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Frakcija No. 55, 2010: At Least One-Third of the Subject
We as artists usually receive invitations from abroad (or locally) to present our work there (or here) by way of individuals who represent organizations or artistic and cultural institutions or who do not represent anyone but themselves. They come to us, they contact us, they meet with us, and they leave . . . what are they looking for? I have no idea. Maybe for something new, something different, alternative, a new language, new blood . . . Or rather, to create some ideas, to pose some questions related to certain problems such as the artist's relationship to power, or similar. I have no idea. Maybe they are on the lookout for new commodities for their respective markets, or for an Orient they have heard so much about, an Orient they have missed greatly, or . . . I really have no idea. My belief is that they all have their own motivations and purposes. Each one of them has his or her own reasons, desires, and objectives. Really, I have no idea.
Frakcija No. 55, 2010: Never Explain
Marta Keil: We are invited to revisit your text, “At Least One-Third of the Subject,” which was published thirteen years ago and has become kind of a classic since. I have to confess: I come back to it regularly with my students to discuss the figure that you drew of the artist's bittersweet innocence. Is this figure still recognizable to you today?
Configurations in Motion: Performance Curation and Communities of Colour (1–2 June 2017): Preview to an Introduction
I met with Thomas F. DeFrantz and Seika Boye in early 2023 to talk about Configurations in Motion: Performance Curation and Communities of Color—the gatherings, booklets, and the curatorial work—to ask how and if the work remains necessary. To think this through, we looked back at the 2017 conversation and the question posed about how we might cultivate a livable future. This brief essay is part of what resulted.
Configurations in Motion: Performance Curation and Communities of Colour (1–2 June 2017): By Way of Introduction
As curators of the third iteration of Configurations in Motion: Performance Curation and Communities of Colour in Montréal at Concordia University, in Québec, Canada, from 1 to 2 June 2017, we decided to begin with a few questions to set a frame for the essays that follow in this booklet of conference presentations. Here are our reflections.
Contributor Notes
Rabih Mroué, born in Beirut and currently living in Berlin, is a theater director, actor, visual artist and playwright. He is a contributing editor for The Drama Review/TDR (New York) and a co-founder of the Beirut Art Center. He was a fellow at The International Research Center: Interweaving Performance Cultures/ FU/Berlin from 2013–2014 and an associate theater-maker at Münchner Kammerspiele from 2015–2019.
Marta Keil was born in Poznań and is now based in Utrecht. She is a curator, dramaturge, and researcher. She is currently curating the artistic research project Breaking the Spell together with Residenz Schauspiel Leipzig, München Kammerspiele, Performing Arts Institute in Warsaw and Viernulvier in Ghent, and collaborates with New Theatre Institute of Latvia, Riga and Rosendal Teater in Trondheim for The Shakedown. She regularly teaches curation, most recently at the Utrecht University and Jagiellonian University in Kraków.
Jane Gabriels (she/her) supports artists and non-profit arts organizations as Executive Director, Dance West Network, based in “Vancouver”; traditional, ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territory of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and SəÍílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xwməӨkwəyýəm (Musqueam) Nations. Gabriels's doctoral dissertation (Concordia University, Montréal) focused on artists, creative processes, curation, and arts organizations in The Bronx, New York, her professional and artistic home for over twenty years.
Seika Boye is a scholar and curator whose practices revolve around dance and movement. She is Assistant Professor and Founder/Director of the Institute for Dance Studies within the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto. Seika curated It's About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900–1970 and co-curated Into the Light: Eugenics and Education in Southern Ontario. She was Artist-in-Residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2018) and in 2020 was a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor's Heritage Trust Award.
Thomas F. DeFrantz directs SLIPPAGE: Performance | Culture | Technology, a research lab at Northwestern University that creates symposia, performances, and research and life-long learning platforms. He believes in our shared capacity to do better and engage creative spirit for a collective good that is anti-racist, proto-feminist, and queer affirming. He convenes the Black Performance Theory working group as well as the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, a growing consortium of 325 researchers committed to exploring Black dance practices in writing. New project: Make Black Live Art Now!