Mummenschanz

Virginia Arts Festival

As seen on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, Sesame Street, and The Muppets Show!

“Mellow and breathlessly inventive…Mummenschanz has been delighting children and their taller companions since 1972.”
-The New York Times

If, as a child, you were lucky enough to be taken to see the genial madness that is Mummenschanz, you can doubtless call up images of wriggling creatures made of tubes and tentacles, getting themselves into situations that had you shouting with delight. Fifty years on, the Swiss performing troupe is still creating gentle mayhem for audiences around the world, charming audiences of all ages. For its 50th anniversary, the internationally acclaimed company has gathered some of its most iconic and beloved characters—the Clay Masks who grab hunks of their plasticized faces, creating hilarious expressions; the Toilet Paper Faces who weep streams of undulating paper; the delicate Giants filled with air, the Pipe Creature, and so many more, along with new creatures created for the new show. A fun note: one of the original founders, Norfolk, Virginian-born Floriana Frassetto still remains as the main artistic driving force behind the multi-award-winning troupe to this day!

Plan now to gather multiple generations of family and friends for an evening that removes sound and focuses both on visual and abstract movement art. As The New York Times put it, Mummenschanz is “witty madness, dazzling and delightful…particularly vital to young audiences who’ve been raised on beeping gadgets and headphones, and rarely experienced the extraordinary powers of silence.”