Photos
Watch the Teaser.
Watch the Trailer.
Art Writing
- “Amy Munz Represents the Postmodern Self” by Laura Schneider, MFA candidate in Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice at The City College of New York .
“A few artists have approached the conundrum of the postmodern self full throttle, making works that conscientiously explore and explode notions of self and reality. Amy Munz is one such artist.
..Munz takes on the complexity of representing the autobiographical self as subject matter, using techniques that point towards how the mind actually functions.”
Excerpts from Laura Schneider's paper HERE, showing how neurological and psychological theories come alive in "Patterns."
- Artist Statement by Munz, discussing how use of videoscape and appreciation the mind can make for "A New Paradigm of Theatre."
Press and Praise
"Patterns" is Theatre Bay Area Magazine "Editors' Pick" by Lily Janiak.
July/August 2014
"Munz has a dry, whimsical sense of humor that leavens her lovely, imagistic character studies of disparate souls all in the throes of deeply unsettling emotion; they are connected less by plot than by what they feel. "
July 22, 2014
"The New Stage's premiere of company founder Amy Munz's solo work is one of the more intelligent and sophisticated debuts (by both a new company and a young artist) in recent memory. It's an ambitious and notably subtle, serious, unsentimental exploration of love, in which a dynamic Munz — on a wide bare stage bounded on three sides by her own wonderfully evocative three-channel video-scape — plays several characters, and three in particular: Amot, Abigail, and Ava, whose stories are slyly interwoven.
Amot, the principal focus across two discrete acts, is a young woman raised by her widowed father in his butcher shop, who later falls in love with a young man. But her story, like that of the other young women, comes to us in a form more like the stream of consciousness, fractured and expansive in the disjuncture and interplay between Munz's ardently committed performance and the shrewd audio and visual environment surrounding the audience — a manufactured landscape of memory, desire, and role-playing in which to some extent the audience is free to find its own way and discover its own truths. Part two further integrates the voices of the other young women, Abigail and Ava, forming a mesh of narratives and associations stimulating in their intellectual, visual, and aural juxtapositions.
This is a work that demands a kind of letting go, but also invites full participation of the viewer's imagination, as the rich mise-en-scène and Munz's intense, unflinching performance unfold with unexpected abundance. "
"'Patterns': Amy Munz layers video with live performance" Interview with SF Chronicle by Chad Jones.
July 16, 2014
" Video may have killed the radio star, but it has inspired a young performance artist. Amy Munz has launched her own theater company, appropriately called the New Stage, and a new show, "Patterns," which incorporates video in a big way. "
July 24, 2014
" Munz portrays [Amot], a young woman trying to find the logic in her own narrative, the how of her recent love affair.
In other words, we enter the chaotic, sacred and imaginary landscape that is [Amot's] past tense. (...)
'Patterns' is the kind of art piece that requires theatergoers to make a choice, too. We must choose to actively invest in our own sense-making. At the same time, our job is to stay open to the possibilities of what [we] can’t know about Munz’s decisions. Where we are open-minded and generous, we are rewarded."
July 14, 2014
"Patterns, Amy Munz’s energetic one-woman show in San Francisco, frolics around romantic encounter. She assumes an array of personalities in love with someone, flipping through accents, ages, and genders juxtaposed with natural and urban projections peopled with more personalities.
.. I liked how the stories are not spelled out but are revealed in disjointed fragments. Like life itself, assembly is required. Some illustrations supplied."
" Emotionally Ticklish Amy Munz Talks Love in One-Woman Show," Interview with SFWeekly by Jenny Singer .
July 1, 2014
" The list of Amy Munz's accomplishments in the arts is exhaustive and exhausting. We'll give you the CliffNotes: non-annoying, tri-lingual wunderkind Munz has an impressive resume that "performance artist" hardly covers. (...)
Your show focuses is about love -- did you struggle to produce original work on that topic? To what extent is it autobiographical?
I didn't really struggle because I did think about my own experiences with love...I guess the reason why I really liked the idea of writing about love is that in performance in general I like being super passionate and romantic and energetic and I liked writing scenes with high emotional stakes starting from a feeling and going in that vein, because what really interests me is love as a paradox -- one moment love makes sense in our world and then it feels impossible and then you feel alone but you're not, and you feel like you understand someone and you don't -- how can it be both? That's the show for me."
Jul 28, 2014
" Amy Munz, The New Stage founder and the creator and performer of Patterns is obviously a talented artist. "
July 20, 2014
" I loved her physicality; she was able to take up the entire stage with her voice and physical presence so that you felt like you were watching a big production even though it was a solo performance without big props or costumes. That’s a talent. (...)
Honestly, the biggest feeling that I got was that this woman has amazing creativity, intelligence and potential. (...) I think that this play foreshadows things that she’ll be doing in the years to come that will be impressive, attention-getting and headline-worthy."
July 22, 2014
" San Francisco performance artist Amy Munz clearly has a lot of energy, ideas and chutzpah."
Bios
Henry Godinez, Director of live performance. Mr. Godinez is the resident artistic associate at Goodman Theatre and the curator of the Latino Theatre Festival.
His Goodman directing credits include The Sins of Sor Juana and Mariela in the Desert by Karen Zacarías; José Rivera’s Boleros for the Disenchanted (and world premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre); Regina Taylor’s Millennium Mambo; Luis Alfaro’s Straight as a Line; The Cook by Eduardo Machado; Electricidad by Luis Alfaro; Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez; Red Cross by Sam Shepard (in Regina Taylor’s Transformations); the Goodman/Teatro Vista co-production of José Rivera’s Cloud Tectonics and the 1996 – 2001 productions of A Christmas Carol. Mr. Godinez’s other Chicago credits include A Year with Frog and Toad and Esperanza Rising at Chicago Children’s Theatre, Two Sisters and a Piano (Apple Tree Theatre/Teatro Vista co-production) and Anna in the Tropics at Victory Gardens Theater.
Mr. Godinez is the co-founder and former artistic director of Teatro Vista, where he directed Broken Eggs, El Paso Blue, Journey of the Sparrows, Santos & Santos and The Crossing. His other directing credits include work at Portland Center Stage, Signature Theatre Company in New York City, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Oak Park Festival Theatre and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival.
As an actor, Mr. Godinez appeared most recently in the Goodman/Teatro Buendía world premiere ofPedro Páramo and the Goodman/Teatro Vista world premiere of José Rivera’s Massacre (Sing to Your Children). He has also appeared on television in The Beast, The Chicago Code, Boss and Chicago Fire.
Born in Havana, Cuba, Mr. Godinez is an associate professor at Northwestern University and serves on the Board of Directors of the Illinois Arts Council, Albany Park Theater Project and the editorial board of Northwestern University Press. He is the recipient of the 1999 Theatre Communications Group Alan Schneider Director Award, the Distinguished Service Award from the Lawyers for the Creative Arts and was honored as the 2008 Latino Professional of the Year by the Chicago Latino Network.
For multimedia interviews and more see his page here at Goodmantheatre.org
Michael Hunter, Artistic Consultant. Mr. Hunter is a director, performance curator, and adjunct professor at Stanford University, where he received his PhD in Drama and Directing. His directorial work in the Bay Area and the UK has included Calderòn, Orton, Genet, Ionesco, and Kushner, as well as his own plays, which he has presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Mr. Hunter runs a regular performance series in his home, and is a founding member of The Collected Works.
Please visit www.thecollectedworks.org for more information.
Credits
Written & conceived by Amy Munz
Live performance directed by Henry Godinez,
with artistic consultation by Michael Hunter
Featuring performances by Amy Munz & Daniel Kaplan
Technical Direction by Mariusz Dziurzynski
Video Art by Amy Munz
Sound Consultation by Derek Phillips
Costumes Designed & Created by Tünde Munz & Amy Munz
Cinematography for the film by Brandon Hamilton
Special Thanks to
Sponsor Fatted Calf Charcuterie,
Pianist Hannah Hua for the video recording of her playing
“Nocturne No. 20 in C Sharp Minor” by Frédéric Chopin,
the French American International School in San Francisco, California,
and
The Prelinger Archives, Lana Eve Bates, Thomas Bates, Tonyanna Borkovi, Ven Burbank, The Cooreman Family, The Ertsey Family, Michelle Haner, Gary Kaplan, Irina Kenderova, Jamie Lyons, Edda Mihaescu, Constantin Mihaescu, Rebecca Sarokin, Joe Vigil, & Florica Vlad.
"PATTERNS:
For some reason, it really tickled me."
A New Media Performance by Amy Munz.
An experimental new media performance that travels through the magical places of memory and mind to find a new consciousness of love.
Amot, a widowed butcher's daughter, tries to find the logic of her own love story. She pieces together different memories and observes the magical patterns of love in life.
With the help of other personalities, Amot will remember her teenage love, play with her first pet dog, and feel the force of a romantic relationship.
She will travel through her own life, from remembering her parents' death to finding the love of a lifetime, from being tickled by a first flirtation to deeply questioning the reality of sustained love.
The memories of her life and the lives of others are connected by intuition and thought. A three channel video-scape places memories and experiences into an everchanging and expansive landscape of visions, seen by a searching mind.
Live Performance Directed by Henry Godinez, with Artistic Consultation by Michael Hunter. "Patterns" premiered as a performance July 16, 2014 in San Francisco, California.
" .. one of the more intelligent and sophisticated debuts
(by both a new company and a young artist)
in recent memory."
San Francisco Bay Guardian