Para Site International Conference 2014
Para Site International Conference 2014
April 3, 2014
Registration at 1.45 pm
Conference from 2.00 pm to 7.30 pm
April 4, 2014
Registration at 1.45 pm
Conference from 2.00 pm to 7.30 pm
April 5, 2014
Registration at 10.45 am
Conference from 11.00 am to 6.45 pm
The Para Site International Conference 2014 “Is the Living Body the Last Thing Left Alive? The new performance turn, its histories and its institutions,” co-conceived by Cosmin Costinas, Executive Director/Curator at Para Site, and Ana Janevski, Associate Curator in the Department of Media and Performance Art at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, will discuss the renewed encounter between dance and performance and the institutions of global contemporary art, marking one of the most significant set of developments in the art field over the last decade.
The past twenty years have seen contemporary dance emerging as a new field of discourse and thinking. While writing within and about these developments is still in its infancy, this scene has produced some of the most powerful works of our times, reflecting the major intellectual directions and the changes in the world over these decades. More recently, dance and performance have entered the institutional realm of contemporary art, with more artists working in and around these disciplines, and with more museums, art centers and biennials considering how to deepen their commitments to performance. Divided into three larger chapters, the conference will attempt to look at the collective history of performance art, and in the process point out and extend the boundaries of what is possible in the paradigm of art and performance today.
On the first day of the conference, April 3, the focus will be on the paradigm shift that has been increasingly bringing dance into the museum and doing it in a new way. Guests of this session include Andre Lepecki (Associate Professor at the Department of Performance Studies at New York University), Boris Buden (Berlin-based writer and cultural critic), Xavier Le Roy (Berlin-based dancer and choreographer), Bojana Cvejić (Brussels-based performance theorist and dramaturg), Tang Fu Kuen (Bangkok-based curator and producer of contemporary performance), Mårten Spångberg (Sweden-based choreographer and theorist), Cosmin Costinas (Executive Director and Curator at Para Site, Hong Kong), and Dick Wong (Hong Kong-based dancer and choreographer).
On 4 April, the conference will look at the more recent proliferation of living bodies in exhibition spaces, and of dance in museum programs. It will attempt to understand what the institutional realities are that allow this to happen and the institutional transformations that respond to this change. Contributors of the day include Emily Roysdon (New York and Stockholm-based artist and writer), Pierre Bal-Blanc (Director and Curator at Contemporary Art Center of Bretigny, France), Gabi Ngcobo (Johannesburg-based curator and artist), David Riff (Berlin- and Moscow-based writer, artist and curator), Low Kee Hong (Hong Kong-based director and curator), Stuart Comer (Chief Curator of Media and Performance Art at The Museum of Modern Art, New York), Catherine Wood (Curator of Contemporary Art and Performance at Tate Modern, London), Danny Yung (Hong Kong-based artist, director, producer, and founder of Zuni Icosahedron), Ana Janevski (Associate Curator in the Department of Media and Performance Art at The Museum of Modern Art, New York), Doryun Chong (Chief Curator, M+ Hong Kong), and Manuel Pelmus (Bucharest-based dancer and choreographer).
The session on 5 April will include case studies of different histories of performance art within the field of visual arts, in different geographies, throughout the twentieth century. Participants in this section include Raiji Kuroda (art historian and Chief Curator, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan), Georg Schoellhammer (Vienna-based editor, author, curator and editor-in-chief of springerin magazine), Lee Weng Choy (art critic and Deputy Director and Senior Curator at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore), Fernanda Nogueira (Brazilian researcher, curator and literary critic), Adrienne Edwards (New York-based scholar, writer of performance, and Associate Curator at Performa Institute), Inti Guerrero (Hong Kong-based curator, Associate Artistic Director at TEOR/éTica, San Jose, Costa Rica), Anthony Yung (Senior Researcher at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, and co-founder of Observation Society, Guangzhou), Goran Sergej Pristaš (director, choreographer, dramaturg, and assistant professor at the Drama Department of the Academy of Dramatic Art, Zagreb, Croatia), Moe Satt (Yangon-based visual and performance artist), and Claire Tancons (New Orleans-based curator, writer and researcher).
*Live streaming is available at www.para-site.org.hk.
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