> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# An Artist-Led Variety Show at the Knockdown Center, Whoop Dee Doo!
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/whoop-dee-doo-knockdown-center/
- Published: 2017-12-12T17:42:18.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:25:49.000Z
- Description: Whoop Dee Doo's installation at the Knockdown Center will conclude in a high-energy, community-driven performance.
- Author: Laila Pedro
- Tags: Art, Events, Knockdown Center, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:30(2016, 2017, part 3)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/12/wdd-homepage.png)

Performance from Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento, April 2017, featuring The Royalty Dancers (photo by Makoto Hawkins)

When Jaimie Warren and Matt Roche founded [Whoop Dee Doo](https://www.whoopdeedoo.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) in Kansas City, Missouri back in 2006, the vibe was of a cable-access kids’ variety show: a blend of unabashed revelry in oddness, transcendent silliness, and earnest dedication to community-building. It was, according to Warren, shaped by being in a smaller city where “you make your own entertainment,” and in Roche’s words, there’s a “fascination with weird local stuff.”

Since then, Whoop Dee Doo has continued to evolve, blending serious theatrical practice with a wackily infectious, gleefully manic sensibility, and creating commissions for institutions like the [University of Chicago’s Smart Museum](https://vimeo.com/94102508?ref=hyperallergic.com), [SFMOMA](https://www.sfmoma.org/event/series/whoop-dee-doo/?ref=hyperallergic.com), and New York’s own [Abrons Arts Center](http://www.abronsartscenter.org/on-stage/shows/whoop-dee-doo-urban-youth-theater-an-abominable-thawt/?ref=hyperallergic.com).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/12/image-3.png)

Whoop Dee Doo performance, An Abominable Thawt at Abrons Arts Center in 2015, featuring the Japanese Folk Dance Institute of New York (photo by Naoko Wowsugi)

Somehow, Queens’s [Knockdown Center](https://knockdown.center/?ref=hyperallergic.com), with its insightful, community-driven, idiosyncratic programming seems like a perfectly natural landing spot. Since November 18, Whoop Dee Doo has been staging an installation there that consists of a series of free public programs produced in collaboration with local community and arts groups. It concludes this Saturday with “a final live performance and immersive set” featuring all the collaborators — “teens from Maspeth Town Hall Community Center … local performance groups [Ñukanchik Llakta Wawakuna](http://www.wawakuna.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com), and students from the [Calpulli Community](http://calpullidance.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) — in what promises to be a joyous, slightly unhinged celebration of the unrivaled diversity of Queens.

**When:** Saturday, December 16, 3pm and 5pm  
**Where**: [Knockdown Center](https://knockdown.center/?ref=hyperallergic.com) (52-19 Flushing Avenue, Maspeth, Queens)

*More info* [*here*](https://knockdown.center/event/whoop-dee-doo/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*.*