In the Schvitz - new play by Ben Gorodetsky - workshop performance

Work-in-progress showing of a site-specific, documentary-theatre piece performed inside a sauna! In the Schvitz is a new play by Ben Gorodetsky. A small audience of 14 people is invited to share space and sweat inside a hot sauna to experience our immersive 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: 9:00am Performance: 9:15am 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 sweating. - Image by Bangishimo. - Developed with generous support from Canada Council for the Arts and Shevchenko Foundation.