The Laboratory for Social Choreography invites you to participate in its latest venture, Theater.

Spend an evening in meaningful conversation with strangers. Listen, speak, disagree, remain silent, and encounter others without judgment or fear. Discover what the collective body is thinking and dreaming about.

Experience what deep democracy can feel like when you find yourself embedded in an ecology of concerns with no predetermined roles or outcomes.

Bring friends. People of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds are welcome.

What: Theater, a Site for Deep Democracy
When: September 30 and October 1, 7–9 PM
Where: Von der Heyden Theater, Rubenstein Arts Center, Duke University

Please RSVP at this link 

This event is supported by “Belonging? ” a contribution by the Arts and Humanities departments of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences to “We the People: A Duke and Durham Initiative.” “Belonging” is funded by Trinity College of Arts & Sciences and Duke Arts.

Theater was developed by the Laboratory for Social Choreography, under the direction of Prof. Michael Kliën at the Kenan Institute for Ethics.

Theater is a living civic space open for two evenings at the Rubenstein Arts Center. There is no script, no stage, no audience: only students, citizens, artists, scholars, and passersby engaging in unmoderated conversation about what feels urgent, shaped by a simple set of instructions. Extending Kliën’s earlier work, Theater revives the ancient civic function of the theater as a place where society gathers to witness itself, transforming public dialogue into a communal, ethical experience, offering a glimpse of what deep democratic thinking might feel like.