Brave Actions Bold Voices, the Fall 2023 KST Presents season, features new offerings from Mutual Aid Residents Dreams of Hope and PearlArts, a visual art exhibition in the BOOM Gallery, two Freshworks Performances in Progress, and premieres of Local and Global Performances from longtime Pittsburgh favorites and returning faces.
“There is much to be explored in the voices and actions of artists across the KST Presents programs. We hope you will add your voice and action into the mix by coming out to share in our work of championing the rights of Black and queer people!” said KST’s Executive Director Joseph Hall
KST’s Fall Season
MUTUAL AID RESIDENCY | MUSIC | DANCE
Synchronized with Soy Sos
Featuring Ali Berger Friday, September 15
7:30pm KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave. | Pay What Moves You: $10 – $25
Soy Sos and Ali Berger create a live and on the spot techno and house centered mix, blending seamless layers of bass, rhythm, texture, samples and melody. Dancers from SPdp&SS and the local dance scene will move in the space over the course of the performance. Audience members are welcome to join.
LOCAL & GLOBAL PERFORMANCE | COMMUNITY
Welcome Dinner & Artist Talk
Fran Flaherty & Meg Foley
Monday, September 18* at 6:00pm
*with ASL Interpretation Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave. | Pay What Moves You: $0 – $25
Celebrate the opening of Eternal Material, an exhibition featuring Fran Flaherty’s the Anthropology of Motherhood and Meg Foley’s Blood Baby, with an informal dinner and conversation between the artists. Flaherty and Foley will discuss mothering, parenting queerly, and child rearing across perspectives.
BOOM GALLERY | VISUAL ART
Eternal Maternal
Fran Flaherty & Meg Foley
Monday, September 18 – Sunday, December 17
Opening Reception: Monday, September 18, 6:00pm Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave. | Pay What Moves You: $0 – $25
Through Fran Flaherty’s Anthropology of Motherhood and Meg Foley’s Blood Baby, Eternal Maternal examines the intricate details and diverse expressions that encompass the multifaceted nature of motherhood, acknowledging mothering as both an active pursuit and a fundamental state of existence, irrespective of and subject to gender. Flaherty and Foley delve into the realm of divine bodies, illuminating the inherent connection between mothering and the sacred.
LOCAL & GLOBAL PERFORMANCE | WORKSHOP
The Embodied Imaginary with Meg Foley
Co-Presented with PearlArts
Wednesday, September 20
9:00am – 10:15am KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave. | Pay What Moves You: $10 – $25
The Embodied Imaginary is a workshop of improvisational dance-making, embracing our body/selves as divining rods. Participants will explore where feeling meets form, dance as thinking, material beings, practice long form improvisation, consider themselves geological material, have a dance party, and use textiles as body-building objects.
LOCAL & GLOBAL PERFORMANCE | COMMUNITY
Queer Parent Convening with Meg Foley
Wednesday, September 20 | 7:00pm RSVP for Location
Pay What Moves You: $0 – $25
Queer Parent Convening invites queer and trans parents to connect and share about their experiences of parenting and family-building in relationship to gender, sexuality, community, and what parenting queerly means to them. Join Foley and Pittsburgh queer parents in an intimate setting with dinner, conversation, and kinship. Childcare will be provided.
MUTUAL AID RESIDENCY | THEATER
THEATRIQ
Creative Sessions for Queer Youth
Co-Presented with Dreams of Hope Wednesdays, October 4 – December 6
5:30pm – 8:00pm *No Class on Wednesday, November 22 KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave | FREE
The Dreams of Hope theatriQ performance ensemble (ages 13 – 26) works with professional artists to create original work addressing LGBTQA+ themes. They engage and educate audiences through performances and hands-on workshops. Every year the ensemble creates and performs original theater, visual art, and music exploring
LGBTQA+ themes. LOCAL & GLOBAL PERFORMANCE | DANCE
Meg Foley
Blood Baby: Communion
Friday & Saturday, September 22* – 23
7:30pm
*Post Performance Discussion
with ASL Interpretation Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave. Pay What Moves You: $15 – $35
An interdisciplinary celebration of queer kinship, radical gender performance, and belonging, Blood Baby offers a fresh and multifaceted exploration of the queer family experience through dance, installation, and community events.
FRESHWORKS | THEATER
Pria Dahiya
You and Me and The End of the World
Friday & Saturday, October 6 – 7
7:30pm KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave. | Pay What Moves You: $10 – $25
You and Me and the End of the World a digitally sick, nauseatingly young, and fearfully queer play-adjacent performance project about first love, first loss, and a thoroughly annoying pandemic. Embodying the disconnect between the bewildering psychological excess of living online and the frightening reality of living offline, this performance in process explores the relationship between alienation, desire, mortality, and the internet. MUTUAL AID
RESIDENCY | MUSIC | DANCE
Synchronized with Soy Sos
Featuring James Johnson III and Erik Lawrence
Co-Presented with Pearl Arts
Friday, October 20
7:30pm KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave. | Pay What Moves You: $10 – $25
Using synchronization-based ensembles, Soy Sos, James Johnson lll, and Erik Lawrence will create living, breathing soundscapes with amplified drums, bass flute, and baritone sax driven through an analog mixer, effects, and processing. Dancers from SPdp&SS and the local dance scene will move in the space over the course of the performance. Audience members are welcome to join.
YOUTH & FAMILY | MUSIC | DANCE | THEATER
Pumpkin Palooza
An East Liberty Halloween Adventure!
Saturday, October 28
1:00pm – 4:00pm Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave. | Pay What Moves You: $0 – $25 Dress up in your favorite costume for an afternoon of tricks, treats, and groovy beats. Join us in the KST lobby for candy, crafts, and activities with The Alloy School and community partners; assemble, The Latino Community Center, Hugh Lane, and Youth Enrichment Services. Then, come into the theater for a family-friendly program hosted by KinselLand Radio (DS Kinsel) with performances from K-Theater Dance Complex, Alumni Theater Company and the Afro-American Music Institute’s Jazz Lab.
MUTUAL AID RESIDENCY | DANCE Pearl PRESENTS
Featuring SPdp&SS, Raphael Xavier and
Chitra Subramanian
Co-Presented with Pearl Arts
Saturday, November 11
7:30pm Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $15 – $35
Pearl PRESENTS brings the work of STAYCEE PEARL dance project & Soy Sos in conversation with PearlDiving Movement Residency artists Raphael Xavier and Chitra Subramanian for a concert of dance performances on the KST mainstage. Xavier has been a professional breaker/dancer for the last 20 years. Subramanian’s work draws from Hip Hop and Indian Classical foundations.
BENEFIT | MUSIC | PARTY
Suite Life
A Celebration of Billy Strayhorn & Gene Kelly
Saturday, November 25
5:30pm VIP Reception
7:30pm Concert Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $35 – $200
KST invites you to experience the music of composer Billy Strayhorn and the imagery of performer Gene Kelly in an unforgettable theatrical experience and celebration of our namesakes! Featuring classically trained jazz singer, opera librettist, and Billy Strayhorn aficionado Joshua Banbury and Suite Life veterans kelsey jumper and Treasure Treasure this 16th annual celebration will continue to update our East Liberty holiday tradition.
FRESHWORKS | DANCE | THEATER
Andraya Rand-Mathis
Diving Within
Friday & Saturday, December 1 – 2
7:30pm KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $10 – $25
Diving Within centers interviews from members of the Black/African American community to reflect on the peaks and valleys of individuals’ healing process related to grief, heartbreak, and childhood trauma. Using dance, music, drag, performative storytelling, and audio from first person interviews with trans women, Andraya creates a safe space to feel, reflect, and converse about personal healing without judgment or pressure. LOCAL & GLOBAL
PERFORMANCE | COMMUNITY
Welcome Dinner & Artist Talk
with anna thompson & taylor knight of slowdanger
Monday, December 4
6:00pm KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $0 – $25
Celebrate the Pittsburgh premiere of SUPERCELL, a new evening-length dance work from the dynamic duo, slowdanger, with a welcome dinner and artist talk. KST artists since 2013, slowdanger uses a systematic approach to movement, integrative technology, found material, and vocalization to create their performances.
LOCAL & GLOBAL PERFORMANCE | WORKSHOP
Demystifying the Box
with slowdanger
Co-Presented with PearlArts Wednesday, December 6
9:00am – 10:15am KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $10 – $25
De-mystifying the Box engages participants to sense deeper into the micro-ecosystems of our bodies, exploring groove, effort, awareness modalities, and authentic movement to move collectively for 75-minutes. Closing with a dialogue the local impacts of the climate crisis.
LOCAL & GLOBAL PERFORMANCE | DANCE
slowdanger
SUPERCELL
Friday & Saturday, December 8* – 9
7:30pm
*Post Performance Discussion Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $15 – $35
SUPERCELL is an evening-length multidisciplinary quintet performance responding to climate consciousness, media sensationalism, sensitization, & environmental collapse. The title refers to supercells, large storms of deep, persistent updrafts often resulting in many tornadoes. The work begs the question, how do we cultivate hope during uncertain times? MUTUAL AID
RESIDENCY | DANCE
Adult Ballet Club
with Andrew Blight
Co-Presented with PearlArts
Tuesday, August 8 – December 19
6:00pm – 7:00pm
*No Class on Tuesday, November 21 KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $10 – $190
Adult Ballet Club will take students through ballet techniques and history, utilizing an adaptive movement vocabulary to build a communal space for artistry and fun. The weekly series is a community class for ages 18+, and is open to all levels with no previous experience required.
MUTUAL AID RESIDENCY | DANCE
Adult Jazz/Heels
with Arnita Thompson
Co-Presented with PearlArts Tuesday, August 8 – December 19
7:30pm – 8:30pm
*No Class on Tuesday, November 21 KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $10 – $190
Adult Jazz/Heels Club will take students through jazz techniques, utilizing an adaptive movement vocabulary to build a communal space for artistry and fun. The weekly series is a community class for ages 18+, and is open to all levels with no previous experience required. Heels are encouraged, though completely optional for participation and enjoyment.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
At https://kelly-strayhorn.org/event-categories/kst-presents/
Categories: Preview, Season Listings
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