(no tv in) the schvitz – new play by Ben Gorodetsky – workshop performance

(no tv in) the schvitz is a new play by Ben Gorodetsky, performed inside of a sauna.

A small audience of 16 people is invited to share space and sweat inside a hot schvitz for a first look at our work-in-progress. This workshop will combine storytelling, bathing rituals, archival sound recordings of politicians and comedians, live harp music by Grace Scheele, and interactive conversation among participants.

“I’m working on developing a performance piece that explores documentary forms, re-enactment, political protest, translation, and oral history within the site-specific staging of a public sauna. The intimacy and healing power of the sauna is profoundly inspiring to me: the proximity, the heat, the breath, and transformed sense of time. Furthermore I have a deep cultural connection to sauna experiences. As a Ukrainian immigrant, the experience of communal bathing and shared sweat is deeply a part of how I have connected to my father throughout my life. Moreover, in addition to the physical intimacy and healing, there is an emotional intensity that can happen in a sauna. Conversations that seem impossible in the regular world occur with greater ease inside contained spaces heated by woodfire. With all of this in mind I’m creating a performance piece that carefully cultivates a space of transformation and healing, responding to our current, painful moment of global conflict and societal destabilization.”

-Ben Gorodetsky, artist & schvitz lover

Creative Team:
Ben Gorodetsky – Writer & Performer
Grace Scheele – Musician & Sound Artist
Lauren Prousky – Dramaturg & Co-Conspirator
Lisa O’Connell – Dramaturg & Co-Conspirator
–
Timing:
Doors Open: 10:00am
Performance: 10:15am
Conclusion: 11:45am
–
Venue:
KW Sauna – 396 Victoria St N, Kitchener
–
Note:
Audience members will be asked to wear bathing suits and participate in sauna