Event

UMO Ensemble: Maldoror

Sep 13 - Sep 15

World premiere!

Thursday, Sep 13 at 08:00PM
Friday, Sep 14 at 08:00PM
Saturday, Sep 15 at 08:00PM

UMO Ensemble is one of the most innovative and critically-acclaimed performance companies based in the Pacific Northwest. The Ensemble has performed in theaters, at festivals and in schools around the world. Since arriving on Vashon Island in 1989, UMO Ensemble has created over 20 original works, with a creative process rooted in physical theater: improvisations in movement, character, vocalizing and writing. Maldoror is their first original, commissioned performance Live at the Film Forum, mixing theatre, bracing proto-surrealism and industrial-noise compositions with multimedia and acrobatics.
Inspired by the 19th century Surrealist writer le Comte de Lautréamont (pen name for Isidore Ducasse), Maldoror springs to life in UMO's dark, giddy, hallucinatory production. The artists delve into Lautréamont's animal imagery to create characters never before seen on stage: zoomorphs. In collage-like scenes created in collaboration with Seattle musician Andre Sanabria (a multi-instrumentalist with roots in noise, industrial, ambient drone and experimental electronics), poetry, athleticism, and head-rattling dissonance combine.

Maldoror is a thrilling and terrifying exploration of a true villain. Join UMO to look behind the mask as they unearth the highly-relatable passions behind a resolutely violent and nihilistic personality.