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My Name is SUMIKO by New(to)Town Collective
Fringe @ What Lab 1814 Pandora Street, Van 60 minutes Sept. 5th - 6:45pm *1/2 price Sept. 7th - 4:00pm Sept. 8th - 8:30pm Sept. 11th - 6:45pm Sept. 12th - 8:30pm Sept.14th - 2:00pm Sept. 15th - 8:30pm My Name is SUMIKO a new clown performance created by New(to)Town Collective premiering at the Vancouver Fringe Festival! My Name is SUMIKO that interweaves clown turns, J-Pop tunes, and Japanese variety show games into an unstoppably zany, East-meets-West comic experience. Sumiko invites the audience into her dark, twisted, and magical world where she meets Death, falls in Love, and battles her inner demons. My Name is SUMIKO is a delightful exorcism of our deepest fears, shame, and taboos. Who is SUMIKO? Sumiko is an unabashed, hyper-kawaii, J-Pop wannabe bouffon character created and performed by June Fukumura. Sumiko is an assemblage of all of the “taboo” parts of June's identity as a second generation Nikkei (Japanese-Canadian) woman. Sumiko is extremely kawaii (cute/innocent), unabashedly sexual, commands attention, speaks with a thick Japanese accent, and she is overly proud of being Japanese. She is a larger-than-life manga character come to life. Sumiko has been described by an audience member as ‘a cute, fuzzy plush toy with razor sharp claws. She lives in the tension between the innocent and experienced; ingénue and trickster; kawaii and grotesque; light and dark; sacred and profane. She is a character which defies all expectation of the stereotypical Japanese icon’. Created with support from What Lab's Summer Residency http://whatlab.ca/summer-2019-artists Media design by Chris Stache |
