MANUAL
Performance
~40 Minutes
Co-created with Adam Kinner
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.
Presentations
- Quebec, Canada, TBA, July 2027
- Calgary, Canada TBA, 2027
- Victoria, Canada, TBA November 2027
- Fribourg, Switzerland, TBA, June 2027
- Utrecht, Netherlands, TBA, May 2027
- Amarante, Portugal, TBA, 2028
- Quebec, Canada, TBA 2028
- Ontario, Canada, TBA 2028
Past:
- Oulu, Finland, ILME Cultural Cooperative / ANTI Festival, September 11-15 2026
- Nyon, Switzerland, far° festival des arts vivants, August 13-22 2026
- Chizu, Japan, Theatre Festival in the Town and Mountains of Chizu, July 3-5 2026
- Halifax, Canada, STAGES Festival, June 3-6 2026
- YCAM, Yamaguchi, Japan, January 24 - February 8, 2026
- Moving in November, Finland, November 12-15 2025
- Kyoto Experiment, Kyoto Japan, October 13-22 2025
- 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, Premiere, Montreal, Canada, June 3-5 2022
Credits
Co-created by Christopher Willes and Adam Kinner
Dramaturgy: Hanna Sybille Müller
Performance contributions: Japan: Ai Kawase, Ana Miyaki, Keiko Yamaguchi, Masahiro Hosoda, Sho Takiguchi, Tatsunori Imamura, Yumi Kambayashi, Soma Ishii, Akari Kato, Mika Masuda, Megumi Miyazaki, Airi Fujiwara, Yuri Mizunuma, Naohisa Nakagaki. Thailand: Napim Singtoroj, Jaturachai Srichanwanpen, Sarut Komalittipong, Stang Puapongsakorn. Canada: Alexa Mardon, Denise Kenney, Jacinte Armstrong, Lauren Runions, Meghan Gilhespy. Switzerland: Aïcha El Fishawy, Noémi Alberganti. UK: Chao-Ying Rao aka. Betty, Rosa Postlethwaite, Sym Mendez.
Finland: Ella Valkola, Heta Haapsamo, Suvi Rinkineva. Norway: Eva Svaneblom.
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, Hazuki Ota, Soma Ishii, Otis Thaïs Martin, Nao Miyauchiv, Kilarala Akiyama, Sae Ikeda, Shinnosuke Ota, Kana Kimura.
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.
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
“Where does a "performance" begin, and where does it end?… Participants in this work are forced to grapple with the question of where to draw the boundary between the ordinary and the extraordinary, or even whether such a boundary is even possible.” - Takashima Megumi, Artscape Japan, January 6, 2026
“The library reveals itself in a magical way, as if it has been there in this specific way just waiting for someone to witness. Yet it strongly takes form in the moment, it is all in movement. The performance feels like a current. The one beneath the library, beneath all the books that once caught someone's attention.” - Ella Skoikka, Ravel Reviews, November 2025.
“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
“Adam Kinner & Christopher Willes Cultivate Seeing & Listening in a Familiar Library” - Tottori Arts [in Japanese]
MANUAL received the Commitment Award for it’s premiere at OFFTA (Montréal) in 2022, awarded by the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.