Show Category: Performance

“All of who I am now lies on a continuum—I no longer operate to fulfill roles that were illusions to begin with.”
 
In this deeply personal and introspective performance, Chella Man shares their narrative of self-determination, grief, healing, and reclamation of one’s body through tattooing and explorations of their scars from the medical industrial complex. To Man, piercing their skin is an act of erosion, revealing what lies beneath the surface, both within the body and the broader societal constructs we navigate. The piece compiles revelations of liberation that have become their leading values in life. Shattering the constraints of binary thinking, the performance celebrates queer, disabled, and trans bodies. Autonomy lives as an embodied experience, a testament to resilience and adaptability. Through this work, Man explores the continuum of art, disability, gender, and race by adapting and navigating their body as a mutable canvas for profound self-expression.
 
Autonomy is co-produced with the Jewish Museum, where it will be on view, in installation form, as part of  Overflow, Afterglow: New Work in Chromatic Figuration, a seven-person group exhibition opening May 24th.
 
Please Note: Autonomy will facilitate different access experiences based on hearing status and location in the theater. A part of an artistic approach Man calls “intentional inaccess,” captions will be obscured and inverted for hearing audience members to evoke the access glitches, flaws, and friction that what D/deaf and Hard of Hearing people, including Man, often experience. These moments of partial or unreliable accessibility can feel socially alienating, disempowering, and can make it impossible to fully participate. In this production, the tables are turned, and D/deaf and Hard of Hearing people sit in a section where captions are readable. Man aims to expose these experiences in myriad ways for the audience and spark a meaningful conversation about inaccessibility. Man notes, “This piece is rooted in creating an experience of oscillating access, evoking the perpetual stain of inclusion that I experience every day. Creating these intentional moments questions and reveals how the act of creating access for one can inevitably result in in-access for another.”
 

Access Provision: ASL Interpretation will be provided on Jan 12, 8:30pm.
 
Prepare to be transported to the realm of Hybrid Peasant, a three-act tragic comedy operetta that delves deep into the enigmatic landscape of the “Nightmerican dream.” Richard Kennedy creates a mirror, reflecting the dystopian realities of society under capitalism, experienced through the lives of “the housed citizens of Hirth.” This disruptive piece unravels the narrative of a workers’ uprising, all the while challenging our very notions of value, progress, and the all-too-common “crabs in a barrel” mentality that permeates the world of public housing and makes light of bottoming for capitalism.
 
Kennedy beckons us to surrender to the boundless potential within ourselves. Through his work, he provides us with the keys to unlock dormant abilities and teaches us how to take flight. It’s a powerful call to action, urging us to ascend collectively by nourishing each other, forging a path towards liberation.
 

 
“There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” — Octavia Butler
 
J Wortham (they/them) presents an evening of self-empowerment, self-determination and radical preparation. Octavia’s words acknowledged the limits of the unsatisfying reality and open the door to potentials and possibilities for creating paradigms that serve us and center us. The evening will include a 2-hour workshop of self-defense training situational awareness, intervention tactics and embodiment practices. Aftercare will include treats and sweets by FIG and a sensory soundscape by DJCD.
 
Our evening will honor the living memory of siblings O’Shae Sibley and DéVonnie J’Rae Johnson and others who have been unjustly killed due to rising tides of violence against Black and trans people, and seek to offer strategies of resistance and liberation for the days ahead. After all, we come from “a long line of folk who did just that—who resisted and rebelled, infiltrated and instigated, collaborated and created—in other ways. Like them, we don’t accept the truism that this is just the way things are and will always be,” as scholar Ruja Benjamin said.
 
This self-defense workshop is meant to serve QTPoC communities. Due to limited space, we encourage folks to keep that in mind before reserving your ticket. Prices are available on a sliding scale so choose what works best for you. Tickets will always be free for Black trans folks. Please email boxoffice@performancespacespacenewyork to reserve their spot.