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Designed by Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish (co-founders of legendary performance company Goat Island) and featuring Chicago rock band Joan of Arc ‘Testimonium’ responds to the American Objectivist poet Charles Reznikoff’s unfinished masterwork ‘Testimony’, a collection of courtroom testimonies translated into poetry.


With: Bryan Saner, Every House Has a Door, Joan of Arc, Stephen Fiehn

Documenting crimes of violence or workplace negligence, Reznikoff imagined an alternate history of the United States to include voices omitted from the history books. This performance reimagines Reznikoff’s poems as fragmented texts infused with biography and philosophy.

The performance alternates between Stephen Fiehn’s inventive movement sequences, Bryan Saner’s sober recitation of the text, and six original songs performed live onstage by Chicago band Joan of Arc: Tim Kinsella, Bobby Burg, and Theo Katsaounis.

“With the presentation of the work-in-progress of [Testimonium]Every House Has a Door, have managed to reveal the porous borders between performance and thought. Through their use of an extremely loud live post-rock band with hints of Sonic Youth, text, live actions, and in an attempt to respond to the unfinished poem Testimony by the American Objectivist poet Charles Reznikoff, Goulish and Hixson have shown how thought can unfold in the familiar space that is the black box of the theatre; how, in the end, Plato’s fears were unfounded as the work of the poet does, indeed, touch that of the philosopher.” -João Florêncio, July 2012

Every House Has a Door is a performance company founded by Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish (previously of Goat Island). Hixson and Goulish also lead an artist masterclass at Arnolfini on Sunday 3rd November, for more details see here.

An interview with Lin Hixson 

Duration: 100 minutes

Please note there is a Q&A on Friday 8 November after the performance.