Welcome to Whoop Dee Doo! (with Matt Roche & Jaimie Warren Too)

What is meaningful community art? In this film, the artist-led variety show Whoop Dee Doo—co-directed by Jaimie Warren and Matt Roche—collaborates with the Urban Youth Theater Ensemble to produce a one-day-only performance of An Abominable Thawt (2015) at Abrons Arts Center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Developed through workshops over the course of two months, the show’s original concepts and characters emerge through a series of improvisational games between teenagers and artists. Local performers are also enlisted, such as the singer Joseph Keckler, the Tuvan throat singer Robert McLaughlin, and members of The Japanese Folk Dance Institute of New York.

The week before the show, additional Whoop Dee Doo artists arrive from around the United States to help contribute ideas, craft costumes, and build a 360-degree installation out of newspaper, cardboard, and painter’s plastic. Performed on the second day of spring, the wildly colorful and energetic show features abominable snowmen, a traditional Japanese masked prison dance, game shows, a larval magic act, and a frozen set that slowly thaws. The latest in a series of performances stretching back to 2006, Whoop Dee Doo originated in Kansas City and has taken its “faux public access television show” on the road to cities such as Baltimore, Portland, Philadelphia, Omaha, Cincinnati, Chicago, San Antonio, Miami, Montreal, and Malmo, among others.

“Whoop Dee Doo accomplishes everything that I would want to get out of an art experience,” says Warren, while Roche adds “It’s the main source in my life for personal growth.” With the goal of creating unexpected and endearing experiences that local artists, underserved youth, and audiences can share, Whoop Dee Doo breaks down stereotypes between art and entertainment in a chaotic mix of cross-cultural and cross-generational collaboration.

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