LGBTQ | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: Three queer researchers slip between the present and the past, becoming, interacting with, and learning from a chorus of voices from a critical moment in the queer liberation movement. So goes the description of the dancefloor, the hospital room, and the kitchen table, a new performance piece being presented by Chatham University's Immersive Media Program, and the Kelly Strayhorn Theater.
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the dancefloor, the hospital room, and the kitchen table, is a new performance piece being presented by Chatham University's Immersive Media Program, and the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. The piece revoles around ideas of queer care, specifically, three queer researchers going in between the past and the present, interacting with and learning from voices during the queer liberation movement. The stories from the present are about the COVID-19 pandemic and the stories from the past are about the HIV/AIDS crisis, "drawing from interviews with caretakers, activists, organisers, and long-term survivors.", says director, performance-maker, and community organiser Lyam B. Gabel. Thus, Gabel seeks to explore caretaking, specifically queer cartaking, while honoring where that has taken place–"sitting around the kitchen table, celebrating on the dance floor, and holding vigil in a hospital room.". The performance is set to run at Chatham's Eddy Theatre from March 25 through March 26, and it looks like something incredibly meaningful–I will definitely be looking to see if I can attend!
I wish I was able to see productions from other schools in the pittsburgh area. I know that we have some famous schools in the are as well, and I know that there are also some great stuff happening as well. I wish I knew more about these types of productions outside of Carnegie Mellon, or that we had a program in which we can see other types of productions. I think highly of interactive and immersive theater. I love that in this type of theatre, there is no proscenium opening, no sight lines, no masking. Everything is exposed and the actors and audience are immersed in the same world. Back to the play itself, I found this quote really beautiful, “honoring the spaces where these acts and queer history have happened, namely "sitting around the kitchen table, celebrating on the dance floor, and holding vigil in a hospital room”. It is so quiety sad, the spaces that were chosen are all spaces that hold such intimacy, and can hold so many different kind of emotions.
I have really been enjoying seeing shows in Pittsburgh since getting here. I definitely feel lucky to live in a place where the arts are very much alive. I will certainly attempt to attend this production. I truthfully did not know anything about the productions done by Chatham University, and did not realize they had a program of this size. However, I am fascinated by the work done by the team on “the dancefloor, the hospital room, and the kitchen table”. I think the media on the production is integrated beautifully, and the design concept of using period cameras to create the content is genius. I appreciate the fact that the piece considers the present time period as well as the past. This stresses the work done in queer-caretaking, while also showing that it is still very necessary today. The celebration of queer culture suggested by the title is also very touching.
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