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Whoop Dee Doo Deitch Holiday Party

(photo by Gabi Porter)

Christmas and New Year’s may already seem like faded memories, wistful days off that expired worlds ago, but in the spirit of better-late-than-never, I’m happy to share some photos from our performance at the Deitch Holiday Party at Santos Party House. The event was led by Jaimie Warren and Matt Roche, the creators of Whoop Dee Doo, a faux public access show based in Kansas City. My friend Jennifer (Sullivan) had seen a posting about the show on Craigslist and referred Jaimie to me as a potential performer. At first I was planning some sort of musical skit, but both feeling aimless and short on time, Jen and I decided to join forces. The result of our efforts was Holiday Hoopla, a holiday-themed game show featuring holiday trivia, name that tune, and a password-style segment. Jen was our red afro-ed hostess, Andrew her lovely assistant, and Erika, Dustin, and Shaina were our multicultural house band. Game play was between us (Metalmags and the Alien Ambassador), dubbed The Visitors, and our rivals The Kids - Raven and Amber Ferguson. The Christmas Banana (Sophia Peer) also made a rousing appearance as the crowd (unprovoked) chanted “Peanut butter jelly time.” Most of the performance itself felt very off and disorienting to me, as I could hardly hear what was going on with the din in the room and the obnoxious MC’s blubbering into the mic over us. People seemed entertained, though, so they must have been able to hear and see what we are doing. The fact that I was getting over a hellish cold with a super high fever (I had blacked out the previous day on the subway) really didn’t help. I think we were all a bit worn out and confused afterward, and we quickly gathered our stuff and disbanded. Collin and I came home and passed out in the wee hours of Christmas Eve morn to regain strength for the next day’s travels.

A few days later, Max emailed me and told me that we’d gotten a mention in Artforum (online) for it, and that really brightened my memory of the experience. I felt surprised and confused that the author had known our names but not mentioned those of our cohorts until I actually looked at who the author was and realized I knew him. Jen found a flickr set of the event by Gabi Porter, some of which are posted below (and above). Enjoy!

Jennifer Sullivan

Andrew Steinmetz

Jude Broughan and Erika Somogyi

Raven and Amber Ferguson and their mom

Dustin Piper

Sophia Peer

Jaimie Warren