Aligning space with movement, A User's Manual is a performance designed in response to how the body is manipulated by architecture. Performed at the new venue, the Beard Cave, the former location of the West Philly Bike Church, this piece is responsive to the memory of space.
Each performance is a unique cataloging of this new performance site, drawing attention to structures, sounds, and history of space. A User's Manual makes visible how humans are constantly affected by the surroundings we pass through and by the architecture we build. Created by SoLow Festival founder Thomas Choinacky, he again tests the boundaries of Philadelphia's solo performance scene with A User's Manual, a conceptual, dance event, February 9-18, 2017.
Thomas Choinacky is a performance artist who finds his expression in the creation of new performance to convene artists and audiences around ideas. For A User's Manual Choinacky premieres an original movement score responsive to the performance site. Different each night, the dance maps imagined histories discovered through the cracks, smells, scars, and growths Choinacky discovers in the given moment.
Choinacky's interest in the use of time and space in performance has led to Magnitude (a nine-hour long performance) and Substance (staged throughout his South Philly apartment). Choinacky is the founder of SoLow Festival, an annual 11- day performance festival and is a company member of the experimental theatre collective Applied Mechanics (Feed, We are Bandits). Thomas has been the grantee of 1812 Productions' Jilline Ringle Solo Performance Program for his one man show Thomas is Titanic and has been awarded artist residencies at Kultuuritehas Polymer (Tallinn, Estonia) and at Elsewhere (Greensboro, NC). A User's Manual is created from over four years of research connecting the performativity of our bodies, movement, and architecture.
WHEN: Thursday, February 9, 2017 @ 8pm
Friday, February 10, 2017 @ 8pm
Saturday, February 11, 2017 @ 8pm
Friday, February 17, 2017 @ 8pm
Saturday, February 18, 2017 @ 8pm
WHERE: The Beard Cave @ St. Mary's Church (former location of the West Philly Bike Church), 3916 Locust Walk, Philadelphia PA, 19104
TICKETS: http://ausersmanual.brownpapertickets.com
COST: $15
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