Site-Specific Performance

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 this 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 lbclark@wisc.edu

http://www.lbclark.net
Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty and Staff Programs
University of Wisconsin
Office of the Provost
Bascom 117
500 Lincoln Drive
Madison, WI 53706-1314

phone (608) 262-5246
fax (608) 265-3353

Professor, Non-Static Forms
Art Department
University of Wisconsin
6241 Humanities
455 North Park Street
Madison WI 53706