“Experiments in Care as a Reciprocal Act,” Canadian Theatre Review, vol. 197. Eds. Mariah Horner and Jenn Stephenson (forthcoming in Feb 2024).

Abstract

Care is complex: something that must be thoughtfully evoked; that is not necessarily comfortable; that is humbling, vulnerable, and negotiated. Examining the stakes of care in participatory performance, this article traces lines of inquiry around care as labour, as duty, as risk, as choice, as participation, and as an exchange of power requiring consent. Reflecting on the precarity and interdependence of participatory performance, I argue this genre is not only uniquely positioned to foster reciprocal care – it requires it. I outline a model of reciprocal care, defining it as the act of all participants attending to something together – in this case the performance – and collectively creating the conditions of coexistence necessary for this tending.

To make these ideas tangible, I refer to two participatory performances I directed. Trophy is a performance installation featuring local community members sharing personal stories of change, housed in glowing tents that transform over the course of the performance. The second, Remixed, is a hybrid deep listening experience, accessed via a progressive web app, that contemplates how we instigate change in our lives, communities, and world. Both productions are tentative experiments in reciprocal care, extending its duty beyond the artist and exploring the conditions through which it is sustained by all participants. I conclude by envisioning the possibilities of reciprocal care as a vital way to operate in the uneven precarity that is our standard collective condition and to be in the unknown together.

“The Superfluid Curation of Darkness,” Special Issue on Assembly and Gathering in Dance, eds. Jasmine Johnson, Eric Mullis and Thomas F. DeFrantz, Dance Research Journal (forthcoming in 2023/2024)

Abstract

Contemporary interdisciplinary collaboration practices offer visions of new modes of assembly. This article traces a curatorial model of interdisciplinary collaboration, exploring how artists activate curation as a methodology of creation. I refer specifically to the creative practice of the award-winning Queer Trans/mogrifying multidisciplinary artist and futurist Sage Ni’Ja Whitson, and their series The Unarrival Experiments. I reflect on Whitson’s curatorial practice as a sacred methodology rooted in Yorùbá cosmologies, theatrical jazz aesthetic, and concepts of dark matter, superfluidity and unarrival. I trace how Whitson’s use of curatorial frameworks supports ease in the impossible, builds layers of multiplicity and simultaneity, resists institutional hegemony and power structures, and crafts systems of queer kinship and care for communities, ancestors, and futures. I outline the criteria of coexistence through which they imbue curatorial practices into their collaborations, generating what I describe as a Third Space. For Whitson, this fertile space of sustained difference is a portal to an alternate institution of darkness, interdependent sovereignty, and superfluidity. I conclude by unfolding the possibilities of Whitson’s Third Space as a forward-facing methodology of how to move through the impossible together and envision new collective futures.

Materials for Creation / Des matériaux pour créer. Edited by Sarah Conn and Sarah Garton Stanley), National Arts Centre, 2023.

“Creating something beautiful to celebrate the first five years of the National Creation Fund”: that’s what Sarah Garton Stanley (SGS) and Sarah Conn, co-editors of the book Materials for Creation, had in mind a year ago. Launched this month in Montréal and Toronto, the book is also a tangible tool for capturing the scope, scale, beauty and complexity of newly created works.

“The Curation of Endings” TURBA: The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation, eds. Tawny Andersen et al, 1:2 (Sept 2022).

Layering Strategies: Interdisciplinary Performance Creation as Curatorial Act. MA Thesis, Wesleyan University and the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance, Connecticut (2021).

Abstract

Embracing aesthetics of independence and interdependence, this thesis traces a curatorial model of interdisciplinary collaboration which, I argue, positions artist-curators as forerunners of a new form of artistic relationship. I take as case studies art collective My Barbarian, musician and composer Jason Moran, and artist and writer Ni’Ja Whitson. These artists activate curation as a methodology of creation that builds layers of multiplicity and simultaneity, resists institutional hegemony and power structures, and crafts open systems of care for their communities, their ancestors, and their futures. All three create work that resists the traditional curatorial parameters of the performance space through the demands of their interdisciplinarity, a practice that is sustained by complex structures of collectivity and kinship. I outline the criteria of coexistence through which they imbue curatorial practices into their interdisciplinary artistic collaborations, resulting in curatorial acts that generate what I describe as a “third space.” This is a fertile space of sustained difference that serves as a portal for the inception of new collective futures. Underlying this research are questions around the politics of self-identification, the ongoing impacts of the 1960s radical freedom movements, and the possibilities of these third spaces of dissensus, ambivalence, and hope.

Advisor: Tania El-Khoury