Kissing Friends

Overview

Kissing Friends is an intimate theatrical experience of storybook narrations spoken/created in collaboration with the cast. The movement and dialogue fold in and out of reality and daydreams inside the overarching container of friendship in relation to intimacy. As the show continues to unfold the audience acts as the performers’ inner psyche, a mirror reflecting our dreams back at us. The viewers will experience these stories, along with flashy movements in unison that will signify a strong sense of togetherness. Rituals will crescendo into an uproar to sounds by Noel Harrison, Celine Dion and several others. The audience might begin to ask themselves what’s at stake for these friends? What is signified inside of an opening kiss? Singing, thrashing, yelling, slow-aborning affection, tensions running high and eruptive meltdowns take us to a place far from reality that may or may not be a dreamland.

Photo Credit: Bek Martin. 

About the Artist

Sheer Spectacle is a movement performance group that is devoted to overflowing expressionism. Co-founded in 2022 by Lily Mello and Kali Petrizzo, their work is made up of grandiose dance gestures, voice performance, and influenced by their own queer experiences. Lily and Kali met in 2018 as undergraduate dance students at the University of Arts, under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfirld. After 4 years of collaboration and dreaming, they created Sheer Spectacle. In May 2022, they produced and choreographed their first evening length work, Ripped Tights, Stoned Heart (RTSH) to three sold out performances in Philadelphia. Immediately upon the success of RTSH they were commissioned by Uarts to create a new work on the third and fourth year undergraduate students. The 19-minute work, I Spit Out the Gold premiered in December 2022. Recently Sheer Spectacle made its NYC debut at the 92nd St Y. They were selected by Dante Puleio to share an excerpt of I Spit Out the Gold as a part of the Future Dance Festival, curated by Taryn Kaschock Russell. They are currently in process for a new work, Kissing Friends, premiering at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival this Fall.

Credits