PS21's Commonground Festival Brings 100 Self-Playing Drums and Free Ice Cream to Chatham
A world premiere from Amsterdam's Touki Delphine, a new Andrew Schneider piece, and a local artist showcase close out the summer at PS21
Friday–Monday, September 4–7 | Chatham, NY | Free
PS21 holds its annual Commonground Festival September 4 through 7, a free, family-friendly celebration of large-scale contemporary performance to send off summer. The festival's headline event is the world premiere of "Superdrum X" by Dutch collective Touki Delphine—100 self-playing drums accompanied by a different live guest drummer each night—running all four days in the Pavilion Theater. Alongside it, OBIE Award-winning director and electronics artist Andrew Schneider premieres a PS21-commissioned piece called "Field," and choreographer Sayer Mansfield curates "Dive Barn," a showcase of local artists, on Sunday.
Each day opens on the lawn at 4:30pm (4pm Sunday) with West African food from Chez Diarra, free ice cream, apple picking, and lawn games ahead of the evening's performances. Friday and Saturday run "Field" at 6pm followed by "Superdrum X" at 7:30pm—Friday's guest drummer is Lesley Mok, Saturday's is Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Sunday adds "Dive Barn" at 4:30pm.
Touki Delphine—Bo Koek, Rik Elstgeest, Chris Doyle, and John van Oostrum—builds monumental sound and light installations entirely from recycled materials, work inspired by the climate crisis and the idea of nature as a living whole. Their breakout piece "Drifting," the hit of the 2025 Dutch festival summer, was assembled from thrift-shop ethernet cables, junkyard windshield washer fluid reservoirs, and salvaged speaker cables. Schneider, a Wooster Group company member from 2007 to 2014 and a 2015 OBIE winner for "YOUARENOWHERE", works at the intersection of science and staging, using technology to probe the edges of human perception; his recent piece "Here" premiered at Jacob's Pillow in 2025. Mansfield, who splits her time between the Hudson Valley and New York City, spent over a decade touring with Compagnie Marie Chouinard and Pilobolus Dance Theater and has appeared on screen in "Little Women" and "Maestro."
PS21, 2980 Route 66, Chatham, NY. Free. Full schedule at ps21chatham.org.
Written by
After a decade of writing for RI (along with many other publications and organizations) Jamie took over as editor in 2025. He has a masters in journalism from NYU, a wonderful wife, two kids and a Carolina dog named Zelda.
