Water Soil Discontent Bio Art installation and curated tasting, Hsurae. Part of 2022 INTERSECTION- Performance Series
Arts & Culture Events Featured Music Theater

INTERSECTION Performances at Torn Space Launches in May!

Torn Space’s INTERSECTION: Performance Series returns with three upcoming collaborative events exploring the relationships between community and activism (More than Action); sound, consciousness and environment (middle distance); art and science (The Huitlacoche Project). It’s another season of cross-pollinated performance unlike any other in the region at Torn Space’s home in the Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle for the innovative projects below:

More than Action

A salon-style conversation, tasting, presentation and performance featuring special guest artist: Brendan Fernandes 

May 6th – 7:00pm 612 Fillmore Ave. Buffalo

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Torn Space in partnership with The University at Buffalo Art Galleries and the UB School of Architecture and Planning hosts a salon style tasting and community conversation focused on architecture and urban planning that integrate arts and culture into neighborhood revitalization. The evening will be a dinner party with light fare provided and feature a conversation led by the artist with featured speakers Dan Shanahan (Torn Space Artistic Director) and Christopher Romano (Professor, UB School of Architecture and Planning), followed by performance by Brendan Fernandes with a live music set, choreography and a collective dance party.

About Brendan Fernandes: Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979, Nairobi, Kenya) is an internationally recognized Canadian artist working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Currently based out of Chicago, Brendan’s projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest and other forms of collective movement. Always looking to create new spaces and new forms of agency, Brendan’s projects take on hybrid forms: part Ballet, part queer dance hall, part political protest…always rooted in collaboration and fostering solidarity. His projects have shown at the 2019 Whitney Biennial (New York); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); the Museum of Modern Art (New York); The Getty Museum (Los Angeles); the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa); MAC (Montreal); among a great many others. More Info About More than Action

middle distance: a guided calibration

via Groupwork Live audio-visual performance, and a synthesis of sense, sound and surrounding.

May 13th – 7:30pm, 8:45pm, 10:00pm

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Buffalo-based collective Groupwork exports and adapts their underground approach to experiential design, widening the scope and slowing the pace. Known for their ecstatic curated pop-up rave experiences, Groupwork will translate their model for this Torn Space experience. Expect an activated environment, a live audio-visual performance, and a synthesis of sense, sound and surrounding. Contributors include Zachary Brown, Alexander French, Joshua Gruder, Alex Morrison, Frank Napolski, Dan Neveu, Travis Poling, and Max Smith.

We situate between sinews of sound 

to peer through the point of compensation

in a familiar orientation

and glimpse a world beyond sight.

An observer, apart and a part,

views the euphotic outlet, a column, 

a new perspective.

A heavy ride at a moving wall.

Sound & Visuals by Peace Debt + np – Sound Engineering by Alex Morrison – Production Design by Groupwork and Torn Space Theater. More Info About middle distance

The Huitlacoche Project

Unnatural Selection: Huitlacoche and the Human Quest for Control by Alvaro Azcárraga

Wednesday, May 17th – 7:00pm

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Torn Space collaborates with University at Buffalo’s Coalesce: Center for Biological Arts, to present a performance by Mexican artist and researcher Alvaro Azcárraga, who explores the intersection of botanical organisms and the history of scientific colonialism.

Following the success of 水土Water/Soil Discontent不服 in 2022, Torn Space will collaborate once again with University at Buffalo’s Coalesce: Center for Biological Arts, a hybrid studio laboratory facility dedicated to enabling hands-on creative engagement with the tools and technologies of the life sciences. This event will involve a conference, a guided immersive exhibition within the theater and a curated tasting menu exploring the colonization of maize.

Featured Artist: Alvaro Azcárraga is a Mexican artist and researcher that works with plant-like organisms with a focus on the history of scientific colonialism. With a background in Molecular and Cellular Biology, he looks at how the micro relates to the human and beyond. His work also examines the post-natural, specifically looking at the artifice that is embedded within the term “natural.” More Info About The Huitlacoche Project