59TH CARNEGIE INTERNATIONAL

Pittsburgh, PA

May 2 & 3, 7:30 PM

Yarn/Wire revisits Be Holding, our interdisciplinary, large-scale performance co-created with artists Ross Gay (poet), Tyshawn Sorey (composer) and Brooke O’Harra (director).

The performance draws from Ross Gay’s long poem Be Holding as the libretto for a large-scale performance, which premiered at Girard College in Philadelphia 2023. The project is being reimagined with Ross Gay as lead performer for a world premiere in May 2026 as part of the opening weekend of the Carnegie International. The creative process for the piece will also engage high school students from the Pittsburgh public schools as performers and technical support.

“It has occurred to me, with much sorrow (though I’m getting over it), that not everyone knows who Dr. J (Julius Erving) is.  I have learned this over the years, as I was trying to write this poem and would occasionally be talking to an audience that consisted, at least in part, of, shall we say, millennials, about what I was working on.  “Oh,” I’d say vaguely, “I’m working on a poem about Dr. J.”  In these encounters I realized that many of these otherwise decent people had never heard of The Doctor (though LeBron James, et a few al, they had all mostly at least heard of).  

This strikes me as a generational ignorance, not a moral one, and for that reason I begrudge these people (or you, if you are one of them) not at all, for I have never read Harry Potter, etc.  Etc.  Etc.  Etc.  And feel at least in the realm of being a decent person.”  -Ross Gay 

Performance still of Be Holding, 2023, Girard College, Philadelphia; Courtesy of Brooke O’Harra. Photo: Ryan Collard

Support for Be Holding is provided by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, The Carnegie International, the Pittsburgh area YMCAs and the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama.

Yarn/Wire’s 2025-26 season is made possible in part by the friendly support of the Ernst Von Siemens Foundation