{"id":438205,"date":"2026-05-21T10:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T10:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/438205\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T10:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T10:42:08","slug":"what-to-expect-from-pittsburgh-corningworks-foolish-assumptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/438205\/","title":{"rendered":"What to expect from Pittsburgh CORNINGWORKS\u2019 ‘Foolish Assumptions’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O’Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art scene.\u00a0Sign up here to get it every Wednesday afternoon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Years ago, in New York City, dancer and choreographer Beth Corning staged \u201cFill These Shoes,\u201d a work for three dancers<\/a> in which Ron Fowler portrayed the mother of Corning\u2019s character while wearing a pink ball gown.<\/p>\n

After one performance, an audience member told Corning this choice baffled him. When she asked the man what he thought casting Fowler meant, he said, \u201cTo a kid, mothers are bigger than life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was more articulate than I could have put it,\u201d Corning says today.<\/p>\n

Audiences willing to be puzzled and even challenged by what they see, and then dig deeper, remain a crucial component of Corning\u2019s practice, including her company CORNINGWORKS\u2019 latest production, \u201cFoolish Assumptions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The moving 45-minute show features Corning and frequent collaborator Evan Fisk in a series of duets and solos about connection, disconnection and misunderstanding on a stage mostly bare except for two straight-backed wooden chairs. It premiered last week and gets four more performances<\/a> Wed., May 20, through Sat., May 23, at Downtown\u2019s George Rowland White Theatre.<\/p>\n

Corning has been a fixture on Pittsburgh\u2019s dance scene since 2003, when she came to town to head Dance Alloy, then Pittsburgh\u2019s flagship contemporary troupe. She was already more than two decades into a professional career that included stints in Sweden, New York and Minneapolis, where her work was acclaimed for its insight and inventiveness. She continued in that vein with the Alloy<\/a> until parting ways in 2009.<\/p>\n

She founded CORNINGWORKS largely as a vehicle for her Glue Factory Projects, a platform for her original dance theater works created on nationally and internationally known performers over age 45 (though the troupe has also staged works including 2022\u2019s ambitious \u201cThe Tipping Point,\u201d<\/a> which evoked the global refugee crisis).<\/p>\n

She\u2019s worked outside Pittsburgh, too: In 2021, Corning was commissioned to create and perform a work by the SNF Foundation\/Nostos Festival in Athens, Greece. In April, her 2025 Glue Factory work for seven performers and one puppet, \u201cSTAND BY \u2014 an allegory,\u201d got two performances as part of New York\u2019s prestigious La MaMa MOVE SERIES.<\/p>\n

\u201cStand By\u201d \u2014 Corning\u2019s first New York show in decades \u2014 made it to La MaMa indirectly because the company had to rehearse there to accommodate acclaimed puppeteer Tom Lee, who is also an artist in residence there. A LaMaMa curator invited them, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think we\u2019d have any seats sold,\u201d said Corning. But the show packed the 110-plus-seat theater both nights.<\/p>\n

Rehearsals for \u201cFoolish Assumptions\u201d resumed immediately on her return to Pittsburgh. Corning set the work on herself and Fisk, known for portraying Macbeth and Banquo in PunchDrunk\u2019s epochal immersive work \u201cSleep No More\u201d (and who performed in three earlier CORNINGWORKS shows, including \u201cSTAND BY\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u201cFoolish Assumptions\u201d opens with Corning and Fisk seated on stage, their backs to us, and not moving for an unusually long time. The quietude is no less eloquent than the movement that follows, ranging from subtle gestures and playful hops to a passage where Fisk removes and dons Corning\u2019s outer garments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really felt I was taking a leap with this work,\u201d says Corning. She worked to excise any sentimentality and keep things sparse. \u201cEvery breath counts, every gesture counts, every look counts,\u201d she says. \u201cThere is no hiding here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corning has written that her works seek \u201cto shine some light in places where we often think we are the only ones sitting in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work that I do, I make because I don\u2019t want to feel alone in what I\u2019m feeling,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I did a good job sharing my questions, \u2026 I hopefully turn the light on and say, \u2018What\u2019s that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O’Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-438205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}