April 4th: Due to inclement weather, tonight’s scheduled performance of “The Sacred Prostitute and Other Plays” has been cancelled. Please consider attending one of the performances on Friday, Saturday or Sunday instead.
4/4/24-4/7/24: UMF Theater presents Mina Loy’s, “The Sacred Prostitute and Other Plays,” directed by Melissa C. Thompson
April 4, 5, & 6 at 7:30pm; April 7 at 2:00pm
Emery Performance Space
Tickets: $8 for general public, $7 for seniors, and $5 for students with ID
(space)
Tickets may be purchased the night of the performance, or during Box Office Hours in the Alumni Theatre. Box Office Hours for this performance are Thursdays from 4-6pm, and Fridays and Sundays from 10am-12pm.
(space)
This April, Emery Community Arts Center will host a world premiere performance of four plays by experimental poet and interdisciplinary artist Mina Loy. Written over 100 years ago and despite Loy’s critical acclaim as a writer, her four poetic dramas—The Sacred Prostitute and Other Plays—had never received a professional theatrical production until December 2023. Under the direction of Melissa C. Thompson, experimental performance creator and founder of the multidisciplinary arts project The Sacred Heart Archive, The Sacred Prostitute and Other Plays saw their premiere at the Eli and Edythe Broad Museum of Art in Lansing, Michigan. UMF is the next stop for this world premiere performance series.
(space)
Artist, poet, playwright, feminist, inventor, entrepreneur, and world traveler, Mina Loy (1882- 1966) consorted with the major avant-garde movements of the twentieth century—Cubism, Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism—yet was wedded to none. After studying art in London, Munich, and Paris and exhibiting her paintings in the prestigious Salon D’Automne, she became pregnant, married, and fled to Florence, Italy. There, she mingled with Mabel Dodge, Gertrude Stein, Gordon Craig, and the Italian Futurists, channeling her creative energies into poetry and playwriting. Moving on the margins of avant-garde circles throughout her life and working across media and genres, Loy used her art and writing to investigate and critique the constraints she faced as a woman seeking artistic, romantic, and sexual fulfillment at a time when the rise of the “New Woman” clashed against the exigencies of patriarchy, domesticity, and capitalism. Her four short plays, written between 1914 and 1920, are experimental, ribald, often hilarious, and always illuminating.
While the multidisciplinary nature of Mina Loy’s work has been overlooked historically, this production of The Sacred Prostitute and Other Plays promotes Mina Loy to the main stage and recognizes her work across media and disciplines as an expression of a versatile artistic genius. Her plays are relevant for their insights into artistry, gender, and the economies of art and sex. The gender issues of Loy’s day remain unresolved despite our more complex understanding of their intersection with issues of race, class, and disability. By exploring Loy’s plays in performance, we can learn from the past to envision a more equitable future.
In one of her manifestos, Mina Loy wrote that “the smallest person, potentially, is as great as the Universe.” Mina Loy’s groundbreaking feminist work has the potential to inspire audiences towards civic engagement and the positive effects that radical experimentation can have.
Related
Comments are closed.