Table is a performance piece created by Jennifer Kidwell and Thomas Graves. The initial workshop version of Table was commissioned by and presented at the original exhibition of Organize Your Own in Philadelphia in 2016. Since that time, Kidwell and Graves have been developing the piece with support from Bard College, Craigardan, and the Rude Mechs in Austin. The piece has become a dinner made and shared with the audience participants. It focuses on themes of The Commons and our responsibility to one another, and continues to wrestle with how to make sense (or not) of all three of these words "Organize," "Your," and "Own." At this event, Kidwell and Graves will give a talk about the development of this piece, share an excerpt, and share some soup.
Jennifer Kidwell is a performing artist. Some of her recent projects include Underground Railroad Game (Ars Nova, FringeArts), Demolishing Everything with Amazing Speed (Dan Hurlin), I Understand Everything Better (David Neumann/advanced beginner group), Sans Everything (AS 220), Antigone (The Wilma Theater), I Promised Myself to Live Faster and 99 Break-Ups (Pig Iron Theatre Company), Dick's Last Stand (Whitney Biennial 2014, as Donelle Woolford), and Zinnias: the Life of Clementine Hunter (Robert Wilson/Toshi Reagon/Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon). She is currently working with Geoff Sobelle and Nichole Canuso and is a PITC company member, a Wilma Theater Associated Artist, a co-artistic director of the theater company Lightning Rod Special, and a co-founder of JACK. Her writing has been published in movement research Performance Journal #45 and hyperallergic.com. In 2013, she was awarded the TCG/Fox Resident Actor Fellowship (with PITC), naming URG as her primary project. She is a 2016 Pew Fellow.
Thomas Graves is a Co-Producing Artistic Director for Rude Mechs in Austin. As such he has developed, performed in and produced The Method Gun, I've Never Been So Happy, Now Now Oh Now, and Stop Hitting Yourself. He is currently working on the Rude Mechs’ latest production Field Guide commissioned by Yale Rep; and a project he conceived of and is directing, Not Every Mountain, which will appear at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in the summer of 2018. Graves was also a co-creator and performer of Dayna Hanson’s The Clay Duke at On The Boards in Seattle and Noorderzon Festival in the Netherlands, and has performed at festivals across North America and Europe as a dancer and choreographer for the queer performance group Christeene. Graves holds an MFA in Performance as Public Practice from the University of Texas at Austin.
Image: Performance by Jennifer Kidwell and Thomas Graves in Philadelphia. Photo by Paul Gargagliano of Hazel Photo.