Unbound: Writing the Stories We Were Never Meant to Tell is a poetry and self-expression workshop created for Black women who are ready to reclaim the truths, rage, softness, and survival stories they’ve been told to hide. Guided by Karen Moore, this sacred space blends stillness, generative prompts, and the legacy of Nina Simone’s Four Women to help you write with courage, clarity, and power. No fancy language required—just your voice, your breath, and your willingness to be seen.

36 Questions for Civic Love is a series of questions created by Chicago’s National Museum of Public Housing.

Using the 36 Questions framework, we will explore, discuss, and investigate our relationship to place. We’ll do this through writing, sharing, and some guided activities. Everyone attending the workshop will leave with a set of their own questions, as well as a greater sense of awareness about how we are shaped by our environment and how our environment shapes us.

This workshop is for everyone who wants to delve deeper into their relationship to the spaces they inhabit.

Joanna Bak is an artist, educator, and creative coach whose work explores individual and collective memory.

Finding Your Freak is a 3-hour crash course in character creation. Using exercises from improv and clown, participants will explore what delights and surprises onstage. Following that fun, you'll learn to quickly create characters that feel fresh every time you perform them.

Join Gravity and Other Myths company member and former sports acro champion Axl Osborne for a creative tumbling workshop!  This class is designed to target the ingrained habits in your body and realize how they are both a constraint and a benefit. By disrupting our usual patterns, we can more easily find new ones. We will do solo movements pulled from a variety of backgrounds, so there is something for everyone. We will combine each person's unique style and movement to make acrobatic tumbling sequences.

No prerequisites are required, but some movement practice is recommended.

Kuchipudi is an Indian classical dance form deeply rooted in theatrical tradition. Beyond abstract movement, it emphasizes storytelling through facial expressions, spoken dialogue, and a rich vocabulary of hand gestures. This master class offers an introduction to Kuchipudi’s narrative essence, highlighting its expressive and dramatic techniques. Participants will explore how stories are conveyed through movement and emotion, gaining insight into the dance’s cultural and performative depth. By the end of the session, attendees will collaborate to create and perform a short story, experiencing the collective joy and creative spirit at the heart of Kuchipudi.

We will discuss the history of Jazz, its origins in call & response, and evolution into free jazz and the cultural significance of free jazz connected to pro-Black struggle and anti-colonialism. Our exploration will be tied to Afro- presentism, the current moment we find ourselves in and how we arrived here, afro-futurism and how Black artists imagine Black futures as a response to black power movements. We'll touch on Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, Max Roach, and Sun Ra with the focus on free Jazz as a cultural response and assertion of identity. Activist chants, too, often center call & response to highlight the importance of collective struggle. We will then go on to discuss protest chants, musicality, and the interconnectedness of activism, music, and performance. This offering is for anyone who will listen; this call is for anyone who will respond.

Join us for an afternoon of theater in the making. Professional actors bring an emerging playwright’s work to life—and your feedback shapes the future of the play!
 Free & open to all who love stories on stage.

What do you need to feel present, available, and prepared to perform in front of an audience?

In this workshop I will share some grounding techniques and tools for mental and physical preparation for performance, drawing from my own experiences as a dancer. Any performer who uses their body on stage will be able to benefit from these tools- no need to be a dancer!

In addition to me sharing some practices that I personally enjoy and find effective, we will work together and in small groups to devise exercises that will help prepare you for the demands of a specific performance you may have coming up… (and if you don’t have a performance coming up, you could think of one you’ve done in the past!)

Together let's explore, in a supportive and collaborative environment, how it feels to be prepared and available for performance-- and how to consistently access that physical and mental state.

Katherine Desimine (she/they) is an artist based on Lenni-Lenape land (also known as Philadelphia). Katherine is a dancer, dance maker, dance teacher, writer, singer, arts administrator, and arts advocate.

Contact Improvisation (CI) is a partnering dance form which arises from the communication between bodies through touch. The technique focuses on giving and supporting weight, and coordinating with gravity and momentum, to create spontaneous relational dances. The emergent nature of this dance form challenges dancers to listen and adapt to another’s physical impulses, states, and creative impulses while tracking their own sensations. CI is both a come-as-you-are practice (meaning anyone can join) and a skill-based practice (why people keep coming back). It's been called an "art-sport" and "exercise-massage". Beginner-friendly! Bring a friend :)

Bio
Gabrielle Revlock is a NYC Bessie Award-winning choreographer and a practitioner of Contact Improvisation for 20+ years. Her research on Contact Improvisation is published in Resistance and Support: Contact Improvisation @ 50 and recent teaching engagements include the wcciJAM in Berkeley, Brinca Galicia Contact Festival in Spain, and the European Contact Improvisation Teachers' Exchange (ECITE) in Poland. GabrielleRevlock.com

Photos: Stephen Texeira

Description coming soon!

Description coming soon!

An hour-long playground where performers meet as an ensemble to explore the jeu (play), sweat, and celebrate the dramatic impulse. In this gymnasium, through the practice of ensemble-play, performers awaken their physical instruments, becoming curious, open, and present.

Faysal Can Dakni is a theatre maker, performer, and educator specializing in physical theatre, clown, improvisation, and ensemble-based creation. A Fulbright scholar, he earned his MFA in Devised Performance from the University of the Arts / Pig Iron School. He is currently a full-time faculty member at Bilkent University, creating original, ensemble-driven performances for stages and festivals.

FREE!

Bringing the Outside Edge In - Philadelphia Artists, Journalists, and Audience in Dialog, a panel discussion brought to you by Cannonball 2025, brings together artists and writers from the Philadelphia community to talk about the dynamics that we wish to build between artists, journalists and the media, and contemporary audiences. What is the relationship between artist and review writer? How can festivals like Cannonball support journalists in connecting with stories? How can we work together to contribute to the future of arts in Philadelphia?

Shavon Norris will moderate the conversation with panelists and will follow up with a Q&A with the public.

Shavon Norris is an Artist. Educator. Facilitator. She grew up in a Black Sci-Fi Christian home in the Bronx that sparked her curiosity about the magic, medicine, and meaning living within us. Shavon uses movement along with text, sound, and imagery to reveal the stories living in our bodies. Her work explores our relationship to our identities, our experiences, and to each other. An examination and celebration of what we feel, think, and believe. As an artist her work has been presented at venues in NYC and Philadelphia. As a performer, she has performed for Silvana Cardell, Leah Stein, Merian Soto, makini poe, and toured with Pig Iron Theatre Company. As a facilitator, she works with artistic, educational, and corporate institutions, offering learning on Creativity, Movement, Inclusivity, and Healing Centered/Trauma Informed Practices. Shavon’s artistic and educational philosophies are rooted in the desire to offer herself, learners, performers, and audiences, opportunities to deepen the understanding of self and the collective. She loves the living and working she gets to do in the world.

Panelists:

Alaina Johns has been working as a freelance journalist in and around Philadelphia since 2007, and has been editor-in-chief of BSR since December 2018. Her work has appeared in outlets including The Philadelphia Inquirer, WHYY, Grid, Keystone Edge, American Theatre, and many more.

Quinn D. Eli is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the Community College of Philadelphia, where he heads the Theater Program. He earned his B.A. from Ithaca College and his M.A. from Temple University. Originally from the Bronx, NY, Eli is active in the Philadelphia theater scene—as a playwright featured in Best American Ten-Minute Plays, and as co-founder of Jouska PlayWorks supporting playwrights of the African Diaspora. He also holds membership in both Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) and the Black Theatre Network.

Megan Mizanty is a writer and editorial board member at thINKingDANCE in Philadelphia. Her writing has been published in Danse Macabre Literary Magazine, Harrow House Journal, Bending Genres, Ghost City Press, The Inflectionist Review, Zoetic Press, iō Literary Journal, Pinky Thinker Press, Argyle Literary Magazine, and more. Megan was the recipient of the Linda Rolfe "New Writer's Award" through Routledge Publications, for her research in dance education. A seasoned choreographer and professional dancer, she received her MFA in Dance from Temple University, and taught for over one decade in higher education. @mizanty.art

Katherine Kiefer Stark is a Philadelphia dance-artist, educator, and the Artistic Director of The Naked Stark dance company. The underlying question of her life/work: How do we individually and collectively change so that we can construct something better? Katherine is passionate about collaboration and is fortunate to be in an on-going creative process through The Naked Stark with five dance artists, together they are presenting Bodies of Water at the Fairmount Water Works as part of Fringe. Katherine is also premiering her first solo show, Free to Be. thenakedstark.com

Savannah Reich is a playwright and screenwriter whose work is focused on experimental forms and unusual engagement with audiences. Her plays have been produced at theaters and universities across the country; commissioned by Walking Shadow Theater Company, the University of Minnesota, SuperGroup, and Caridad Svich at the Lucille Lortel Theater; developed by the Playwrights Center, The Flea, and Seven Devils New Play Foundry; and supported by residencies at Tofte Lake Art Center, MassMoCA, Millay Arts, and Stillwright. She is a longtime DIY arts producer who has created and toured original works to bars, basements, backyards, and occasionally even theaters across the country for over 15 years. She was a 2020/21 McKnight Fellow at the Playwrights Center, and her auto-theater experiment “Oedipus in Seattle” was the winner of the audience choice award at the 2022 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon, and as of September 2024 is an Assistant Professor of Playwriting & Screenwriting at Drexel University in Philadelphia

A lecture and conversation with Nicole Bindler about the movement for Palestinian liberation within the dance field

This talk offers a brief history of Palestinian dance; information about the impacts of the apartheid on Palestinian dancers; and examples of contemporary dance practices supporting the movement for Palestinian liberation. This event is for performance-makers and theater-goers who want to learn more about how they can support Palestinian human rights. Co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace-Philadelphia and Contact Improv Philly. This event is free with donations encouraged toward these Palestinian solidarity funds: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/solidarityfunds/

Nicole Bindler is a dance-maker, Body-Mind Centering® practitioner, writer, and organizer whose work has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships, and presented on four continents. Recent projects include curating an evening of Palestinian dance films; somatic research on the embryology of the genitalia from a non-binary perspective; co-producing the Consent Culture in Contact Improvisation Symposium; and a solo dance, The Case for Invagination, in which her scars speak candidly about trauma and desire. Notable performance projects have included touring as a choreographer with the Bethlehem-Based Palestinian company, Diyar Theatre; a Pew-funded performance residency in Japan including Butoh training with Yoshito Ohno; and performing Deborah Hay's I Think Not at Unidad De Vinculación Artística in Mexico City. In 2026 she will be restaging her ensemble work, Blood, Sea at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She is co-editing a book, Gathering Sparks: Jewish Arts and Somatics that will be published by punctum books. nicolebindler.com

In this hands-on class, students will explore the basics of shadow puppet mechanics, making beautiful vignettes over the course of an hour and a half. Intended for anyone looking to deepen or stretch their creative practice, this workshop is for both kids and teens with scissor skills and adults with xacto magic powers!

This is an open community conversation exploring the realities of city life, from labor strikes to the collective struggle for urban survival. Philadelphia is a city on the edge. Through music and dialogue, we connect Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's "The Message" and other songs to the lived experiences of Philadelphians on the front lines of struggle. Music will be our guide as we discuss struggle, agitation, and how, all too often the more things change, the more they stay the same. This offering is for my neighbors.

Description: The Very Very Important Museum is an interactive performance where participants are guided through the Foolbright Scholars’ modestly profound collection of specimens and artifacts. The dodo-cents illuminate the mundane and priceless highlights from the museum collection, which range from the Certificate of Slight Rage, to the Sock That Wasn't Chosen.

Bio: The Foolbright Scholars are Chris Bodwitch and Jenny Hill. You can find out more about their very, very important work at muckandgold.com and actsofjennius.com.

Description: The Very Very Important Museum is an interactive performance where participants are guided through the Foolbright Scholars’ modestly profound collection of specimens and artifacts. The dodo-cents illuminate the mundane and priceless highlights from the museum collection, which range from the Certificate of Slight Rage, to the Sock That Wasn't Chosen.

Bio: The Foolbright Scholars are Chris Bodwitch and Jenny Hill. You can find out more about their very, very important work at muckandgold.com and actsofjennius.com.

HOW FUN CAN IT BE TO MAKE NO SENSE?

In this experimental clown/improv workshop, we will explore absurd language as an avenue for play. Through clowning games and improvisational exercises that use invented words, dubbing, translation, babbling, and sound effects, we will explore what special kinds of fun can emerge when we turn our legibility down to level zero while keeping our dignity turned up to level 10.

No experience required! However, participants will be asked to improvise, collaborate, work quickly, and embrace moments of uncertainty—so the more ready you are to dive in, the more we can play, fail, and discover together as a group. Come play!

Daniel Maseda (he/him) is a performer from Washington, DC who makes ridiculous work. A graduate of École Philippe Gaulier, he has presented work at venues on both sides of the Atlantic, and his debut solo “BE GOOD!” WITH PAULETTE is playing at Cannonball /Philly Fringe on September 6th, 13th, 18th, and 24th.

SHAKING is a movement for all bodies that can be used to regulate your nervous system. There is no wrong way to SHAKE! Anyone can SHAKE! (Our cells are in fact shaking all the time). The practice begins with an opening circle, then one hour of continuous shaking to music with an emphasis on what feels good for your body and ends with a few of rest.

Message Xander and Leigh your questions and to join the email list.
Wear comfortable layers, and drink plenty of water! Please stay home if you are sick. We will provide rapid tests. Masks optional.

IG: jock_witch & xander_cobb

This talk explores Frontera Flotante, a cross-cultural theatre lab bridging Peru and the US. Tracing a path from research into Latin American ensemble traditions to creating new work in Lima, Lillian reflects on how performance transforms “home” into a dynamic stage. Through cuerpo-objeto (body-object relationships), invisible borders, and imagination’s role in survival and resistance, the talk invites audiences into the ephemeral, rapid, and rigorous world of Frontera Flotante. Centering creative exchange within the uneven terrain of cross-border collaboration, it considers collaborative creation, the politics of place, and the power of performance—locating the global in the everyday and the political in the personal. The talk invites shared reflection through questions woven throughout.

Lillian White is a director and creative producer working between the U.S. and Peru. Based in Lima, she co-leads the collective Frontera Flotante and produces for Ministerio de la Belleza. A former Julie Taymor World Theatre Fellow and Assembly Theatre Deceleration Lab member, her work has been presented at El Cultural (Trujillo), The Museum of Memory, Tolerance & Social Inclusion (Lima), Burning Coal Theatre, Dixon Place, and HERE Arts Center (USA), and more. Don’t miss Kingdom Come at Cannonball Fringe (Sep. 5-7)!

lillianwootenwhite.com | @kingdomcomeshow

This offering is for interactive storytellers, people who like the chaos of a dice roll, or people who want to explore the unknown.

A missing director. An otherworldly ritual. A cast that lost themselves in the process.

Join us in investigating The Final Rehearsal - A The Watcher Sleeps TTRPG, on September 3rd from 7-9pm at the Asian Arts Initiative Theater.