MANUAL
Performance
~40 Minutes
MANUAL is a one-on-one performance that turns a public library into a space of sensory encounter and heightened awareness. Staged covertly during public hours, viewers arrive on site with instructions to meet a stranger at a particular time and location. From there they are led silently through a series of subtle events, following written notes and immersive audio in headphones. They walk through the space and listen together. They look at books and read to each other. Sounds and images found in the library combine and blur. And as the piece progresses the materials they encounter come to form a manual for slowing down.
Intermingling with the daily life of the library, MANUAL reflects on the act of listening and the intimacy of reading with another person in a public space. Through a carefully guided participatory experience, the piece invites viewers to engage with the library as a site of deep sensory awareness, and to reflect on the social and technological conditions of shared attention.
Each presentation of MANUAL is staged with a mixture of touring artists and local guest artists. Following a score, each performer create their own interpretation of work using with materials (books, printed materials and sounds) gathered from local libraries. The result is that a unique version of the piece is staged in every location and by every performer.
Credits
Co-created by Christopher Willes and Adam Kinner
Dramaturgy: Hanna Sybille Müller
Performance contributions: Ai Kawase (Japan), Ana Miyaki (Japan), Chao-Ying Rao aka. Betty (UK), Denise Kenney (Canada), Eva Svaneblom (Norway), Jacinte Armstrong (Canada), Keiko Yamaguchi (Japan), Lauren Runions (Canada), Meghan Gilhespy (Canada), Mika Masuda (Japan), Napim Singtoroj (Thailand) Jaturachai Srichanwanpen (Thailand), Rosa Postlethwaite (UK), Sarut Komalittipong (Thailand), Sho Takiguchi (Japan), Stang Puapongsakorn (Thailand), Sym Mendez (UK), Tatsunori Imamura (Japan), Yumi Kambayashi (Japan),and Alexa Mardon (Canada).
Audio contributions: Michael Davidson, Colin Fisher, Thomas Gill, Terri Hron, Philippe Lauzier, Germaine Liu, Philippe Melanson, Karen Ng, and Felicity Williams.
Production assistance: Camille Lacelle-Wilsey, Mulu Tesfu, Jessica Han, Seán Talbot, Jacinte Armstrong, Annalise Prodor, Sorawis Chinsangthip, Withit Chanthamarit.
Developed with the support of: Conseil des arts du Canada, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Ontario Arts Council, and Festival TransAmériques. Creation residencies: Take Me Somewhere (Glasgow), and LA SERRE – arts vivants (Montreal). Special thank you to John Latour and Michael Nardone for assisting with the premiere. Photographs by David Wong and Anna Wansbrough. Videography by Albédo.
Presentations
Kyoto Experiment, Kyoto Japan, October 13-22 2025
TBA, Finland, 2025
Past:
Festspillene i Nord-Norge, Harstad, Norway, June 24-28 2025
BIPAM, Bangkok, Thailand, March 12-23 2025
suddenlyLISTEN, Halifax, Canada, Nov 29-Dec 1 2024
Fierce Festival, Birmingham, England, October 15-19 2024
Gateshead International Festival of Theatre, Gateshead, England, May 2-4 2024
YPAM, Yokohama, Japan, December 13/14 2023
Take Me Somewhere, Glasgow, Scotland, October 26-28 2023
PuSh Festival, Vancouver, Canada, January 28-Feb 1 2023
Living Things Festival, Kelowna, Canada, January 17-21 2023
OFFTA, Montreal, Canada, June 3-5 2022
Selected Press
“…full of strange sounds and free associations… It was a profound experience, felt within the body yet ephemeral all at once.” - Frieze Magazine, Sam Moore, November 2024
“When I reopened my eyes at the start of the performance, it already felt like something had shifted, that I’d transitioned into a different way of being…” - A sensory experience with public space, Elspeth Wilson, Diverse Critics, 2023.
"Transcending individual experience, MANUAL is about the intimacy shared between performer and spectator in the reading encounter. The book becomes a vector of interaction, instilling a level of presence that is essential to listening to others. Willes and Kinner have designed a manual for slowing down and relearning how to spend time together after two years of social distancing." – Learning to read, again an article by Emmanuelle Jetté for the Festival TransAmériques, 2022.
“[MANUAL] redefined my sensory awareness of the space and people in a public library.” - Vancouver Arts Review, Annapoorna Shruthi, February 2023
MANUAL received the Commitment Award for it’s premiere at OFFTA (Montréal) in 2022, awarded by the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.