World Premiere of Yoshiko Chuma's SHOCKWAVE DELAY to be Presented at La MaMa in June
Performances are June 1–4 and June 7–11.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Apr. 11, 2023
This June, Yoshiko Chuma and The School of Hard Knocks return to La MaMa with the world premiere of Shockwave Delay, an unscripted docudrama consisting of 20 chapters, or scenes, that overlap within the frame of two and half hours. Each performance features a rotating cast of artists and no two performances will be the same. Performances are June 1-4 (Thursday-Saturday at 7pm, Sunday at 2pm) and June 7-11 (Wednesday-Saturday at 7pm, Sunday at 2pm) at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 East 4th Street, in Manhattan. Following the performance on Sunday, June 11, there will be a special auction of archival items from the last 40 years of The School of Hard Knocks.
For more than 40 years, maverick choreographer and instigator Yoshiko Chuma has been constantly creating, activating spaces and collaborations involving dance, music, film, text, painting, sculpture, and other media with her ever-growing ensemble, the School of Hard Knocks. Shockwave Delay is a celebration of Chuma's ongoing secret journey. Its shape is as elusive and diverse as the situations the company performs in.
Chuma's original and decidedly unclassifiable work, described as "a mixture of play and seriousness, anarchy and reflection" (Dance Magazine), tries to capture the contemporary world in all its complexity. In Shockwave Delay, musicians, dancers, and designers interact, but not always directly. Time functions as the primary organizing force. Chuma describes the work as "a time-controlled performance, just like our lives." Incidents of sound, text, and action stand parallel with one another and at times seamlessly-or disruptively-overlap or dissolve. A metaphor for endless continuous cycles of life that fluctuate between utopia and war. Shockwave Delay looks at two axes in life. One is considered as a grand issue, the other is an immediate issue. It asks: "What is the boundary between them? Does art have power?"
Concept design, installation, and direction by Yoshiko Chuma. Each performance will feature a new group of artists who are veteran members of the School of Hard Knocks, along with special guests.
Dance artists: Agnê Auželyte, Ursula Eagly, Claire Fleury, Mizuho Kappa, Stephanie Maher, Miriam Parker, Emily Pope, Owen Prum, Ryuji Yamaguchi, and Yoshiko Chuma.
Musicians: Robert Black, Jason Kao Hwang, Christopher McIntyre, Dane Terry, and Aliya Ultan.
Actors: Jim Fletcher, Eileen Myles, and Kate Valk.
Visual artists: Tim Clifford, Claire Fleury, Elizabeth Kresch. Jake Margolin & Nick Vaughan, Van Wifvat, and Kelly Bugden.
Photographers: Hugh Burckhardt and Julie Lemberger.
During the run of Shockwave Delay, 40 stellar artists and longtime collaborators of the School of Hard Knocks will be announced as part of Chuma's "Final Exam: Graduation."
Tickets for Shockwave Delay are $40 (general), $35 (students/seniors). The first 10 tickets are $10 (limit two per person). Ticket prices are inclusive of all fees. Tickets are available at https://www.lamama.org/shows/shock-wave-delay-2023.
About Yoshiko Chuma
Yoshiko Chuma (conceptual artist, choreographer/artistic director of The School of Hard Knocks) has been a firebrand in the postmodern dance scene in New York City since the 1980s. She has consistently produced thought-provoking work that is neither dance nor theater nor film nor any other predetermined category. She is an artist on her own journey, a path that has taken her to more than 40 countries and includes collaborations with more than 2000 artists, thinkers, and collaborators of every genre since establishing her company, The School of Hard Knocks, in New York City in 1983. Creating more than 100 productions, including company works, commissions, and site-specific events, Chuma is constantly challenging the notion of performance for both audience and participants.
Creating and touring her work internationally her entire career, Chuma has crossed the border between Eastern and Central Europe in the early 1980s and 90s, crossed the border to Palestine for over 10 years since 2005, the border between Albania and Kosovo in 2007, the border to Afghanistan in 2014, the border to Maracaibo, Venezuela, in 2014, among many others. Forbidden realms for some but centers of creation for Chuma, as her visits to these locations challenge preconceived ideas of danger and have brought about some of the most beautiful experiences. Chuma intentionally proposes to confuse documentation with history, recreating segments from her own documented events. She never gives herself any boundaries or lets them interfere with her work.
Chuma is the recipient of fellowships and awards for choreography from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Japan Foundation, and Meet the Composer Commissions, among others. She has received two New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards-one for choreography with The School of Hard Knocks in 1984, and one for Sustained Achievement in 2007. Chuma was artistic director of the Daghdha Dance Company in Limerick, Ireland, from 2000 to 2003.
About La MaMa
La MaMa is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theater. La MaMa's 61st "Remake A World" season believes in the power of art to bring sustainable change over time and transform our cultural narrative. At La MaMa, new work is created from a multiplicity of perspectives, experiences, and disciplines, influencing how we think about and experience art. The flexibility of its spaces, specifically the newly reimagined building at 74 East 4th Street (La MaMa's original permanent home), gives local and remote communities access to expanded daytime programming. The digital tools embedded in the space allow artists to collaborate remotely, and audiences worldwide to participate in La MaMa's programming.
A recipient of the 2018 Regional Theater Tony Award, more than 30 Obie Awards and dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie, and Villager Awards, La MaMa has been a creative home for thousands of artists and resident companies, many of whom have made lasting contributions to the arts, including Blue Man Group, Bette Midler, Ed Bullins, Ping Chong, Jackie Curtis, André De Shields, Adrienne Kennedy, Harvey Fierstein, Andrei Serban, Diane Lane, Playhouse of the Ridiculous, Tom Eyen, Pan Asian Rep, Spiderwoman Theater, Tadeusz Kantor, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Mabou Mines, Meredith Monk, Peter Brook, David and Amy Sedaris, Tom O'Horgan, and Andy Warhol.
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