As part of PS21 PATHWAYS Day 2023 and the Italo Calvino Centennial, Processional Arts Workshop brings Invisible Cities to life in two weeks of fun, exploratory community workshops — everyone is invited to collaborate in creating and performing their own imagined cities as pageant puppets and performing objects, transforming PS21’s pathways into a shifting landscape of animated architectural follies.
Workshops will run from July 15 to 28, and you can take part in any or all workshops, and in the Final Community Procession on July 29 (Rain date July 30).
Guided by poetic fragments, found sounds and unreliable maps, visitors will encounter cities at random, trying to make sense of a once-familiar world that seems to fade, with each step, into an elusive, half-remembered dream.
Presented during PATHWAYS DAY, Invisible Cities is a roving performance installation inspired by Italo Calvino’s kaleidoscopic allegory of how we inhabit, negotiate, and remember shared spaces.
Revealed in Marco Polo’s reports to Kublai Khan of his sprawling, ungraspable empire, Calvino’s cities seem fantastical yet familiar, as we struggle, like the Emperor, to comprehend the reality of a vast human enterprise.
You are invited to come to as many or as few sessions as you like — they are all free — and you can take part in the final performance. While workshops are geared towards adults and teens, kids ages 8 and up are welcome to work with an adult. No experience necessary, PS21 says — one will be provided!
More info »