Bertie FerpMaNn From Content To Context formance C The Emergene stival, a theater conference took place organiz - jer, and critic Kenneth ‘Tynan at the brot raverse Theat of the better known venues for cutting- ge. During the last day of “The Theatre of the Future Kaprow and Ken Dewey to do performance piec of the discussions. Dewey's Play of Happs Charles Lewsen and ations they saw at the conference,! caused an uj ‘dinburgh model Anna Kesel was wheeled in in the nude, a sheep's skeleto hung from the ceilings men stoo. from windows seventy feet piper played; tape-recorded voices of the a cence’ own skepticism were heard; and w erican actress Carroll Baker jun from the platform to pass over the audienc xit, people stood up, craned, and An ob: sked, “Was this ‘theatr y recognizable form?” The Lor it “a pointless vulgarity.”? After the general outeage at ording to conferen rnneth Tyna jon of the shape re stage,” Dewey had the pted by Tynar Tam trained in the classical traditions of theatre, but my feeling about the pyrami structure ofthe theatre—management, director, author, cast—is what I war Jeal with, This kine le jana, at one level: I gether nc by law, not by conteo, bur pport between collaborators. W 10 you, the audience, the responsibility of theutre—performing you Yale Schoo! of Drama/Yale Repertory Th 5though Dewey's 1 Edinbur cater history as shock r lie mosth nudity, the struc We event was U r took pla challenged ws t Sf hy of theaccal production and questioned the very politic of this art system. woul programming establishment, whi i so73 article on the Edinburg | stval, went something ik 7 se eo oned at the “official” venue. The “excellen ‘iterion lacked focus, intent, vision. | Looking back, Dewe wells Kaprow's No Ei) helped to foment th | r 8 tre as an antidot he official festiv: reloped the aim “to pro Given che changing lens of performance since the sate, a exemplified here wbecoming more front and center, as buth astists and audiences look for new ways present, interpret, program, produce, finance, and experience work The rise of interdisciplinary performance festivals in the last decade hus increas the visibility of the curatoy as a central and powerful figure in the changing landscape number of artistic directors, festival programmer creative producers, aid artists not only are beginning to pay attention co what gets ed v show, where, when, why, and for whom such events are structured and presented. AAs more exhibitions in att galleries and museums continue to embrace the- ater and dance, and visual and conceptual artis presented in performing arts institu- both its d tions and festivals, the act of “curating” performance is becom opment and its reception, If the sixties and seventies were the heyday of experimental 1 dance—in lineage with the historical avant-garde—the theater and rise of post 7 current moment, almost half a century lates, is seeing a renewed interest not only in breaking with disciplinary models but also in providing new frameworks in which such work can exist. Presenters are now often faced with the challenge of producing work that does not necessarily ft into preconceived conventions of theater. What practices doh nent? Wha ns do they Db, The jghteenth concur ranted to th he 1 with han thi visual arts tha ject of cri ith th _ in the late eighti tor Harald S: models that continues ti | discourse and j imilar need has works get label tual worlds, challenging modes of spectatorship, and creating live encou 4 the boundaries between what is teal and wha a ractices in par ticular, we fed away from a concern with location—which reached its hey in the 1980s—to a with interacto ating situations. A diverse ra for their work, As a direct response to such rapid changes, for example, who served as director of live the Institute of Cporary Arts (ica) in London from 1992 to 1997, cofounded the Live Art Development Agency in 1999 to provide a curatorial platform for artists engaging in practices that were dificult ro categorize. !® She writes the term Live Artis not a description of an artform or discipline, but a cultural steategy to include experimental processes and experiential practices that might otherwise be excluded from established curatorial, cultural and critical rame~ works. Live Artis a framing device fora eatalogue of approaches tothe possibili ties of liveness by artists who chose to work across in between, and atthe edges of more traditional artistic forms. Given the fact that Keidan, prior to her tenure at 1cA, was responsible for funding. interdisciplinary artists at the Arts Council of Great Britain, she was well aware of the necessity of labeling work as the legitimizing process that would get it funded, Keidan’s is an important one for performing arts curatorship, for she exemplifies how operates as both cultural and financial strategy. The curator is one who env intention for the work and thus, as Leslie Hill writes, “plac work in a specific historical and interdisciplis 15 Keidan’s contribution to practices she 1 provide a curatorial frame for y different agenda, is Rosel.ce Goldberg's Performa, which is “dedicated to exploring the crit has termed "live art” continues to expand the field bat one with a v arating as strate their reception. A similar example o role of live performance in the history of twentieth-century art and to encouraging new idan established live art as its own category of directions in performance." Whilenterdisciplinary work that embraced both performing and performance art, Golden ie very particular about “placing” her euration” within visual art performance, This is well as a different set of assumptions and expectation collections. More than just alleries, and art biennales introduce performance i ‘Whereas the function of the curator has been the subject of much discourse i Ihe realm of the visual arts as a direct response to changing, paradigms in art make asts is only just beginning, In ing,!7 the conversation aroun Certificate Prograin in Curatorial Praetice in P .ou1 Wesleyan University created the ‘curation of live and time-based work” that helps students formance with a focus on “t Is to contextualize performance." The first program of and professionals “develop te the establishment its kind in the United States, it Critical Studies Program in 1 of the Whitney Museum’ Curatorial Program and sibility “to develop alternative cura Neill marks 1987 as a piv headed by Hal Foster, which foregrounded the the established conventions, torial forms and challen ‘otal year that brought a change in how curating was conevived in the visual rom vocational work with collections in institutional contexts to a potentially ind hibicion-mak a penclent, critically engaged and experimental form of exh g practice that parallels the shift in curatorial models happening only now in live art context programming, In January 2073, Lattended the Brat ever pane! at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, which is essen thinking curating practices. The p ially a shopping, mall for performance, ¢ was hosted by the Wesleyan curatorial faculty, among them Danspace Project curator J choreographer Ralph Lemon (both of whom appear in exforming arts at Waller Art Center, w Judy Hussie“Taylor and issue), and Philip Bithes, senior curator of s (mostly composed of presenters) regarding live fill 1 position that combines pro challenged the audience's concept the season, fulfilling seasop. subscription ‘8 g—"booking programming—"booki cling tickets’ —as not necessarily the curators jo)/ nd "the rovokea the audience to think duction demands with aesthetic goals, box” and conceive of performance as event, with tailor-made considerations for an audi Bach event should con: All the panelists jew work in alter ‘ice, producing partnerships, the space, duration, and time titute its own experience and its own individual production strat emphasized the importance of “accompanying a work,” developi and times, As the only scholar in the audienee, 1 fe and déamnaturgs) divide between those who study and contextualize work (acade and those who currently present performanee—something that is historically different in museum and biennale curatorship, where discourse and gesearch are an inherent partSeptembe Arnoltin cont " in Bristol, hosted a two-day inten a unt administrators, and arti keen to engage in contemporary aspects of performing rating at ummin titled “Curatin mance: Audiences, Dramatur he Si cempor Visual Culture”?! The Arts Curators Association of Qu : ter nal symposium on performing arts curating in April 2014.22 F undredth rm ¢ pecial 1 *Curating Cont ary Performance,” featuring New York-base and cu Morgan von Pecelli, Trajal Harel, Travis Chamberlai s fm 7 such practices. Culture . intemporary performance founded by And ries surating, among them “Cura : ng, arts journal Frakeje devoted an entice issue to “C Ar guest edited s Tea Tupajié and Petra Zanki and curator Florian Makzachi with essays by Rebecca Schneider, Beatrice von Bism hristine ° others, an interview with Hans Ulrich-Obi : f curating terminolog} uring prominent leaders in the fick M inceptualized Truth I Coneret ormative statement, a twenty-four-hour, seven-day m 10 hours more than ¢wo hundred artists, activist: se irmed, pla duced, discussed, Ik and tacties in ar 1d politics.2# A book on the event, edited by sterischs and Florian Malzach 1d published by Sternberg Press, is due out in April 2014 The Frakedia issue was part of a larger proje f 4 performan ought o merge the a rating with discourse, Titled The Curator’ Piece (A Tria Art) cd by Tupajié and Zanki, it continues to tour the international festival ineuit, Tt consists of six curators, chosen for their presence on the scene” as criteria for their selection, who ar id to defend thei programming choices and artistic ideals. The cur Ilaborate and per form in the piece but also s its coproduee >-commnissionin he show. Each one takes a turn being “on trial” w burs to thei respective festival, where th nt for their rol and decisions in int of the festivals audience. The night I sav cott’s curator, was on the hot seat, The other curators rele que his programming choi ime fundeai countless interna- ional t ul his artistic vision, iy open the system that enables th Curator’ Piece is akin to what Seth Siegel:fe Riches, 2099 be conscious of our actions"*—which O'Neill marks as a defining moment for thos ‘providing the mediating context.” Like curators (and artists) atthe time who sought co reveal and evaluate the more hidden curatorial components of an exhibition," Th Curator’ Piece operates under a very similar pretext, which brings the curator’s role to the forefront and simultaneously seeks to unveil the conditions under which work is curated.” In 2005, th& collective ciyie, with artist David Levine as the writer and project created a portiolio titled Re-Public: cive’s Collet ww York Papp Public Theater, which precedes The Curators’ Pie in terms of its desire to pro vide institutional critique while at the same time offering itself an alternative vision f leading such an institution. The piece, published in Theater, is an expanded version of “an August 2004 letter of application for the position of artistic director at New York's Joseph Papp Public Theater.” A manifesto of sorts, where provocations about remaking a theater, a true public theater, come to the fore, cine proposes numerous nitiatives—on-site and off-site—that outline this vision. Outreach initiatives inclu partnering with other companies (“to formally recognize and sponsor younger, edgier companies who alveady have their own theater isl), developing public art as theatertions, the team operated from an office in Cardiff and lly set out to create a new mod at made Wales itself the stage, It launched the theatre Map month, each in a differ tion, each us a differe he ideas for the shows were generative and me from artist ther words, Theatre Map of Wale s a.curatorial pr: ti josals, They engaged focal non-arts comm in their rehearsal ps d developed a1 ronhierarchical method including the people’ voice into the decision 5, It established an online mui wve feedback, proposals, and conversations, setting up an alternative use” and foster an audience up a Wales! merging the sd a value system of being international, engaged, and innovative, and uch artists as Rimini Protokoll and Constanza Macras to each develo iece. As stw moves forward, it continues to reinvent its structures to and “take care” of both artists an ices, Its programming is onl ch larger radical re of a performing arts institution American readers will at this poin tw is a utopian dream incapable of materializing in the United State b bably right, there are dependent producers that are constantly reinventing alternative strategies t0 house” and “disseminate” the performing arts, two important facets of perf curating. Melanie Joseph, founder anatre in New Y nysical venue, a as an on rf Alternat | Sauls he | tr ay Hl sponded d flood the 1c black box s \ conti ly to viewers’ interactions in real time. The hepherd conceived by Rimi wee are more collaborative, so festivals a cllvestablished Fest o04. Danspace’s Platform se programming decisions to ve Arts and Media D Bkow Eshun, statingand forms. Just rece book coauthored twenty Forest Fringe artists, where each page consists of a Jifferent instruction-based performance for the reader to perform, These performances vary: some can be performed individually, others collectively, some indoors, some in the streets. The book is free, but to acquire it one has to volunteer one hour of time t0 he Forest Fringe collective (or their partner organizations).34 Another strategy they M to different places across the worl. have implemented is what they call hich bring the artists, perfor mani hey nd “the spirit of Fo started with Lisbon and Dublin and will be extending to Bangkok, Yokohama, Athens, traveling exhibition of sorts, chis event marks a rising new phenomenon in or artists— tour. Chadds P Parallel Cities), conceived by a ue) and Stefi Kaegi, isa viewed in this itinerant festival whose main propos: tion is urban intervention, Kaegi and Arias invited cight artists to ereaie performances fora city’s functional places like a court, a factory, a library, a hotel, a train station, which