PSi General Meeting – 3rd April 10.40am -12.15pm.

1. Welcome.

Adrian Heathfield (AH) explained that the broad purpose the business meeting was to give a report on the year, and outline plans for the future of the organization. His report follows:

2. History:

AH: “For those of you who are new to PSi, this is the eleventh conference, and the eighth birthday of the organization formally constituted as Performance Studies international.

PSi grew from the energies and concerns of those engaged in performance studies programmes at New York University, Northwestern University, and at the Centre for Performance Research in Aberystwyth.

Since its early days PSi has grown in stature and scope becoming an increasingly diverse and highly international assembly. The organization still holds to the lowercase ‘i’ in its name, as it is wary of grand global claims and wants to signify that what constitutes an international remains an open question.

In the last few years PSi has staged discussions and exchanges in New Zealand and Singapore and our work in and around the interdisciplinary zone of performance study and practice has questioned what research in this field might mean: its relationship to social practice and to place.

We have pressed hard at the question of the relationship between artistic practice and critical theory and we have had some often-tough discussions on global politics, imperialism, differences between East and West and the possibilities and limits of exchange across cultural and intellectual divides. Our membership has become increasingly culturally diverse. Nearly every year we have staged axial debates for the field: the debate between Philip Auslander and Peggy Phelan in Atlanta on technology and the nature of liveness, the exchanges with Richard Schechner in Aberystwyth on the limits of universalism, the discussion between Marion Pastor Roces and Peggy Phelan in Singapore on the Western and theological foundation of narratives of the fall and their sway in performance theory.
 
We have been particularly fortunate at PSi in receiving strong institutional support for each of the three Presidencies: at CPR, NYU and Stanford, and now at Nottingham Trent University. With Richard Gough at Aberystwyth, the team at CPR and years of labour from the unflappable Heike Roms. From NYU and Stanford during Peggy Phelan’s term, from Chris Mills at NYU and at Stanford the work of Kyle Gillette, and now from NTU at the Performance and Live Art Research Unit, which provides admin, database, web and e-list support and scholarships for Postgraduates in Performance Theory and Practice who contribute to the initiatives of the organization. I’d particularly like to thank Rebecca Carrington, Stuart Simpson, Rachel Zerihan and Vlatka Horvat for their support and work over the year.

3. Achievements since Singapore.

It has been a short year, only nine months since Singapore, but in this time we have been able to realize various new initiatives.

We have re-established an email list. All members are signed on to this list and it is easy to leave if you so wish. I encourage you all to use this facility to exchange information of a genuinely international nature that will be pertinent to the wider community.

We have established an extensive set of benefits for membership – discount subscriptions to key journals in the field that can be acquired by giving the Journal your PSi membership number.

We have also kept yearly membership rates low, but we have rationalized the membership scheme so that annual membership income is taken by conference organizers as part of their conference fee. Conference organizers keep a substantial proportion of the membership money in order to support the conference, and what little is left goes to support and award and the running costs of the organization itself.

This year we have been able to establish the Dwight Conquergood Award in honour of Dwight’s contribution to the field and our organization. The award is designed to financially support attendance at PSi for artists, activists, grad students or emergent scholars whose work around cultural performance in some way carries a connection to Dwight’s own practice – work in and around disenfranchisement, exclusion and social agency. It is a way of extending that ‘rope’ of support and learning - which Patrick Anderson spoke of as being at the core of Dwight’s practice - to many others.

PSi has also been able to affiliate with a postgraduate research training scheme in the UK which will provide bursaries for upto thirty postgraduate students to attend next year’s conference at Queen Mary in London.

The broad aim of the organization over the year has been to consolidate itself as a professional support network for international research exchange, not just in singular events such as this, but on a more continuous and permanent basis. We would like to encourage much more participation in the organisation’s structures.

4. Working Groups.

We have published a new call for Working Groups, to which I hope many of you will respond. These are sustained networks of research collaboration that can take any form or shape, can be practice or theory based, or can move between the two. Please feel free to participate in these or to suggest a new working group that you would like to chair. Details of these will be posted on the website.

5. Website.

It is very much our goal, within the limited finances available to us, to develop the website as a more active informational site. In the first instance this may involve making archival material from previous conferences more readily available, and in the medium term creating new fora for electronic discussion.”

The meeting then moved on to more formal aspects:

6. Ratification of New Board Members.

With Dwight Conquergood’s death and both Petra Kuppers and Kanta Kochar-Lindgren stepping down, some changes were required in the make-up of the board.

In addition, Patrick Anderson was moving on from being Chair of the Graduate Committee, because he is no longer a graduate student.

Petra, Kanta (not present) and Patrick were thanked for their work over the preceding years, and Petra and Patrick were presented with a token of the organization’s appreciation.

New board members were proposed as follows:

Patrick Anderson                                Emerging Scholars’ Officer.
Andre Lepecki                                     Conference Committee Officer.
Paul Rae                                             Secretary.
Freddie Rokem                                   Vice President.
Monica Stufft and Lara Shalson          Joint Graduate Students Committee Chairs.
Lois Weaver                                        Artists’ Committee Chair.

A ratifying vote was cast among the membership. The results were as follows:

Patrick Anderson                     57
Andre Lepecki                         56
Paul Rae                                 61
Freddie Rokem                       56
Monica Stufft / Lara Shalson   57
Lois Weaver                            57

7. PSi#12.

Lois Weaver, Lois Keidan, Jen Harvie and Nick Ridout gave a presentation about the context and aims of the PSi#12 conference, Performing Rights, to be held at Queen Mary University of London from 15th-18th June 2006.

They then launched the call for papers, presentations and contextualizing events.

(see point 11, below, for further discussion of this event)

8. 2007-8.

Jon McKenzie announced that proposals were being solicited for PSi#13 (2007) and PSi#14 (2008) – in particular PSi#13, and drew attention to the fact that a range of benefits could accrue to the host institution.

AH underscored the importance of supporting the organization where possible, since PSi remains “a fragile institution.”

9. Committee Structure

AH: The board wants to reanimate PSi’s committee structure. Accordingly, the Chairs were called on to say a few words about their respective committees:

Sharon Mazer: The International committee is for those interested in (re)defining what “international” means

Lois Weaver hopes to bring other artists into the organization, and encourage as much artist participation as possible.

John Bell is concerned with the question of how one teaches Performance Studies at undergraduate level: what are the best ways to teach it, and what is its place in broader curricula?

Patrick Anderson: The Graduate Students committee aims to bring students together for collaborations, and to provide advice and networking opportunities. The Emerging Scholars committee would continue this work, but he also signaled a commitment to opening the committee up to people who might not otherwise identify themselves with the rather constricting term “scholar”.

Ute Ritschel: everyone working outside the academy is invited to join the Independent Scholar’s committee.

For more details see the Groups>Subcommittees page on this website.

10. ATHE Pre-conference.

Jennifer Parker-Starbuck and Josh Abrams made a brief announcement about the pre-conference of the Performance Studies focus group of the American Theater in Higher Education (ATHE) association.

11. Questions and Comments from the Floor.

Theresa Smalec questioned the transparency of the Board, noting that the nominations and voting processes seemed to happen “behind closed doors”, and that there were positions that other people may have wanted to take up, but which did not appear to be available to the general membership. She further noted that everyone on the board is white.

AH clarified the way in which the constitution of PSi works.

1. The Board is self-constituting, but has a practice of seeking ratification from the membership for its officer posts.
2. The purpose of the board is to draw on the energies of those who have activated the organization through a demonstrable commitment to its aims and objectives. In turn, the board is able to invite new members to join, and is constantly looking outward for those who are committed to working collaboratively for the organization.
3. Democratically electing the board at every conference would threaten the stability of the board, its continuity of knowledge, and would make organization of events highly problematic.

JM noted that the membership of the organization tends to go where the conference goes, because of the international aspect. The board lends the organization some stability it might not otherwise have. 

Theresa noted that the process still seems very closed, and the decisions are not transparent.

John Bell reminded everybody that being on the board was primarily a labour of love.

Rebecca Schneider suggested that the nominations process be better advertised, and then it would be for the board to decide.

Ray Langenbach requested that the constitution be put online.

AH noted that we may wish to re-visit the constitution at some point.

Petra Kuppers underlined that in the past, she has approached people who have approached people who have “shown some energy”.

Rachel Bowditch raised the question of whether, by contrast with PSi#11, the focus of PSi#12 was too tight, and therefore potentially excluded otherwise interested participants. Nick Ridout responded that that the terms used in the call were indicative, and that they would be seeking as wide a range of interpretations as possible.

Alan Read made a plea for institutional support to encourage those who might participate in the conference as “listeners and learners”, precisely because the theme fell outside their realm of expertise. He noted the value of “the production of listening”.

Laurie Beth Clark pointed out that the Working Groups would also be meeting at the conference, and other concerns that fall outside the theme of “Performing Rights” can be engaged with there.

AH reiterated that to establish a Working Group all that members needed to do was to contact him or the PSi#12 organizers.

Jon McKenzie identified a rhythm between different kinds of conferences – larger “department store” events, and smaller, more focused events, so that it is hard to be consistent about keeping the event open to everyone at all times.

A first-time participant noted that they felt that there was something alienating about the cliques in this conference. The geography (“or rather the fengshui”) of the conference was alienating. It lacked a meeting space or bar. A conference is a 24/7 event and shouldn’t be about people who went to one school or another. For the next conference, she suggested gatherings that weren’t just about the conference presentations: that there could be an impromptu, ongoing social space, a bulletin board, and welcoming committee.

Lois Weaver assured her that this would be the case at PSi#12.

Petra Kuppers said that she valued the way the conference had been integrated into the local community, especially during the performance times.

Andrew, a mechanical engineering undergraduate who had come to the conference on a whim, said that he had had a great time.

Heike Roms observed that while all the preceding points concerning the constitution and organization were important, she wanted to thank Adrian for all the work he has done in the past nine months to re-energise PSi. It had re-inspired her involvement in PSi.

12. Thank yous.

AH: PSi#11 had been a good conference, with conceptual and thematic integrity, and a diversity of performances. It had been one of the most open and generous PSi conferences, but perhaps one of the saddest, due to its commemorative tone.

Particular thanks went to:

John Emigh
Ken Prestininzi
Katie Chavez
Jamie Jewitt

John Emigh noted that there was an on-going debate about whether PS was a discipline or a field. He was interested in the idea of a field, which could be reconstituted, observing that we each carry our individual maps, with different place-markers of what PS is, and is subject to constant re-mapping. He hoped that the conference would have an impact on the field, but acknowledged that it would only become apparent in a few years how successful the conference was.

John thanked his team, and Ken and Katie gave brief speeches of thanks in turn.