Blog: Washington Ave Pier

Here is a conversation about art as experience and as a form of thinking predicated on the agency of those who touch it.

Elegy for the Anthropocene

August 15, 2018

This article about The Quiet Circus appears in the January 2018 issue of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. Writing is dramaturg and director Jessica Rizzo who attended many of the weekly performances, River Charrettes and Reflection Events that comprise The Quiet Circus.

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Reflection As Structure

August 9, 2018

  Reflection as Structure – The Wisdom of Mary Jane Jacob We spent a lot of time in Dunkin’ Donuts. It was the nearest bathroom and there was coffee and sugar. After the Saturday performances we invited the audience and participants to meet up at the Double D to share experiences and I always loved…

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River Charrette Video

April 16, 2018

    Jillian Jetton and I have been working with Byron Karabotsos on a video about the four River Charrette events that functioned in relationship to the three phases of weekly events at the Washington Avenue Pier. In looking through this footage I was moved by just how much happened, and the hugely different expressions…

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Audience and Performer are Not One and Not Two

February 26, 2018

  The Quiet Circus River Charrette #3 took place at the Andalusia estate along the Delaware River— a strikingly bucolic contrast to the previous River Charrette, which took place a short distance downstream at an industrial recycling operation. Andalusia was built in response to the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia, in which 10% of the…

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Blossoming – Phase 3

August 24, 2017

  Please join us throughout the Fall as we enter the final, blossoming phase of The Quiet Circus! Weekly Saturday performances resume on September 2 at the Washington Ave Pier, beginning at 11am sharp and ending promptly at 1pm. These performances are difficult for me to describe, accumulating and building as they have over the past…

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Observe Yourself Observing – Phase Two

May 18, 2017

  Please join us this Saturday at the Washington Avenue Pier in South Philadelphia from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. We are more than midway through The Quiet Circus, a year and half long residency at the Washington Avenue Pier, a complex and riveting site in South Philadelphia along the Delaware River. Among the many histories…

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Island Score

May 6, 2017

  The Island Score (as of May, 2017): The Island Score is an invitation to contemplate our human community. It grows as a weekly practice and performance as part of the weekly Quiet Circus events at the Washington Avenue Pier, the historic site for waves of immigration into Philadelphia that occurred in the late 19th…

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Beauty & Brutality – Phase One

November 25, 2016

  I’m a bit wistful as we head into the last week of performance, participatory installations and interactions of The Quiet Circus at the Washington Avenue Pier. We’ve been here every Saturday for the last three months and we’ll be taking a break for Winter before resuming in March. Last Saturday the accumulating strands of…

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Landscape

September 9, 2016

  Landscape is the heart of the constellation of events and performances of The Quiet Circus.  In it you are invited to “observe yourself observing” within the complex landscapes of the Washington Avenue Pier. Landscape consists of nine objects and five koan-like instructions for two people to engage in a simple activity whose experience reveals…

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