FALL/WINTER 1992
Editors: Cathy Edwards, Kate Ramsey and Guy Yarden
We began to solicit articles for this Performance Journal in the wake of the Los Angeles riots and the hype surrounding the Earth Summit in Brazil. The juxtaposition of these events underscored what we have known for a long time – that our global ecology and urban environments are collapsing and that our government refuses to do anything but worsen both crises. Los Angeles in flames represents the betrayal of cities across the US; the politics of hypocrisy on display in Rio ensured a continued course of environmental devastation for the sake of corporate interests. Performance Journal #5 is created by artists who are compelled by the ways in which contemporary environmental issues affect their lives, communities and art. Because we believe that artists are able to both powerfully critique and put forth healing visions, the Journal unites the perspectives of these dancers, choreographers, performance artists, writers, and visual artists that make up our community.
Taking environment and its impact on art, culture and community, contributors to this issue have framed their concerns broadly and diversely. Patricia Hoffbauer, Marina Zurkow, Charles Uwiragiye, and Livia Daza-Paris all traveled to Rio in June for the first Worldwide Conference of Indigenous People and the Earth Summit. While their reports diverge with their experiences, each offers a striking sociocultural take on environmental issues that proves representative of the Journal as a whole. Again and again, an insistence on the continuity and interconnection between ecological and social realms emerges as common theme and commitment (see, among others, Jacki Apple, Rachel Rosenthal). For example, the intersections between environment and oppression are manifestly clear-cut in both widespread “first world” practice of dumping toxic waste on developing countries (see Shu Lea Cheang and Jessica Hagedorn) and, in this society, the space of violence that surrounds women and their bodies (see Laurie Weeks). Relatedly, the insidious way in which power, authority, are themselves naturalized feeds the repressive machinery of social determination and control (see Mark Sussman and Jenny Romaine, the Desert Storm trading cards).
Several contributors speak from and to the position of geographic and cultural displacement – a contemporary condition that brings with it heavy histories. They point to the impact dislocation has on cultural survival and identity (see Ella Shohat); examine the politics of importing and exporting cultural values and forms (see Patricia Hoffbauer); and explore the possibilities of working interculturally (see Pauline Oliveros and Ione). Other writers trace the colonial routes of Western theater’s exoticizing and primitivizing traditions of display and spectacle (see Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gómez-Peña), and, rejecting that legacy, hail initiatives that reclaim the terms of cultural self-representation (see Marina Zurkow interviewing Charles Uwiragiye, Laurie Carlos).
If we are, to some uncertain extent, products of lived environment so are our arts. The context of art making, exhibiting and performing – whether rural or urban, public or private, outdoors or enclosed, traditional or “found” – inevitably shape artistic praxis. For artists who set out to articulate relationships with specific environments, this becomes yet more true, yet more the point itself (see Elise Bernhardt, Lenora Champagne, Jay Critchley, Livia Daza-Paris, Simone Forti, Audrey Kindred, Clarinda Mac Low, Yves Musard.) More than ever, as this issue of the Journal makes clear, contemporary artists across disciplinary and cultural boundaries are addressing issues of ecology and conservation in their work, creating visual art and performance that not only takes part in, but also crucially broadens and diversifies mainstream environmental activist movements (see Cathy Edwards interviewing George Bartenieff, incinerator protest photos this page).
Here at Movement Research, we have recently experienced a radical shift in our own environment. After eight years at 179 Varick Street, escalating rent forced us to abandon that long term home in early July, and resettle in the East Village at 28 Ave A between 2nd and 3rd Streets. We have a beautiful studio, an office we hope will have heat by winter, and new neighbors – Christina Jones and Prowess Interarts, Inc., as well as the Context Recording Studios. As we continue to search for a truly permanent site – perhaps a place that we own – we expect to grow in these new surroundings, continue to develop our programs and offer more to our community. Out new studio will be home for morning classes, most of our workshops, our once-a-month Open Performance Series of informal showings, Studio Project symposia, and our rehearsal space program. “Out of house” programs will include our free series of Monday night dance performances at The Judson Church (the first is September 21 – make sure to make reservations) as well as the bi-annual Performance Journal (we are already planning Journal #6). This issue of the Journal was created with the invaluable work of Esther Kaplan and John Walker/Dinglasan. We’d also like to heartily thank our contributors. Movement research is staffed by Cathy Edwards and Guy Yarden (Co-directors), Audrey Kindred, Christopher Caines, and Jaime Ortega. We rely on a lot of volunteer help, a wonderful board of directors, and the invaluable staff of the Judson Memorial Church, and thank them all.
-Cathy Edwards, Kate Ramsey, Guy Yarden
