“Queens In Space”
Knockdown Center
Queens, NY | 2017

About the Show

In late fall, 2017 Whoop Dee Doo's crew of artists worked with a group of gifted teen counselors from Maspeth Town Hall to create a sci-fi, spaceship themed installation that would host a series of original performances featuring some of the very best acts Queens, NY has to offer.

In advance of the show Whoop Dee Doo researched the Knockdown Center's surrounding neighborhood to find the perfect performers. We found them in the form of NukanChik Llatka Wawakuna-MovimientoCultural and Calpulli Mexican Dance Company. Both groups came to the Knockdown Center for multiple brainstorm and planning meetings during Whoop Dee Doo's month-long installation and production residency. Ideas were exchanged back and forth between performers and artists, costumes and props were made and tested and a final performance schedule was created.

Wawakuna youth provided a live-musical performance and dance. A giant UFO/sombrero descended from above the set for Calpulli's traditional Hat Dance. Wawakuna performed another dance, surprising the audience, emerging from a secret, glow-in-the-dark performance space. A slow-acting, short-range teleportation device malfunctioned resulting in the mutation of the Calpulli dancers but they worked with their new bodies and performed another dance. Wawakuna helped out with a martian mind-reading contest and the Maspeth Town Hall teens led a Meteor Shower contest and helped hold everything together as our spaceship experienced technical issues and mechanical failures throughout the performance.

As we had our final group dance of the final show the spaceship was dismantled and handed out to the audience as souvenirs from the future.

Whoop Dee Doo Artists

Danny Crump
Sarah Dahlinger
Rebeckah Fayemi
Anna Platt
Matt Roche
Erin Sheehy
Jaimie Warren

Performers

Ñukanchik Llakta Wawakuna-MovimientoCultural
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company

Curation

Michael Merck
Alexis Wilkinson

Student & Contributing Artists

Kaitlyn Schwalje
Natalie Casagran Lopez
Amy Destefano
Annie Polchinski
Samuel Sklar
LeeHo Yoo
Victor Sklar
Lexy Ho-tai
Christian Anayas
Leah Giblin
Amber Dennis
Elise Dahan
Maspeth Town Hall Teen Counselors

Links

Maspeth Town Hall
Knockdown Center
Ñukanchik Llakta Wawakuna-MovimientoCultural
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company