Being/With:Home

Being/With:Home is a participatory performance experience that connects two solo audience members at a time, each in their own home. A guided interaction with a stranger, Being/With:Home is an embodied exploration of separation, connection and the power of listening. Embracing the objects and memories that populate your own space, you’ll be invited to build something new, with someone unexpected.

Being/With:Workshop

Being/With:Workshops are group experiences that explore themes present in Being/With:Home connecting 12 participants at a time, each in their own home. These workshops are facilitated by NCDC artistic director Nichole Canuso and Spiral Q co-director Jennifer Turnbull.

Being/With:Home and Being/With:Workshop are created in connection with Being/With:Live, a dual site performance installation that will premiere in FringeArts 2021. Being/With:Live builds poetic bridges across neighborhoods (West Philadelphia and South Philadelphia) and across borders (US and Mexico in 2023), making space for the intimacy and immediacy of collaborative exchange. The Being/With project builds on themes and technology explored in previous company works such as The Garden of Forking Paths (2017), Pandæmonium (2016) and TAKES (2010).

For more information about the full Being/With project go HERE.

Audience Reactions

“You have a genius for participatory art. It is fun, enlightening and healing.”

“That was such a beautiful experience. Moving and special and transporting. Thank you for brightening my day with that piece. I could listen to your voice forever… reminding us that even now, we can still be connected and share ourselves with others.”

“It was SUCH a pleasure to take part in this project. My duet partner is an absolutely beautiful human and I think of them often.”

” ..For the first time in a long time after this pandemic started, I felt like my body, mind, and emotions were in synchronous harmony. …I also felt heard at that moment because all the fellow participants said things they remembered from my story at the end. I felt present and listened to during that workshop…”

“Prior to this experience, I believed that being physically apart makes it nearly impossible to form new relationships or to foster any form of newfound intimacy with a stranger. “

Funders

Being/With:Home is being developed with support from New England Foundation for the Arts, National Dance Projects Award, Pennsylvania Humanities Council Pop-up Grant and support from our presenting partner, FringeArts. Development residencies include MacDowell Colony (NH), Bryn Mawr College (PA), and Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences (GA).

Collaborators

Conceived and Directed by Nichole Canuso in collaboration with Sadah Espii Proctor, Christopher Sannino, Mikaal Sulaiman, Jessica Valoris, (Sound Designers/Composers), Jesse Garrison (Web Archive Designer), Christopher Ash (Online “lobby” Design), Jennifer Turnbull (Workshop Facilitator), Liza Goodall, Tenara Calem (Outreach Coordinators) Nic Labadie Bartz (Head Stage Manager), Kendall Allen (Stage Manager), Sarah Gardner (Associate Producer), Elizabeth Scanlon (Script Consultant) and Annie Wilson, Eun Jung Choi, Guillermo Ortega, Jennifer Kidwell, Arielle Colella, Lillian Ransijn, Rhonda Moore (Performer/Creators).

Press

A virtual performance exchange with someone unexpected.

“…complex and rich…With every direction from the audio guide, I felt layers of myself peel back to be shared…and the connection I felt was as potent as it would be had we been in my kitchen dancing together.”
– AmericanTheater

“The remarkable trick of Being/With:Home is that it manages to pull you inside somebody else’s intimate space — physically and mentally — without taking you out of yours… to create something new and worth exploring.”
– NoProscenium

“Being/With project caught me off guard with a rich and satisfying vehicle to connect with other humans from a distance…The experiences left a taste in my mouth akin to that of chance meaningful encounters in public space (remember those?) that leave us vibrating with the power of happenstance.”
– ThinkingDance

“… a fleeting, beautiful interaction with a stranger. Being/With calls to the forefront something deeply lacking in pandemic life: meeting new people. …comfortable and compassionate every step of the way.”

– Art Intercepts