CFP: Site-Specific Performance (no deadline; PSFG, 7/27/05-7/28/05)

The Site-Specific Performance working group of the Performance Studies Focus
Groups invites interested participants to join us at our first annual
meeting to be held on Wednesday 27 July and the morning of 28 July at the
Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. This is part of the annual
Performance Studies Focus Group (PSFG) of ATHE's 3rd annual Preconference,
"Conceptions of the (American) 'West': Response/Ability."

For details on the entire preconference and registration information, please
check out the website at http://www.athe.org/FG/ps

The Site-Specific Performance Working Group meeting is coordinated by Laurie
Beth Clark.

 Site-specific performance is the name used to refer to contemporary
practices that attend to context. But there are as many (or more)
traditional site-specific performances from pilgrimages to battlefield
re-enactments. Moreover, there are moments of site-specificity in many
otherwise portable genres, not to mention an emerging genre of serially
site-specific projects. This working group will provide a networking
opportunity for artists and scholars engaged with performance strategies,
whether "popular" or "avant-garde," that are site-specific in structure
and/or in content.

While all performance is de-facto situated, some performance is explicitly
so. Postmodern site-specific performance can in part be understood as a
remedy for ahistorical and decontextualizing modernist approaches.
Site-specific performance is very often performance-as-study: it is research
intensive; it produces and/or gathers local knowledges. What we might call
"space-specific" performances engage with formal parameters, while what we
might call "place-specific" performances engage with cultural and social
meanings; many or even most site-specific works engage with both space and
place. Site-specific production is one of the core practices of contemporary
performance, yet is perhaps the least amenable to conference presentation.

Some starter questions for a working group on site-specificity include:
- How do we define site-specific performance?
- Which practices are most productively considered together?
- How can we think productively about the connections between contemporary
"elite" performance forms and popular, longstanding site-specific genres?
- Is site-specificity more productively analyzed as genre or stance?
- How do traditional site-specific performances interface with host
communities?
- How is participant status framed?
- What are the emerging ethics and methodologies for engaging communities?
- What are "best practices" for using or modifying the natural and
architectural environment?
- How do "place-specific" and "place-specific" practices inform one another?
- What idiosyncratic imperatives and (paradoxically) resistances to
documentation does site-specificity provoke?
- How do economic considerations foster and/or limit site-specific
practices?

It is hoped that the group will meet at ATHE, PSI, and ASTR (and perhaps at
other settings such as CAA or IFTR) to share concerns and practices. The
initial meetings will be used to clarify the groups' mission and modus
operandi. [One of the commitments of the group could be to engage directly
with the conference milieu, though the nature of this engagement will vary
depending on the interests and inclinations of the group members].

If you are interested in participating in this working group, please send a
one-page statement of your interests, practices, and goals to Laurie Beth
Clark at lbclark_at_wisc.edu

For general preconference questions, please contact Joshua Abrams and
Jennifer Parker-Starbuck at ps_at_athe.org or visit the website at
http://www.athe.org/FG/ps.

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Received on Sun May 08 2005 - 08:43:31 EDT