Split Britches’ Last Gasp WFH at La MaMa

La MaMa has announced that Split Britches' Last Gasp WFH is back by popular demand and will be available for on demand viewing on Vimeo now through JANUARY 21, 2021.

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, and created in collaboration with Nao Nagai, Vivian Stoll and Morgan Thorson, Last Gasp WFH 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 New York Times, Elisabeth Vincentelli called the piece "not just one of the 40-year-old company's best pieces, but among the most evocative art to emerge from the Covid era."

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 are $10 to view over a 72-hour period and are available at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/lastgaspwfhondemand.