This event will take place online. Free with registration.

Saturday, April 16: 2pm EST / 1pm CT / 11am PST

What does it mean to acknowledge spaces that we could easily dismiss? Are there possibilities for the unity of the self and the other? How do we peel off protective layers as social beings in order to revisit our core selves? How could we unlearn together?

Based on the philosophical and creative research for the upcoming live performance NOTHINGBEING, this two-hour symposium features the performance’s primary collaborators, David Thomson, Anna Martine Whitehead, Samita Sinha and Takahiro Yamamoto. After a short introduction by Yamamoto, there will be three recorded performance presentations: Thomson’s current and ongoing practice, an excerpt from Whitehead’s current project “FORCE! An opera in three acts,” and Yamamoto’s new collaborative project with filmmaker Roland Dahwen. The symposium will conclude with a live roundtable conversation with all the collaborators about the core questions and  process of making this project. A Q&A with the public follows and live captions will be available.

NOTHINGBEING – A Virtual Symposium is co-organized by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art and The Chocolate Factory Theater.

NOTHINGBEING is supported by the Japan Foundation through the Performing Arts JAPAN program. It is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creative Fund Project co-commissioned by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in partnership with The Chocolate Factory Theater,  On The Boards, and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). Takahiro Yamamoto is a 2021 NDP Finalist Grant Award recipient. Support was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to address continued sustainability needs during COVID-19 and in support of NOTHINGBEING.