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Eisemann Center Presents Mummenschanz in their new show you & me on Friday, February 23, 2018 at 8:00 pm. Mummenschanz is a Swiss mask theater troupe who perform in a surreal mask- and prop-oriented style. Founded in 1972 by Bernie Schürch, Andres Bossard (August 9, 1944 - March 25, 1992), and the Italian-AmericanFloriana Frassetto, the group became popular for its play with bizarre masks and forms, light and shadow, and their subtle choreography. The name Mummenschanz [?m?m?n??an?] is German for "mummery," or a play involving mummers. Mummer is an Early Modern English term for a mime artist.
Mummenschanz co-founder Floriana Frassetto is surprisingly chatty for a mime. "Well I suppose I shut up the whole day, then I have to let it out," she says with a laugh. Her experimental Swiss mime troupe took Broadway by storm in the 1970s. Now the masked performers are bringing their hard-to-describe characters back to the U.S. for a five-month national tour celebrating the troupe's 40th anniversary. Mummenschanz isn't your white-faced, Marcel Marceau mime. The bizarre masks, costumes and choreography cloak the human form to tell stories that convey messages about our lives.
The 'stories' told by Mummenschanz are merely visual. No musical tracking, no stage set. Only objects, mask-objects; just bodies, object-bodies evolving against a black background thus composing a playful paralanguage that can be understood by all. Though audiences today are used to multimedia extravaganzas, Mummenschanz can still entertain with simple props and found objects, Frassetto says. In fact, people seem to crave the chance to power up their imaginations and engage in an act of shared creation with the performers, she says. "People still enjoy the purity of the shapes, the poetry of the messages and being whisked into a dimension of imagination in which they feel inventive as well," she says.
Tickets range from $41-$62 and are available for purchase online at www.eisemanncenter.com or by calling the Eisemann Center Ticket Office at 972-744-4650 and group discounts are available for 10 or more persons.
The Charles W. Eisemann Center is located in the Galatyn Park Urban Center at 2351 Performance Drive in Richardson, Texas. The Eisemann Center is easily accessible from Highway 75 North taking the Galatyn Parkway/Renner Road exit going north and the Galatyn Parkway/Campbell Road exit going south or from the DART light rail station at Galatyn Park. Sponsors for the 2017-2018 Season include The Dallas Morning News, WFAA-TV, Methodist Richardson Medical Center, UT Dallas, the Richardson Woman's Club, Richardson East Rotary Club Foundation, Altrusa International of Richardson, Inc. and Raising Cane's.
