Lied Center Presents
MUMMENSCHANZ 40 Years Legendary Swiss mask troupe Friday, March 8, 7:30 p.m. Black Hills Energy is pleased to be the Lied Center’s VIP Sponsor for today’s performance of MUMMENSCHANZ.
This event is sponsored, in part, by the Lied Performance Fund. This performance was made possible through the generous support of the Jerry and Jacki Hannah Family Fund.
MUMMENSCHANZ Foundation Presents
Artistic Directors Floriana Frassetto Bernie Schürch With Floriana Frassetto Philipp Egli Raffaella Mattioli Pietro Montandon Technical Director & Lighting Designer Jan Maria Lukas Dino “Chico” de Maio Tour Manager Nadja Taylor Exclusive Representation in North America Laura Colby, Director, Elsie Management
MUMMENSCHANZ 40 Years
About MUMMENSCHANZ
The celebrated Switzerland-based theater company, MUMMENSCHANZ, returns to North America with its 40th Anniversary show. The ordinary becomes extraordinary as common materials and everyday objects - wires, tubes, fabrics and different shapes - spring to life as fantastical characters. The program consists of nearly 30 sketches, featuring playful colorful creatures that have rarely been performed in the U.S.A. and Canada, as well as many of the most popular characters and perennial fan favorites. For 40 years, MUMMENSCHANZ has captivated audiences worldwide with its groundbreaking and transformative visual theater with performances on six of the seven continents in over 60 countries. Formed in 1972 by Swiss artists Bernie Schürch and Andres Bossard with Floriana Frassetto, the pioneering performance company created a non-verbal theatrical language that transcended the traditional. The company had its breakthrough during an extended Broadway run at the Bijou Theatre in New York City from 1977-1980. Never before or since has a show without words or music succeeded on Broadway for three consecutive years. Since then, the company has toured continuously around the globe, performing in renowned festivals and theaters worldwide. Following the death in 1992 of founding member Andres Bossard, original artists Floriana Frassetto and Bernie Schürch, with the help of long-time friend and supporter Hans Jörg Tobler, established the MUMMENSCHANZ Foundation in 1998. The MUMMENSCHANZ Foundation is a non-profit organization that aims to promote the art and expression of nonverbal theater. In June 2012, founding artist Bernie Schürch gave his farewell performance and the company introduced Philipp Egli to join original cast member Floriana Frassetto as a featured performer, alongside performers Pietro Montandon and Raffaella Mattioli and technical director Jan Maria Lukas. This season, the company will be on tour in North America for ten weeks with performances in ten states, along with a four-week season in New York City at the Skirball Center. With a performance transcending age, race, nationality, ethnicity and spoken language, the wired timeless creatures and incredible colourful forms of MUMMENSCHANZ have appeared on everything from milk cartons to Sesame Street to The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to a stage near you! Possessing the charming ability to make us laugh at everyday challenges, today’s MUMMENSCHANZ remains a performance full of transcendent surprises and cloaked in mystery.
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WHO’S WHO IN THE COMPANY: Floriana Frassetto (MUMMENSCHANZ co-founder), Switzerland, studied at Alessandro Fersen’s Theatre Academia in Rome from 1967 to 1969. She completed her acting training by attending a comprehensive course (mime, acrobatics and dance) at Roy Bosier’s Teatro Studio. The idea of founding MUMMENSCHANZ resulted from meeting, in 1972, Andres Bossard and Bernie Schürch... two young Swiss clowns called Before and Lost. She has since co-invented the repertoire of MUMMENSCHANZ and played in each performance. She created costumes, the choreography of Giancarlo Sbragia “Faust” played in the Roman amphitheatre of Taormina, Sicily, the staging of some MUMMENSCHANZ scenes for André Heller and other experiences. Philipp Egli, Switzerland, has been on and worked for the stage for the past 25 years, performing different duties besides shaping all sorts of cultural projects into pieces of work that gained widespread recognition. He has thus earned himself a solid reputation in both the fields of culture and of contemporary dance as a project leader, choreographer, dancer and teacher. Raffaella Mattioli, Italy, started with classical dance education in Rome and London with Yuriko, Pearl Lang, Mary Hinkson, Noemi Lapzon and others. She performed as a dancer and actor in various countries. In 1989, she went to Prague as a choreographer to Laterna Magica. She was responsible for several contemporary theatre productions for festivals.
Pietro Montandon, Italy, is an accomplished actor of
the Drama School of the Teatro Stabile di Canania. Since 1976, he has worked with renowned directors such as Lamberto Puggelli, Armando Pugliese, Giuseppe, Patroni Griffi, Giancarlo Sepe and Marco Sciaccaluga. In television and cinema he has appeared in dramas, comedies and sit-coms. Some of the directors he worked with include Damiano Damiani, Giuseppe Tornatore, Alberto Sironi and Emidio Greco.
MUMMENSCHANZ 40 Years
WHO’S WHO IN THE COMPANY: Jan Maria Lukas (technical director/lighting designer) is from Austria. In 1995 he worked as a stagehand and decided at that time to study lighting. He has since developed different lighting designs for spoken theatre, opera, fashion shows, dance and art installations that have been performed in Vienna, Berlin, Bregenz, Prague, Zurich and Buenos Aires. He has toured with MUMMENSCHANZ since 2007. Dino “Chico” de Maio (technical director/lighting
designer) is from Italy. Chico has studied music, acting and stage techniques. He started serving as stage manager for MUMMENSCHANZ in 1981. He has toured worldwide, including the 1986 run on Broadway at the Helen Hayes theatre. Chico is also the percussionist of the bands Acquaforte, Ainulindale, Hammer, Malina, Rio Trio, Trolls as well as a recording studio musician. He has also participated in acoustic projects, like the one for U.S. composer John Wager.
Laura Colby (Director, Elsie Management). Established in 1995, Elsie
Management is an artist management company representing a global roster of dance, theater, world music, family programming and outdoor spectacle. Since forming Elsie, Colby has represented over 25 performing arts touring companies from five continents, coordinating tours to over two hundred global venues. She was the initiating facilitator between Dr. Edward Fishkin, medical director at Brooklyn’s Woodhull Hospital and Medical Center and the performing arts community in the creation of ArtistAccess, the groundbreaking healthcare program for artists and arts workers beginning in May, 2005. Colby is the immediate past president of North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents. www.elsieman.org
“MUMMENSCHANZ would like to thank Tim Van Leer, executive director and the crew of the Lied Center for making this performance possible.” For more information on MUMMENSCHANZ, visit the company’s official website at www.mummenschanz.com. To become a Facebook fan, join at facebook.com/ mummenschanz. Click on youtube.com/mummenschanztour to watch video links to several live performance sequences. For personal information and tour updates, follow the company’s featured artists on twitter.com/mummenschanz.
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April
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Friends of the Lied 2012-13 Update
This list includes individuals and businesses that have initiated or renewed their Friends of the Lied membership since the original list was published.
Business Friends FelloW ($2,500 +) Holiday Inn - Lawrence Benefactor ($1,000 +) Crown Automotive Org. Westar Energy Patron ($500 +) Commerce Bank The Janssen Clinic of Natural Medicine Sponsor ($250 +) Weaver’s Friend ($100 +) Bradley Animal Hospital, PA Wheat State Pizza
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Contributor ($100 +) Marion & Chris Anderson Bill & Nancy Brady Joe & Vicki Douglas Doug & Becky Eason Robert Friauf Cap & Kitty Gray John & Susan Gronbeck Tedesco Gail & Peter Hansen Mark and Diana Hoppe Dan V. & Jeanette A. Johnson Rich Kaler & Brad Knauss Patrick & Amy Kelly Se Hyun Kim Dr. Fernando Merino & Dr. Caroline Chaboo Tom & Cleo Murphy Joe & Rita Spradlin Karen & Arturo Thompson Marian Warriner Sandra & Allen Wiechert Sara Trautman-Yegenoglu & Ferit Tegenoglu Friends ($50 +) David Brown Jim & Yun Butler Barbara M. Duke Suzanne & Verlin Gilbert Marilou Cavin & James Hopper Loraine H. Lindenbaum Terry & Debora Pentecost Adela Solis Helen & Tom Sullivan
You can support the Lied, too! For more information or to join the Friends of the Lied, please contact the Lied Ceter, at 785-864-3469 or go to lied.ku.edu/donate. 2012-13 Friends of the Lied Update