MANUAL
Performance
One-on-one format (guided audio-based experience)
Staged covertly in a public library settings
~40 Minutes
MANUAL is a one-on-one performance that transforms a public library into a space of sensory encounter and heightened awareness. Staged covertly during public hours, participants arrive on site with instructions to meet a guide, and from there they are led silently through a series of tiny actions following written notes and immersive audio in headphones. They walk through the space and listen together. They look at books and read to each other. Sounds and images found in the library combine and blur. And as the piece progresses the materials they encounter come to form a manual for slowing down.
Intermingling with the daily life of the library, MANUAL proposes a performance that develops through the act of listening and reading with another person. Through a slow and careful process, this piece stages a quiet meditation on the library as a space of shared attention.
Credits
Co-created by Christopher Willes and Adam Kinner
Dramaturgy: Hanna Sybille Müller
Performers: Adam Kinner, Hanna Sybille Müller, Christopher Willes, Alexa Mardon, Denise Kenney, and Chao-Ying Rao (Betty). Audio contributions: Michael Davidson, Colin Fisher, Thomas Gill, Terri Hron, Philippe Lauzier, Germaine Liu, Philippe Melanson, Karen Ng, and Felicity Williams. Production assistance: Camille Lacelle-Wilsey, Mulu Tesfu, Jessica Han, Seán Talbot.
With the support of: Festival TransAmériques, Conseil des arts du Canada, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and the Ontario Arts Council. Developed through creation residencies at Take Me Somewhere (Glasgow), and LA SERRE – arts vivants (Montreal). Special thank you to John Latour and Michael Nardone. Photographs by David Wong. Videography by Albédo.
Presentation History
- PuSh Festival, Vancouver, Canada, January 28-Feb 1 2023
- Living Things Festival, Kelowna, Canada, January 17-21 2023
- OFFTA, Montréal, Canada, June 3-5 2022
- Take Me Somewhere, Glasgow, Scotland, October 26-28 2023
- YPAM, Yokohama, Japan, December 13/14 2023
- Gateshead International Festival of Theatre, Gateshead, England, May 2-4 2024
Select Press
MANUAL received a Commitment Award, awarded by PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, for it’s premiere at OFFTA (Montréal) in 2022.
“When I reopened my eyes at the start of the performance, it already felt like something had shifted, that I’d transitioned into a different way of being…”
- A sensory experience within a public space, Elspeth Wilson, Disability Arts Online, 2023.
"Transcending individual experience, MANUAL is about the intimacy shared between performer and spectator in the reading encounter. The book becomes a vector of interaction, instilling a level of presence that is essential to listening to others. Willes and Kinner have designed a manual for slowing down and relearning how to spend time together after two years of social distancing."
– Learning to read, again an article by Emmanuelle Jetté for the Festival TransAmériques, 2022.
“MANUAL is not about confessing or sharing secrets. (Which is, to be honest, a relief sometimes.) But we are engaged in a kind of intimacy. We are playing a private game in a public space. We are secret weirdos. We are making secrets.”
- Games with Ghosts, by Jenn Stephenson, Dramaturgies of Participation, 2022.