La MaMa Blogs: 6 Questions: Kate Rigg

Thursday, November 5, 2015

6 Questions: Kate Rigg


Kate Rigg brings her show, Happy Lucky Golden Tofu Panda Dragon Good Time Fun Fun Show, to The Club @ La MaMa in December. We got to ask Kate 6 Questions about herself and the show and here's what she had to say!

1. What was the inspiration for creating Happy Lucky Golden Tofu Panda Dragon Good Time Fun Fun Show?


When you grow up a multi culti po mo culturally diverse pop culture infused west meets west non traditional thinker raised by immigrants -- you notice things. The way people react to you, the assumptions made about you by both your ancestral family and the culture in which you exist. This is the American Asian experience, you see double, you see yourself in the steam coming off dumplings in Chinatown and in the pages of Entertainment Weekly. And you see yourself in none of those places. We think it's funny. Funny haha and funny strange. The music project Slanty Eyed Mama was born of the same principles-- the eternal who are you who am i what are you what am i that seems to play on a loop when you are so American and so Asian and none of those things altogether. Our inspiration is from shop windows, chinatown knockoffs, martial arts movies, stand up comics, Hello Kitty keychains, the work of artists like John Leguizamo and Whoopi Goldberg and Dave Chappelle and the Nuyorican Poets. The inspiration is everyone.


2. What is SlantyEyedMama?


Slanty Eyed Mama is a mashup of spoken word , rock n roll and comedy with a lyrical bent. It is the passion project of electric violin virtuoso Lyris Hung who also plays with artists like Bono Jay Z, The Indigo Girls and Trans Siberian Orchestra, and comedic actress and writer Kate Rigg who terrorizes stand up comedy stages all over the country with asian batgirl talk. We wanted a place to express our fun our rage our rock n roll which was only defined by us. Its very American because it's very free. And it's very Asian because we have the opportunity to look at our own communities through the lens of being artists in New York.


3. What should audiences expect from the show?

Audiences should expect some outrageous in your face comedy, some surprisingly awesome spoken word pieces, and the magical skills of Lyris on the electric violin sampling herself, playing beautiful classical lines then rolling some rock n roll distortion through that custom made electric violin which she plays like an electric guitar, bows like a Juilliard virtuoso then picks like a banjo. And Kate is just so gosh darn hilarious. We are no holds barred about race sex comedy and life.

4. Who inspires you?

We are inspired by our audiences and by New York City.

5. If you were given a free trip anywhere in the world, where would you go?

We are asian so any free trip is a good trip. We don't like to leave money or free things on the table. This also might be because we are artists. We have traveled to glamor locations and absolute holes and love all of it. You can always find a piece of history, a piece of good pie and a great instagram shot no matter where you are. We like trying chinese food in random places. Lyris will go anywhere there is food. Kate will go anywhere there is a flea market.

6. What does working at La MaMa mean to you?

We consider La mama to be one of those spiritual homes for NYC artists that is unparalleled in the world. It's where your imagination jumps out of your head like Athena springing from Zeus' cranium and ANYTHING is possible if you can dream it. We have chosen to premiere #happyluckygoldentofupandadragongoodtimefunfunshow here because this is where we premiered "Birth of a nASIAN" and did "Chinkorama" and we learned then that La Mama's audiences want to be challenged, laugh loud, see something they have never seen anywhere else and feel LUCKY to be in the building because art is happening, and they are really part of it. Yeah we love this place. Let's do this.



La MaMa presents
Happy Lucky Golden 
Tofu Panda Dragon 
Good Time Fun Fun Show
comedy by Kate Rigg
music by SlantyEyedMama (Kate Rigg and Lyris Hung)
additional comedy/characters by Leah Ryan

December 4 - 13, 2015
Friday & Saturday at 10pm; Sunday ay 6pm

The Club @ La MaMa
74A East 4th Street
(between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10003

Tickets: $18 Adults; $13 Students/Seniors; ten tickets are priced at $10 for every performance, advance sale only, first come first served

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

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