for artistic expression and creative connections. Powered by LiveLab, a browser-based media-router CultureHub is developing for networked collaboration between artists, technologists, and audiences.

Featuring:
Shauna Davis, Timothy White Eagle, Aaron Samuel Davis, Anna Kang, Huntress Janos
and eugene the poogene, Zishan Ugurlu, and Marta Ros Hugas
with video art by Lívia Sá


Creative Technologist — Sangmin Chae
Lead Technician — DeAndra Anthony
Video Production Coordinator — Jean Garcia

ABOUT CULTUREHUB & LIVE LAB

CultureHub is a global art and technology community that was born out of decades of collaboration between La MaMa and the Seoul Institute of the Arts, Korea’s first contemporary performing arts school. These two pioneering institutions sought to explore how the internet and digital technologies could foster a more sustainable model for international exchange and creativity.

Now in its 10th year, CultureHub has grown into a global network with studios in New York, Los Angeles, Korea, Indonesia, and Italy, providing connected environments for artists to critically examine our evolving relationship to technology. Through residencies, live productions, and educational programming, CultureHub advances the work of artists experimenting with emerging technologies in search of new artistic forms. CultureHub builds new partnerships that expand our network and provide increased access to online and offline platforms that fuel artist mobility, create opportunities for cultural exchange, and broaden human understanding through the convergence of art, technology, and education.

Click Here to Learn More About CultureHub

CultureHub is deeply committed to the use of open source and consumer-based technology to make electronic media art accessible to artists and audiences. In the past year, CultureHub collaborated with resident artist Olivia Jack to produce LiveLab, an open source video call software designed specifically for artists, educators, and cultural organizations. The LiveLab toolkit provides a flexible and artful environment for producing multi-location performances, workshops, and cultural exchanges. Built as an alternative to hardware video conferencing systems, LiveLab is customizable, free of cost, and as easy to use as Skype or Google Hangouts.

Click Here to Learn More About Live Lab

Headshot of Aaron Samuel Davis

Aaron Samuel Davis, B.A Connecticut College / Folkwang University of the Arts, MFA New York University Tisch School of the Arts, is an African American choreographer, performer, teaching artist, artistic collaborator, and an uncle to fifteen. His choreographic works have been showcased internationally and in 2019 he was the recipient of the Foerderpreis fur Darstellende Kunst awarded by the German government and the city of Dusseldorf. Aaron currently works in collaboration with the dance company, Unusual Symptoms, artists in residence at Theater Bremen.

Headshot of Shauna Davis

Originally from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Shauna Davis is in a serious, but playful relationship with movement. She is a freelance dancer and choreographer based in LA performing in both the commercial/film + concert dance realms. Her works have been performed at the Dallas DanceFest and Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival and she has set work at Avant Chamber Ballet and Dallas Black Dance Theatre: Encore! 2020 has awakened a serious urgency within her to share dance and create worlds through movement. www.shaunadavisdance.com

Headshot of Huntress Janos

Huntress Janos has transformed alongside humanity since ancient times, and exists in a quantum state, generating art in a future that has long past. She worships a beyond that is at the center of all things, and her mind and body is always in flux, now standing 6ft 5in at the age of 23, she is a Black Trans Woman and gender non-conforming entity. A graduate of the CalArts experimental animation program, she is currently working as a freelance digital artist online and as an arts teacher for the Oakwood secondary school in North Hollywood, while in the collective residency at NAVEL LA in Downtown Los Angeles and serving as new clergy at the Church of Fun in East Hollywood. Huntrezz is currently making work across mediums and collaborating with a diverse array of human beings online. She presents her range of works in rhyme writing, virtual fashion, 3D animation, painting, and music performance with an intent to transform reality.

Headshot of Anna Kang

Anna Kang (a.k.a. Bantm) is a sound designer and composer who combines traditional Korean sounds with contemporary music and sound. In a desire to share Korean culture, Kang focuses on work and music collaborations  utilizing both traditional music and live electronics to create her unique musical style. Her work has been performed in South Korea, America, India, and France, with an upcoming performance in England. Recent collaborations include “Sense of Black” (2019-2020),“Herethere”(2018-2019), and “Festival Corée d’ici” (2019). Kang is a graduate of the Seoul Institute of the Arts. annakang.kr

Headshot of Eugene the Poogene

eugene the poogene was an astronaut before he was a performer and was instrumental in the setting up of space station STS-111 (along with other members of Expedition Three), now famous for their work on the Biomass Production System. in his spare time, he likes to sit in the dark and repeat the word “larvae”.  he keeps a scale in the bathroom to weigh himself before and after pooing to measure his displacement.  eugene the poogene loooooooves ellen stewart. he also loves all of his beautiful friends, family, directors, and teachers so much it’s nauseating..  la mama forever

Headshot of Marta Ros Hugas

Marta Ros Hugas: My name is Marta and I‘m a fish. During this year my friends had been calling me Ouina and now I have two names. I work with my body, mind and soul through emotions, thoughts, people and different ways of expression. I write, I dance, I perform and I’m on my way to discover the many Martas that hide in me. I’d love to travel the world.

Headshot of Zishan (Zisan) Ugurlu

Zishan (Zisan) Ugurlu has worked extensively both in New York and abroad as a theater artist since 1995. She is an actress and director-in-residence at La MaMa and Great Jones Repertory Company. She has performed in numerous productions with Great Jones Repertory Company, including Panorama directed by Italian company Motus as part of The Under The Radar Festival 2018. Her recent directing credit includes Fragments, Lists, and Lacuna written by Alexandra Chasin, featuring Judith Butler performed at New York Live Arts. She is currently working on two different projects; Music Room is about the prison system and it will be performed by formerly incarcerated individuals and Truth Has Died is a devised theater piece and it is about the number of lies created by Trump administration. She is the founding artistic director of “Actors without Borders-ITONY.” She is an Associate Professor at Lang College The New School University.  

Headshot of Timothy White Eagle

Timothy White Eagle is an undocumented Native American artist based in Seattle. He crafts objects, photographs, performances and spaces. He currently presents a weekly “public access performance art ritual” on Instagram at 7 PM Pacific every Friday, follow him in instagram @timothy.whiteeagle. Timothy’s works as Dandy Minion Artistic Director for the touring company of Mac Arthur Genius, Taylor Mac on his Pulitzer Prize finalist “A 24 Decade History of American Popular Music”. His first major solo performance. The Seattle Office of Arts and Culture awarded Timothy as a 2020 “City Artist”.  In 2019 he was named as one of 3 recipients of Western Artist Alliance/AIP Launch Pad career development award and received two major commissions to create public work in Seattle.

Downtown Variety

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La MaMa and CultureHub are teaming up to create a Downtown Variety, a weekly online live performance series that will feature short acts of dance, music, theater, new media, comedy, A/V performance, and more. Responding to calls for social isolation, Downtown Variety brings La MaMa's 1960s café aesthetic to a virtual platform that links performers and audiences in real time across distance.

Online Happenings

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Presented by La MaMa and CultureHub, La MaMa is exploring ways to respond creatively to a situation that is potentially changing how we gather as a community in our theatres. La MaMa is working with CultureHub to provide online streaming of select productions and events on Howlround Theatre Commons.

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