Library Company & Gershman Y Partner for Archival Exhibition and Performance Art Event on April 20
Visual art and performance art come together in a special program presented jointly by the Gershman Y and the Library Company of Philadelphia on Wednesday, April 20. The evening begins at 5:00 PM at the Library Company of Philadelphia (1314 Locust Street) with an exhibition viewing and reception for Common Touch: The Art of the Senses in the History of the Blind, a multi-sensory exhibition curated by Philadelphia installation artist Teresa Jaynes. Common Touch explores the nature of perception through original works by Jaynes and historical collections that document the education of the blind in the 19th century.
Following the viewing and reception, the evening moves to the Gershman Y (corner of Broad and Pine Streets) at 6:30 PM for a live performance by the renowned Terry Galloway of You Are My Sunshine - A Kind of Love Story. Galloway offers her humorous perspective on life after receiving a cochlear implant and being thrust into a world of sound. You Are My Sunshine is a comic, sometimes moving, sometimes profane exploration of what happens to a woman after she literally regains her senses. The performance will be followed by a discussion with Galloway and Haverford College Professor Kristin Lindgren, PhD. Lindgren was a key organizer of Haverford College’s 2012 exhibition, What Can a Body Do? which explored disability through the visual arts, poetry, and scholarship.
Admission to the exhibition viewing and reception, as well as the performance, is free, but advance registration is required by calling 215-545-4400 or visiting GershmanY.org.
Common Touch: The Art of the Senses in the History of the Blind is a multimedia exhibition that looks at historical embossed and raised-letter documents for the visually impaired as a starting point for a multi-sensory exploration of the nature of perception. Inspired by her research in the Library Company’s Michael Zinman Collection of Printing for the Blind, artist-in-residence Teresa Jaynes has curated an exhibition that combines her own original works with historical collections. This exhibit is supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Terry Galloway, a 2013 Alpert Award nominee, is a writer, director and performer for stage, radio, video, and film. Her theater work has been produced in venues ranging from the American Place Theater in New York to the Zap Club in Brighton, England; her short videos have been featured in film festivals all over the world; and her poems, essays, and non-fiction have been widely anthologized. She co-founded and became the artistic director for several companies including the Mickee Faust Club in Tallahassee, Florida, a 25-year old nonprofit theater for the queer, disabled, minority community that teaches novices the art of writing, performing, and producing original cabarets, radio shows, and short comic videos. Under Galloway’s guidance, Faust has generated over 600 original theater scripts, produced 49 hour-long cabarets of original materials, and created 21 video shorts that have been featured in over 106 national and international film festivals and garnered over 31 awards for filmmaking excellence.
Galloway’s eclectic performance history has been recognized with numerous awards, including five CPB Awards for Excellence in Writing for Khan-du, a television series targeted toward children with disabilities and seen on PBS’ KLRU; two B. Iden Payne Awards for Best Script and Best Actress for her solo performance Out All Night & Lost My Shoes from the Austin Circle of Theaters; three Public Radio New Directors Incorporated, Commentary Awards; and the Best Theater Activism Award from the Austin Chronicle for co-founding Actual Lives Austin, an activist theater for adults with disabilities. Her memoir, Mean Little Deaf Queer, became a Lambda Award finalist and a winner of the Golden Crown award for non-fiction, and earned Galloway one of her three Florida Division Cultural Affairs Individual Artist Awards - one for literature, and two for theater.
The Gershman Y, a vibrant cultural and community center located in Center City Philadelphia on the Avenue of the Arts, is dedicated to celebrating the rich diversity, breadth, and vitality of the Jewish experience. Offering a broad array of artistic, cultural, and educational experiences and outreach initiatives informed by Jewish values that inspire like-minded individuals to connect, converse, and create, the Gershman Y’s programs examine and rethink Jewish arts and culture for a new generation seeking to define what it means to be Jewish today.
