For immediate release: February 17, 2017
CONTACT:
Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College
603.646.3991
“Magically vivid” puppet musical with a global message, March 31 & April 1;
Hop helped bring it to “madly audacious” fruition
Photos: This page (L-R), Mary and Eddie; next page, Mary atop her purchases. Photos courtesy of Wakka Wakka.
HANOVER, NH—Following a triumphant opening run Off-Broadway venue, Made In China—which combines brilliant puppetry, hilarious songs and pointed geopolitical commentary—comes to the Hop Friday and Saturday, March 31 and April 1, 8 pm, in The Moore Theater.Recommended for age 16 and up due to adult language and puppet nudity.
Inspired by true events, Made In China is a fantastical exploration of human rights, consumerism and morality as told through the unlikely love story between Mary,a lonely middle-aged American woman, and Eddie, her Chinese ex-pat neighbor. Assuaging her emptiness with junk food-eating, internet-watching and big-box-store buying sprees, Mary opens a box of Christmas lights to find a note from a worker in a Chinese forced-labor camp—which leads her on a surreal, globe-spanning voyage of discovery.
From Wakka Wakka Productions, the award-winning creative talents behind the highlyregarded Baby Universe: A Puppet Odyssey(presented at the Hop in 2012), Made In China features about 20 puppets (manipulated by seven skilled performers, hidden in black clothes and veils), music inspired by both American and Chinese traditions, and animated video. Baby pandas, dancing appliances, fire-belching dragons and romping middle-aged lovers populate Made In China’s universe of tiny-to-huge puppets, belting out original songs composed by Chinese-Canadian composer Yan Li.
The New York Times praised its “magical vividness that enchants…the show’s visual allure never ceases.” TimeOut New York called it a “madly audacious…musical satirical romantic puppet thriller.” Blogcritics deemed it “brightly gripping…replete with innovative marvels of illusion; moreover, it centers on two of the more memorable puppet characters I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”
Made In China was, in part, made at the Hop: A champion of Wakka Wakka since being the only New England presenter of Baby Universe, the Hop supported Wakka Wakka’sweeklong development residency in 2015 to help the company writeMade In China, its most ambitious show to date. The Hop is one of the show’sco-producers, along with with Nordland Visual Theatre of Norway, Wakka Wakka’s European home.
“I‘ve never seen a company like Wakka Wakka before,” said Hop Programming Director Margaret Lawrence. “They magically suck you into a totally believable—yet daft—world of puppets for whom you somehow feel powerful empathy. And the intelligence behind their works is dead-on. Supporting uniquely brilliant art is what the Hop is all about.”
Since 2001, Wakka Wakka, a wholly unique NY-based visual theater company comprised of US and Norwegian artists, has produced eight original puppet works that "evoke the best of Jim Henson's early, dangerous days" (The New York Times). Led by Gabrielle Brechner, Kirjan Waage and Gwendolyn Warnock, the company has toured extensively through the US and abroad, receiving a 2011 Drama Desk Award for Baby Universe and a 2013 Drama Desk for SAGA. Wakka Wakka’s intenselyabsorbing specialty is making audiences care about inanimate objects, even as they laugh at the sharplyhoned farce unfolding on stage. The artists are also deeply committed to community engagement, from all-comer puppetry workshops using inanimate objects, to discussions.
Wakka Wakka was among the examples cited in a recent major feature in The New York Times, “Give Them a Hand: Puppet Artists Are Having a Moment,” which marveled,“puppetry, a delicate and mysterious art so often restricted in this country to the children’s table, or relegated to fringe productions, has claimed a spot closer to the center. In an age when we seek relief from the relentless barrage of technology, this low-fi, handmade form provides it.”
Written and directed by Wakka Wakka’s Warnock and Waage, the show is Wakka’s first full-scale musical. Seeking a musical vocabulary in line with the show’s East-West themes, Wakka purposely sought a Chinese composer to collaborate with. Li, a composer, lyricist and music director, was born in Beijing, raised there an in Western Canada and now lives in New York City. In addition to Wakka Wakka, his commissioners include Pacific Opera Victoria, Acting Up Stage, Prospect Theater Company, Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre and Leviathan Lab.
In building and refining the show, Wakka Wakka relied on Li and the Asian American cast members to inform the Asian perspectives on character and story development. “One great thing about the creative process: Gwen and Kirjan constantly deferred to the Chinese-American cast, asking about various elements, ‘Is this valid? Is it right?’” Li said.
Download Word.doc press release and high-resolution photos
CALENDAR LISTING
Made in China, by Wakka Wakka Productions
The extravagantly creative, Obie-winning puppet Troupe Wakka Wakka Productions addresses human rights, consumerism and American-Chinese relations in this satirical musical. Baby pandas, dancing appliances and romping middle-aged lovers populate Wakka’s universe of tiny-to-huge puppets, belting out original songs. As it did with climate change in Baby Universe (at the Hop in 2012), the company spins the issues of our times into a vastly entertaining tale with surreal dimensions, lots of laughs and powerful take-aways. Recommended for age 16 and up. Adult language, puppet nudity.
Friday and Saturday, March 31 and April 1, 8 pm
The Moore Theater, Hopkins Center for the Arts
$25-35, $10 Dartmouth students, $17-19 youth
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
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Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with outreach and arts education programs. After a celebratory 50th-anniversary season in 2012-13, the Hop enters its second half-century with renewed passion for mentoring young artists, supporting the development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.