Precarity & the Politics of Art:  Performative and Critical Empowerment after Democracy

NEW SERIES 2015-16

SEMINAR 1:  21 October 2015, 4 PM 

Drama Studio, Gaskell Building, Brunel University London.

Decolonizing Gestures & the  Colonial Gaze //

Melissa Blanco-Borelli (Royal Holloway): “Bodily Archives and Hi(p)- stories: Dancing in Cuba’s academias de baile”

Broderick Chow (Brunel, Theatre):  “Animatedness and the Filipino/a performing body”

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This interdisciplinary and dialogical Series aims to probe troubling interpretations of the increasing unrestrainment of capital, and its impact on all social-economic, cultural, creative, and educational sectors in the developed world. The sustainability of democracy is an urgent emerging research theme for those of us in the performing arts/creative field becoming intensely aware of the multiplication of realities (virtualization; networked infrastructures) and a growing depoliticization of culture and art. The main objective of the Series is to articulate various perspectives on politics and performance within the context of precarization and the operations of unknowable information technologies. In particular, the series will examine:

• Labour and virtuosity / refuge and asylum
• Decolonization and the politics of ‘not-quite’ identities
• The aestheticization of performativity
• Ritual politics, gender relations, social and sectarian conventions
• Algorithmic culture and participatory art