GETTING TO KNOW YOU

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CURRENT BIOGRAPHY | Ashley Hollingshead and Corey Smith

SAT 25 JUNE & SUN 26 JUNE | 8PM
$10­-15 SLIDING SCALE

GETTING TO KNOW YOU is a new devised theatre piece on the nature of friendship. A collage of ‘When Harry Met Sally’ quotes, queer politics, and stories of friendship gone right and wrong — GETTING TO KNOW YOU is an exploration into the lives of two recent Chicago transplants and new friends, Ashley Hollingshead and Corey Smith. In between dance breaks and secret handshakes, CURRENT BIOGRAPHY asks: How do you meet people and who do you let get close to you? What happens when a friendship explodes? Why does it get harder to make friends as you grow older you’d think that it would get easier with practice, right?

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GETTING  TO  KNOW  YOU  is  the  first  full  length  piece  researched,  created,  and  performed  by CURRENT BIOGRAPHY.

CURRENT-BIOGRAPHY_photo-courtesy-of-the-artistsAshley  Hollingshead is  a  theatre  director,  performer,  and  creator  based  in  Chicago,  IL.  Her  work mashes­up pop­culture, personal stories, found text, movement, re­purposed songs, and every day events  into  something  that  is  simultaneously  larger  than  life  and  close  to  home.  She  is  most interested in making and creating theatre that explores what it means to be alive RIGHT NOW. ashley is intrigued by the tiny stories of the everyday, as well as the milestones that mark our lives. She uses theatre to find connection and to pull us away from our screens. ashley makes theatre to reminded one of what is good in the world and that there is still room for hope. And dancing. There’s always room for dancing.

CURRENT-BIOGRAPHY_photo-courtesy-of-the-artists1Corey Smith is the other half of CURRENT BIOGRAPHY. We are creative equals in all aspects of this collaboration. Corey Smith is a composer, writer, and performer living and working in Chicago, Illinois. He is a classically trained composer, but is interested in an art that obscures the boundaries between worlds: words that are sound, music that is image, body that is text.. His creative work is eclectic and varied,  but  often  begins  with  the  bodies  of  the  performers  and  stretches  into  ideas  of identity—touching on autobiography and the personal­as­political. He is in search of a personal and regional  identity  that  contains  contradictions,  one  that  is  queer,  questioning,  ephemeral.  He  is  a collaborator,  a  friend,  a  proud  midwesterner.  Collaboration  is  an  integral  part  of  Corey’s  artistic practice.  He  is  a  founding  member  of  the  Suburban  Piano  Quartet,  an  experimental  chamber ensemble,  and  has  collaboratively  created  numerous  evening­length  performances  with  the  group. Original  collaborative  credits  also  include  Who  is  Luther  Burbank?,  a  piece  of  dance  theatre  and EIGHT  EASY  STEPS  TO  BE  LESS  BLAND,  a  guerilla­style  public  lecture.  His  work  is  about capitalism and cornfields. Often there is wild, unabashed dancing.

CURRENT BIOGRAPHY is a Chicago queer performance collaborative helmed by Corey Smith x`and Ashley Hollingshead, dedicated to exploring new ways of creating performance. Drawing on their background as theatre makers and musicians, Corey and Ashley make work that is joyful and genre-defying. CURRENT BIOGRAPHY’s performances are vulnerable and real, with an eye toward accessibility. Through improvisation, found text, wild dancing, sharing personal stories, of play, they make a new kind of theatre that is non ­narrative, non­linear, and all ­fun.