Clapping arts
Baba used to figure skate. Mungo used to be good at archery.They met at a wedding in Georgia, and decided it would be fun to make a music video…and they made the Clapping Song. That’s an excerpt from their own introduction to the Baba Mungo’s adventures, a cabaret full of joy of life where to clap hands is to open our mind’s windows letting the imagination’s winds get into the deepest roots of our brains. Ducks and dogs in black and white dancing a rock and roll rhythm is just the beginning of Baba Mungo’s creativity, now looking for further adventures in freedom’s lands.
Which are the adventures of Baba Mungo?
The adventures of Baba Mungo is all about having fun and being free in our creativity. It’s about collaborating with each other and with other artists and exploring things we don’t even know exist yet! It will be glorious!
To know you is to love you?
Yes! It - “… Is to see you being free as the wind.” Who doesn’t love BB King… His video from ‘74 is amazing, check it out here.
Images or words?
Baba says words, Mungo says images. We love both images and words and complement each other in our storytelling and adventures.
Baba Mungo is a kind of cabaret?
Baba Mungo is a cabaret, an artist collective, good friends, a circus, film makers, a candy store, a jazz bar, burlesque, and everything else that is fun.
Does everybody clap your “Clapping song”?
Everybody including god…haha
You directed your first video with Anniemouse. How was it to film and perform at the same time?
That was a crazy adventure; it was a lot to keep in mind. But we just had fun: dancing, singing, throwing things at each other and trying out a lot of outfits.
Are you working in new adventures?
We are working towards many new adventures... We were in an NYC studio the other week jamming with an amazing artist called ZenBen on an original song we’re writing, so you can look out for that towards the end of this year. We’ve been working on a two short films to produce and direct and submit to film festivals. We’d also like to shoot videos for the Human remix as well as the Eclectic method remix of our Clapping song remake if we can - we love both those remixes (you can check them out here: soundcloud.com/babamungo). And finally… this may sound crazy, but we were also approached by an inventor/artist friend to have an adventure on a hoverboard that he’s creating. Both of us have always been curious about flying… or in this case, hovering! We’ll see what happens.
That said, one could say we are wide open and very excited to see where new ideas and collaborations with other artists takes us, for sure.
Imagine sky was a white canvas, what would you paint in?
This is a difficult question because the sky is so beautiful the way it is with its constantly shifting colors and luminosity… Baba is particularly obsessed with the sky… But, if it WERE a white canvas, and she could paint anything into it: she’d paint feelings of joy, gratitude, health, love, lots of hugs and kisses, beauty, peace, tranquillity, and above all, laughter. The good stuff for all the world to bask in and enjoy! Mungo, on the other hand, would paint pink cotton candy clouds and hot, naked male angels.
Could you live without art?
No way! To live without art would mean living without friends, so definitely: no.
Is life a joke?
No, but it is often funny.
An interview by Juan Carlos Romero
Baba Mungo website www.babamungo.com
Photos courtesy of Baba Mungo