( in person )
NOVEMBER 12, 13, 14, 15 2020
8pm at The Space Upstairs
- ALL PERFORMANCES SOLD OUT -
(in person) is our sharing of the work developed in our first deep-investigative project residency at The Space Upstairs. This full-length work showcases the dancers’ combined improvisation in their movement, and in their spoken word. This research and residency has been made possible by the 2020 Investing in Professional Artists Grant awarded to Founding Artistic Director Pearlann Porter by The Pittsburgh Foundation, The Opportunity Fund and The Heinz Endowments.
Why do this now?
(in person) communicates the dancers’ deep inner workings as a candid response to the sense of interruption we are all feeling, and the enduring absence of ‘togetherness’. The dancers’ focus is on being present, anchoring connections and attention in a disconnected time. We wished to extend a candid dimension of the dancers’ experience through allowing them to express aloud the thoughts active in them while amidst their dance, to speak to each other, and to speak openly to themselves.
(in person) intends to highlight the ability of the arts to connect us in times when intimacy is most needed and missed. Accompanied by a live score, the performers will create an in-the-round performance in the open warehouse-loft at The Space Upstairs, improvisationally sharing their inner-perspectives and responses.
Within the current of ever-changing circumstance, witness five dancers ride the edge of their vulnerable present, anchoring in voice to one another, to anchor themselves... (in person).
DIRECTED BY
Pearlann Porter & John Lambert
FEATURING
Eric Lobenberg, Adam Flagella, Channce Williams
Chezney Douglas, Cecilia Benitez, Theo Bliss
LIGHTING DESIGN BY
Harbour Edney
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ARTISTIC RISK + PERFORMING SAFELY:
We are mindful of all timely concerns for the safety of our guests and performers, including maintaining a 20ft+ distance from the audience throughout the performance, deep-cleaning all surfaces between each performance, providing ample open-window air flow, temperature checks at the door, and touch-less tickets and programs. All crew and ushers will be wearing masks.
Join us in person for this special evening of dance by The Pillow Project, occurring in-the-round with micro-audiences of no more than 12 persons per event. Guests will only be seated with the people they arrive with in “pods” of no more than 3 people in each far-corner of the room. Masks are required for all guests while at The Space Upstairs. Please bring a coat (and optional small blanket) as the windows at The Space Upstairs will remain open throughout the performance (overhead heating units will be on).
*Please feel free to contact us at any time with questions or concerns regarding our safety protocols.
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TICKETS
Tickets are only able to be reserved and purchased before the performance -- Tickets will NOT be sold at the door. Only 12 tickets each performance are available:
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 12 @ 8pm SOLD OUT
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 13 @ 8pm SOLD OUT
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 14 @ 8pm SOLD OUT
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 15 @ 8pm SOLD OUT
$20 single-seat corner
$30 double-seat corner
$40 triple-seat corner
*you will only be seated in a corner with people of your party
TO PURCHASE TICKETS:
Contact tickets@pillowproject.org with your ticket request and you will be given instructions on how to submit your payment via Venmo or Paypal. Tickets cannot be guaranteed until payment is received (a confirmation email will be sent upon completed purchase).
THE GREEN SWAN
coming Summer 2021

To be eternally bound in the ugliness of beauty...
or to be freed into the beauty of what is thought to be ugly...
THE GREEN SWAN is The Pillow Project's hyper-modernist tale of an enchanted princess under a spell of what is believed to be the quintessential idea of beauty. She has been transformed into something inhumanly artificial by day... only able to regain her true organic form at night in the depths of a swamp.
The only way for the spell to be permanently broken is by the power of someone who can truly be intrigued by her dirty, distorted movement and meet her 'in the jazz'. If he cannot see her unique bending of grace, she will remain imprisoned in a shallow aesthetic of beauty forever.
THE GREEN SWAN is an evening-length multimedia performance-installation (with live orchestrated music blending Classical with the highly-experimental) disrupting the concept of the Swan Lake ballet to challenge the notion of the classical ‘pas de deux’. This avant-garde magical reimagining is given new form in questioning the conventional metric of physical beauty by transitioning the notion of perceived ugliness into an intriguing organic unraveling of freedom. This fully-modern idea of a new ballet confronts the tradition-imposed idea of perfection and liberates the dancers in an unbound beauty for the modern age.
DIRECTED BY
Pearlann Porter
LIVE MUSIC BY
PJ Roduta, David Pellow, John Lambert, slowdanger
MUSIC BASED ON THE ORIGINAL SWAN LAKE SCORE BY
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
PERFORMED BY
Kylee Killian & Matthew Saggiomo