La MaMa Will Premiere Split Britches' LAST GASP WFH

La MaMa has announced that the premiere of Last Gasp WFH will stream live on Friday, November 20 at 7pm ET on StellarTickets.com followed by a discussion with the artists.

Last Gasp WFH looks for ways we might catch our breath in these times of global uncertainty, considering our 'last acts,' whether personal, political or environmental.

Written and performed by Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver of Split Britches, it is a series of verbal and physical essays that playfully dances through the dangerous intersections of permanence and impermanence, interdependence and care, knowledge and experience, narcissism and echoes.

In the wake of canceled performances, including the US Premiere of Last Gasp at La MaMa in April 2020, Split Britches were keen to maintain momentum for their new live work while having to 'work from home.' Last Gasp WFH was developed in a site-specific Zoom format using their quarantine home as a structural visual anchor. A house becomes a stage for the experience of sheltering in place, serving both as an intimate capsule of sequestered time and an apt reflection on the precarious nature of our bodies and the planet we call home.

Experimenting with new ways of making and finding joy in a pandemic, Split Britches collaborated with lighting and video designer and editor Nao Nagai, sound designer and composer Vivian Stoll, and choreographer Morgan Thorson to create a new format for performance that could be shared from a time of quarantine. Playing with the fragility of technology, particularly the unpredictability of Zoom, the team found new avenues to the classic Split Britches aesthetic of broken-down theatrical conventions, exposing the self on stage.

Tickets for the live stream range from $5 to $25 and are available now at https://www.stellartickets.com/events/la-mama-experimental-theatre-club/last-gasp-wfh.

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