Failed back tail, failed nollie crook, sketchy front nose clap clap good enough. The session is the bodies in the place and the stages underfoot. Everyone a turn. Push push the stage and each audience performs, every performer audiences. Fail, fail, repeated strange movements, shared strange rules, waiting, watching, moving. A real clean back smith properly dipped, good speed, and everybody yeahs. Community of a certain sort. Security guard interrupts. Foot traffic interrupts. See the city see the place, shared strange patience, all the watchers doing, all the doers talking. Session also is the verb, all this doing, here at the noun.

Join the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry to welcome professional skateboarder and designer Alexis Sablone, author Kyle Beachy, and performance theorist Tina Post along with FroSkate, Natty Bwoy, Timothy Johnson, Sonnenzimmer (Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi), Maxwell Neely-Cohen, Kristin Ebeling, Every house has a door (Matthew Goulish and Lin Hixson) for The Useless Tool (Skate Session) a day of skateboarding and conversation about skateboarding as social and embodied practice. The gathering will be inspired and guided by the structure and rhythms of the skateboard session—a communal, responsive, and open model of reciprocal engagement. The Useless Tool will involve space, sunlight, corners, surfaces, balance, bodies, images, and language.

9:45 AM | Coffee and Skate (and doughnuts) provided 
10:20 AM | Official Welcome: Alexis Sablone, Tina Post, and Kyle Beachy 

10:30 AM | Session 1 – (skateboarding and the world)
FroSkate, Kristin Ebeling, Natty Bwoy, Timothy Johnson

1:00 PM |  lunch break 

2:30 Session 2 – (skateboarding and the moving body)
Every house has a door, Sonnenzimmer, Maxwell Neely-Cohen 

6:30 Pizza and beverages will be provided

All attendees are encouraged to bring their boards and skate. If you do plan on skating, you will be required to sign an Acceptance of Risk Waiver when you arrive. Please read our COVID-19 Updates for current information on building access and health and safety protocols.

Image: Alexis Sablone, Untitled (still). Animation. Courtesy of the artist.