On Stage: Autumn Knight, M _ _ _ ER
Thursday, Apr 14 – 16, 2022220 E. Chicago Ave.
Chicago, IL 60611
In M _ _ _ ER, Autumn Knight guides her audiences through the controlled chaos of unpredictable group interactions. In this performance, entanglement is experienced in social dynamics and emotional proximity to ourselves, others, and objects.
This program is improvised. Content may include profanity and discussions about sex. Seating will be onstage and any participation will follow COVID-19 guidelines.
About
Combining improvisation with sculpture, sound, and lights, M___ER taps into the tangled relationships we have with familiar people and things to examine the shifting dynamics of intimacy between audience members' senses of self, others, and objects. The title suggests various interpretations of its missing letters; the performance itself addresses ideas such as “mother,” “murder,” and “matter,” while still leaving room for ambiguity. M___ER is a nonlinear, scenic examination of entanglements, from mothers to matter. Investigating relationships that are common to almost everyone, the performance probes the precarity inherent to physical proximity or emotional closeness.
Using her training as an improviser and the inexhaustible possibilities each audience member brings, Knight’s work regularly puts Black femmes—often herself—in contested and confrontational positions of power. Knight guides her audiences through indeterminate situations that illuminate the relationships at play in performance and in our everyday lives. The controlled chaos of these mysterious group interactions provokes laughter and occasional discomfort, using irrationality to make meaning out of our contemporary culture.
This project is organized by Tara Aisha Willis; Curator, Performance and Public Practice; with Laura Paige Kyber, Curatorial Assistant. The livestreamed performance is coproduced by On the Boards, contemporary performance center, Seattle, Washington.
Autumn Knight performs M___ER at OnTheBoards, Seattle WA, 2019.
Photo: Courtesy of the artist.