1995 PSi1 "The Future of the Field"

Peggy Phelan and NYU graduate students Jill Lane and Amanda Barrett organize the first official performance studies conference at NYU. This is the first annual conference.

Peggy Phelan: "Dwight Conquergood and Joe Roach, then the chairs of PS departments at Northwestern and NYU respectively, agreed to host annual performance studies conferences in alternate years. The first was held at NYU in 95, but Joe had by then left NYU for Tulane, and I was the department chair. ….At the end of that conference, there was a discussion about whether or not to start a professional organization, PSI, along the lines of ATHE. We deferred the discussion."

Attendance is much greater than thought. Around 150 were expected, around 550 attended. An article [or mention?] appeared on the conference in the Chronicle of Higher Education, publicizing the conference and the field.

GEOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN of REGISTRATIONS

Peggy Phelan: "The idea of the 95 conference was to think about "points of contact" between PS and fields other than anthropology. This is why we called it "the future of the field" -- i did feel a responsibility to build on the work between Schechner and Turner and to look at other intersections -- and the plenaries were organized to do this…

One of the most pointed critiques we received as we announced the launch of the annual conferences in 95 was that our plan to hold the conferences only at Northwestern and NYU was not well-liked. People suggested that it was a way of dominating the field and the discussion too narrowly. At this first conference, the idea to hold the conference in many sites was discussed and I (and others) realized that if the "international" was going to mean anything it would have to involve having the host site for the conference be outside the U.S. This seemed like a fine idea to me as I was very tired and did not know if we could host such a large event bi-annually anyway….On the other hand, one of the things that most people liked was the performance cabaret, organized primarily by Amanda Barrett, and held at the Fez -- a small club near NYU. Artists included: Holly Hughes and Guillermo Gomez-Pena…"