As announced in March, La Mama Theatre will close her doors for the year in 2025, for a period of review, and will not present any shows across this time.
La Mama’s Festival of Mother Tongues is one of the final chances you’ll get to see theatre at both HQ and the Courthouse until 2026, and the organisation is excited to present this festival of language that was only dreamed up last year, and that includes fourteen languages other than English.
The inspiration came from one of La Mama’s regular artists, Donna Dimovski-Kantarovski. Having performed in multilingual productions at La Mama in the past, including Zorba’s Last Dance earlier in 2024, she proposed the idea of an entire festival to celebrate the diversity of language and artists that create independent theatre in Melbourne. She will direct Velika in Macedonian at HQ in the second week of the festival.
“Melbourne has the largest and most varied Macedonian community of any Australian city, with some 50,000 Macedonians of various generations,” she said. “Velika is an invitation. The character is a symbol for every Macedonian woman who constantly receives merciless blows of fate, and continues to fight.”
One of eighteen shows across the festival, Donna’s show is about resilience that will be performed in a very apt space.
The festival runs across two weeks in four iconic venues in Carlton: La Mama HQ, La Mama Courthouse, Co.AS.IT, and The Motley Bauhaus from 12 – 24 November 2024. For more information and to book, visit: www.lamama.com.au for details. Click here to view week one of the festival.
Image: Velika – photo by Darren Gill
WEEK TWO OF LA MAMA’S FESTIVAL OF MOTHER TONGUES:
FOR KIDS AND FAMILIES – VARIOUS LOCATIONS:
Quijocuentos
Spanish | La Mama HQ Forecourt: 16 & 23 November (free event)
Cooee
Greek | La Mama Courthouse: 23 – 24 November
LA MAMA HQ – 205 FARADAY ST CARLTON:
People, what have you done
Polish with some English surtitles | 18 – 20 November
Velika
Macedonian with English | 22 – 24 N0vember
LA MAMA COURTHOUSE – 349 DRUMMOND ST CARLTON:
La Souris Blanche (The White Mouse)
French and Maori with English surtitles | 19 – 20 November
Ariadne
English/Greek | 22 – 24 November
COASIT – 189 FARADAY ST CARLTON:
I topi non avevano nipoti
Italian | 17 – 19 November
An Italian Wedding
Italian with English surtitles | 21 – 23 November
THE MOTLEY BAUHAUS – 118 ELGIN ST CARLTON:
Free to Fly
Spanish with English surtitles | 18 – 20 November
Hidden Tunes
Mandarin with English surtitles | 22 – 24 November