Co-conveners: Sérgio Andrade (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), Marlon Jimenez Oviedo (Brown University), Flavia Meireles (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), Marcos Steuernagel (University of Colorado Boulder), Patricia Ybarra (Brown University)
Abstract: This working group is part of an ongoing collaboration that has taken place in the context of Hemi, ASTR, PSi, and LASA on performance, neoliberalism, and the hemispheric turn towards the far-right. At the convergence, we will explore the relationship between the current turn towards the far-right throughout the Americas and the ubiquity of neoliberalism, both as economic practice and as performative device. In the context of a recent pushback against the term, we examine the usefulness of investigating the historical and geographical specificities of different architectures of neoliberalism in their intrinsic relationship to disaster capitalism, authoritarianism, racism, and neo-fascism. We delve into the ways performance—both as practice and as methodological lens—can not only elucidate and expose, but also disrupt, refuse, and defy different architectures of neoliberalism throughout the Americas. As we strategize around ways to resist neoliberalism, we strive for a radical critique that is specific in its claims and expansive in its approach to the ways in which performance theory and practice can deepen our understanding of the global implications of the rise of far-right extremism in the Americas and beyond.
This transnational, multilingual, and transdisciplinary working group will bring into conversation a diversity of ways of thinking through/with/about performance. We welcome projects that combine intellectual rigor with aesthetic experimentation, be them academic papers/chapters in progress, lecture-performances, choreographic cartographies, experimental dramaturgies, short performances-as-research, scripts in process…
Application: To apply to this working group, please complete the general application here. Additionally, please submit to hemigsi@gmail.com a short abstract of the project they would like to workshop (drafts of chapters, essays, or conference papers; scripts or video documentation of performances; born-digital materials), specifying the topic and format they will explore, as well as links to supporting audio-visual material online (if applicable).