Performative Lecture: Praxis, Praxis!

 

Exhibiting live and experimental performance presents several challenges interesting to both philosophers and practitioners.  Outlining those challenges from the practitioners’ viewpoint, namely that of organizers and curators from Dimanche Rouge, Praxis, Praxis! advocates for a close dialog between theory and practice.

 

Live and experimental performances include a wide and diverse range of disciplines–performance art, dance, multimedia, theater, sound art, audiovisual performances and other experimental acts that escape classification.  Pluridisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and the fluid nature of experimental performance pose specific challenges to organizers and curators including: communicating to the public about complex and innovative work that rejects definitions; selecting a venue or site that responds to the technical and aesthetic purposes of a work reluctant to be delimited; elaborating a sustainable model for both artists and organizers while remaining experimental; documenting a work that persists in being ephemeral.

 

This workshop starts with a survey of those challenges, followed up by the presentation of a concrete scenario consisting in organizing an event exhibiting performance.  Workshop participants will be divided into four groups and asked to perform playing the roles of the four main parties involved; i.e. artists, public, venue, and organizers. Participants gain knowledge about exhibiting performance from real-life situations. Through role-play, participants deepen their understanding of those situations from the different parties’ perspectives having to negotiate solutions.

 

While based in France, Dimanche Rouge is a project mostly run by foreigners with a significant Anglo-American representation.  This project has exhibited the work of over 800 experimental performers from 65 countries in France and abroad at a range of sites and venues–from squats to national art museums.  Building on that experience, Dimanche Rouge organizers lead this workshop surveying the main challenges of exhibiting experimental performance with the aim of stimulating dialog between theory and practice to elaborate renewed approaches.

 

Dimanche Rouge is a Paris-based project that promotes live and experimental artwork at a range of venues in Paris and abroad for a diverse public through festivals, talks, presentations, exhibits, workshops and an online magazine, Dimanche Rouge. Since its inception, in 2011, Dimanche Rouge has presented the work of over 800 artists from 65 countries. For further information, please visit: www.dimancherouge.org and www.dimancherougemag.org