Free Touch: Staging Presence

Free Touch: Staging Presence

Free Touch is an artistic practice initiated by choreographer Chou Kuan-Jou in 2024, inviting strangers into one-on-one, consensual touch interactions in public spaces. In 2025, Kuan brought this practice into a theatre, transforming the idea of exploration of touch, public space, and bodily boundaries into the stage work Free Touch: Staging Presence.

It invites audiences to take part in a collective social experiment with all visible and invisible presences within the theatre. Beyond the stroking, tickling, discomfort, or pleasure on the skin, touch becomes a driving force that moves across the boundaries between body and space, the public and private.

Free Touch: Staging Presence encourages audiences to reflect on bodily autonomy, spatial politics, and the ways we navigate proximity, difference, and coexistence.

In this shared theatre environment, boundaries are not fixed limits, but sites of encounter.

Free Touch: Staging Presence is presented in alignment with Free Touch.

Concept & Performance: Chou Kuan Jou
Lighting Design: You Jyun Wang
Sound Design: Cheng Tse Lun
Stage Manager: Sun Wei Chen
Production Advisor & Collaborator: Poshan Wu

Accessibility

This is a Moving Performance with no fixed seating. Please indicate if you require a chair. Please see Sensory Advisories for information about audience participation.

You can learn more about SummerWorks' Access Measures HERE.

Sensory Advisories:

This is a Moving Performance with no fixed seating. Audience members may move freely throughout the space and choose their own viewing positions. A complimentary coat check / bag drop is available at the front desk.

The performance may involve physical contact between performers and audience members, as well as between audience members themselves. For those who prefer not to engage in any physical contact, please request an indicator / wristband from our staff before entering, and we will help maintain your comfortable boundaries.

During the performance, please respect your own and others’ physical boundaries and wishes. If you experience any discomfort or require assistance during the performance, please signal a staff member, and we will assist you immediately.

Duration: 90 Minutes

Venue: Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace - 16 Ryerson Avenue

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