The inaugural La Mama Festival of Mother Tongues has just opened (12-24 November 2024), a multilingual live performance season with 18 shows conducted in 14 languages aside from English, including Farsi, Persian, Sicilian, Marathi, Spanish, Filipino, Wathaurong, Italian, Polish, French, Māori, Greek, Mandarin and Macedonian. It’s a festival specifically set aside to celebrate the diversity of languages and cultures.
As reported last March, La Mama is going on hiatus next year to review its business operation. So now is the time to catch up with this two-week festival that will take place across four Carlton venues – HQ, Courthouse, COASIT and Motley Bauhaus – before the year ends.
Many will use English surtitles, with four specially curated for families: The Golden Rooster (in Persian), The Field of Forgotten Dreams (in Filipino), Quijocuentos (in Spanish) and Cooee (in Greek).
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Other theatrical offerings include: I’m a Virtual Being, Take Photos of me (in Farsi), The Last Sicilia (Iin Sicilian), Bandini (in Marathi), Fini-i: The Utopian Connection (in Spanish), Aswang (in Filipino), Ceremony of Cultural Rings (incorporating Indigenous Wathaurong language), I Topic Non Avevano Nipoti (in Italian) and Free to Fly (in Spanish).
For bookings and information about Festival of Tongues.
