2024 INTERSECTION: Performance Series
Original Performance, Cutting-Edge Collaborations and
Featured Works
About INTERSECTION
Torn Space is launching a new season of exciting interdisciplinary performances in the 2024 INTERSECTION: Performance Series through four key tiers of programming: the Individual Artist Series, Site-Specific Works, Agents of Change, and the Mainstage Series. These tiers allow Torn Space to provide Buffalo audiences and artists with a platform for avant-garde, interdisciplinary performance experiences, to create unique gathering spaces for creatives whose work is siloed in specific communities, and to offer original groundbreaking performances in its signature design-forward style.
In 2024 Torn Space will complete its final phase of transformative capital renovations, creating a multi-purpose arts campus on the East Side with opportunities for outdoor performance and social engagement, an improved accessible entryway for audience comfort, and expanded performer and technical space to make Torn Space a first-rate creative laboratory. This space will continue to support the growing INTERSECTION: Performance Series as it explores a wide selection of events intersecting place, generation, identity and discipline.
In the Individual Artist Series, Torn Space welcomes back: Sneakvibing for another night of female hip hop features curated by Schondra Aytch; University at Buffalo’s Coalesce: Center for Biological Arts with a bio artist presentation; and Groupwork with a new original multimedia audio and visual installation. Agents of Change, Torn Space’s annual educational and social justice outreach program, will continue to expand with student community engagement, a public environmental action, and a live presentation at the theater. Site-specific works will include the return of Camp Everything at Dyngus Day and Pride parades, the return and expansion of fashion show-meets-block party-meets-performance installation CrossWalk on Paderewski and Wilson, and Commensality, an immersive dinner performance at Silo City. Finally, the season will close with a Mainstage performance of a scripted play which will hit the stage in early 2025 once our East Side campus renovations are complete. All events feature opportunities for audiences to engage with the work and with each other in unique ways, part of Torn Space’s evolution into a creative event designer, curator and platform, continuing the experiment of community ritual as performance.
At the center of this project is Torn Space Theater’s continued partnership with the historic Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle (AMLDC) located at 612 Fillmore Ave. Buffalo NY, in the heart of the Broadway/Fillmore community. Torn Space has been operating out of the AMLDC since 2000 and we are thrilled to welcome back the public to the renovated and expanded facility. The Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle was founded 128 years ago as a place for intellectual dialogue of art, theater and life to newly settled Polish immigrants who settled in Buffalo, NY and continued to arrive after World War II. The Broadway/Fillmore neighborhood is experiencing a rebirth with new immigrant populations, creating a dynamic and culturally rich environment. The AMLDC is one of Buffalo’s oldest continuously operating cultural institutions in WNY, featuring historic archives in their newly renovated library while providing old world hospitality with one of the largest assortment of Polish beers and liquors outside of Poland.
2024 INTERSECTION Performances:
INDIVIDUAL ARTIST SERIES
LUCA
Date: April 27, 2024 7:00pm, 8:00pm – Artist talk to follow each performance.
Venue: 612 Fillmore Ave. Buffalo
Torn Space collaborates with University at Buffalo’s Coalesce: Center for Biological Arts, to present an interactive installation performance-in-progress by artist Tansy Xiao. LUCA explores positioning humans as just one element within the ecosystem rather than at the apex of a hierarchical structure. Performance begins at 7pm followed by an artist talk.
Ladies First
Date: May 11, 2024 7:00pm
Venue: 612 Fillmore Ave. Buffalo
A deeper look at the women driving Buffalo’s burgeoning hip-hop scene.
Curated by Schondra Aytch.
Presented by Sneakvibing X Torn Space Theater
Middle distance, 2023 – Photo credit: Jessica Ahrens
Inversion/Presence: Groupwork presents Jake Muir & JS
Dates: June 22, 2024 6:30-10:30pm
Venue: 612 Fillmore Ave. Buffalo
An experience curated to explore the transformative power of sound in a space where perceptions are subtly distorted, reshaping what is near and what is far. Hosted by Groupwork, this event continues their commitment to crafting environments that are both compressed and expanded by sound and light featuring renowned ambient sound artists Jake Muir and JS.
SITE-SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE
camp everything, 2022 – Photo credit: wes adamski
Camp Everything
Dates: April 1, 2024 and June 2, 2024
Venue: Dyngus Day Parade and Buffalo Pride Parade – Float Installation
These events are free and open to the public. For more info about the Dyngus Day Parade, visit the Dyngus Day Website. For more info about the Buffalo Pride Parade, visit the Pride Week Website.
A multimedia installation and performance designed in collaboration with Adam Weekley for the Dyngus Day Parade and the Buffalo Pride Parade celebrating acceptance and inclusivity, a partner project with the Burchfield-Penney Art Gallery supported by the Cullen Foundation.
crosswalk, 2022 – Photo credit: nickel city headshots
CrossWalk
Date: June 15, 2024 7:00pm
Venue: Torn Space Theater – 612 Fillmore Ave. Buffalo – Check-in at the theater, performance will begin behind the theater at the corner of Wilson and Paderewski.
CrossWalk is a performance and fashion installation created by Torn Space; featuring the work of audio visual collective GroupWork, the clothing line Buyer, fashion designers Chase Cobbina and Kylie Priscilla, and the public as models.
the gathering, 2017 – Photo credit: michael w. Thomas
Commensality
Dates: August 9-11, 16-18, 2024
Venue: Silo City – 85 Silo City Row, Buffalo
Tickets: $40 General, Available Soon
Commensality: (n) a social group that eats together. the practice of eating and drinking at the same table, creates relationships and sets boundaries. In this collaborative performance in partnership with Always Something Farm, the dinner table is the performance. Four courses of tastings bring an intimate audience together in the epic landscape of Silo City.
AGENTS OF CHANGE
agents of change, 2022 – Photo credit: nickel city headshots
Agents of Change
Live Presentation: June 8, 10am-12pm a
Lafayette International High School – 370 Lafayette Ave. Buffalo, NY 14213
A collaboration with Lafayette International High School and Re-Tree Buffalo, Torn Space’s annual education and community outreach project will plant trees in the surrounding neighborhood along with a public celebration recognizing organizations that work for environmental equity. This project is part of Just Buffalo Literary Center’s The Civil Writes Project.
MAINSTAGE SERIES
the homecoming, 2023 – Photo credit: nickel CIty Headshots
Mainstage Performance
Torn Space will present an innovative interpretation of a dramatic classic following the completion of its newly completed lobby, green rooms, technical booth and theater space.
Dates: Returns in February 2025
Venue: 612 Fillmore Ave. Buffalo
Stay up to date by following us on social media: @tornspace on Instagram & Twitter, @TornSpaceTheater on Facebook.
The 2024 INTERSECTION: Performance Series is made possible with lead support from the Cullen Foundation, M&T Bank, Erie County, the City of Buffalo, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
This programming is also made possible thanks to partnering organizations: University at Buffalo’s Coalesce, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Sneakvibing, Silo City, UB Art Galleries, Groupwork, and the Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle