On Friday, Nov. 8, CalArts' Center for New Performance (CNP) partners with Hauser & Wirth to present the U.S. debut of HA-M-LET from critically-acclaimed Brazilian performance and media artist Peter Mark. The special one-night only performance take place at Hauser & Wirth in the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District. CNP is the professional producing arm of California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
Peter Mark's theatrical remix is a multilingual, multimedia solo performance housed within a projection cube. Shakespeare's themes of madness, deceit, and familial conflict take digital form as Mark's tumbling thoughts and projected animations reach a vivid state of saturation, swirling around the artist as he grapples with the images he has unleashed, and their flickering ghosts. "Shakespeare's text can meet whatever you throw at it - and that includes GIFs, memes, and the most contemporary images," said Mark. "Just as Hamlet didn't know how to cope with what was required of him by the ghost - the image - of his father, I wanted to explore that same connection between body and image; how the past, present, and future can all be layered; and how images can beckon us to act beyond ourselves." Sourcing material from the original play, internet pop culture, home videos, 2D and 3D animation (including three original animated films), live footage, music, costumes, and choreography, HA-M-LET transforms projected image into landscape, body, narrative, and biography, shifting at a rate that pays homage to Hamlet's own velocity of thought.Videos