Abstract

Situated at the crossroads of performance practice, museology, and cultural studies, live arts curation has grown in recent years to become a vibrant interdisciplinary project and a genuine global phenomenon. Curating Live Arts brings together bold and innovative essays from an international group of theorist-practitioners to pose vital questions, propose future visions, and survey the landscape of this rapidly evolving discipline. Reflecting the field’s characteristic eclecticism, the writings assembled here offer practical and insightful investigations into the curation of theatre, dance, sound art, music, and other performance forms—not only in museums, but in community, site-specific, and time-based contexts, placing it at the forefront of contemporary dialogue and discourse.

Marc Pronovost is General and Artistic Manager and a co-founder of B21, an organization exploring the social impact of artistic projects in relation to sustainable development. He holds a master’s degree in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute of Geneva. He is the author of Art et développement (2013).

Jane Gabriels is the co-curator and Project Director for the Young Roots Performance Series at the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture, City University of New York. Her publications include interviews with artists in Movement Research Performance Journal, Latino Rebels, and Bronx Dance Magazine.

“The outstanding group of researchers in this innovative book engage in a lucid flow of passion and creative power. Its narratives are drawn from experimental approaches grounded in their authors’ rich lives. This anthology is comprised of unexpected revelations about curation that break the barriers of its canonic definitions, while remaining concerned with Beauty as a fundamental value and the live arts as a celebration of living.” • Alma Salem, independent curator, Syria Sixth Space

“This is a rich, global compilation of pieces that explore issues of power, community, inclusiveness, belonging, aesthetics, history, embodiment, epistemology, and pedagogy, all within the context of performance and the live arts.” • Nicole Stanton, Wesleyan University

“In seeking to reinvigorate one of the art world’s most ubiquitous terms, Curating Live Arts both interrogates and celebrates the historical in tandem with new possibilities for intervention into the complex space between artists, arts workers, art projects, participants and audiences. It asks critical questions about the values, the sensibilities, and the preoccupations of curating the live arts, and includes writing from artists, curators, and activists working in politically urgent contexts far removed from the centres of ‘high’ art. This wide-ranging anthology makes an invaluable contribution to the complex aspirations of this ever-expanding field.” • Sarah Miller, University of Wollongong

Véronique Hudon is a researcher, author and curator of living arts whose work is situated in the space between gallery and stage. She is a PhD candidate in Arts studies and Practices at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She currently collaborates with several periodicals in the arts field.

Dena Davida co-founded, directed, and is currently the in-house curator of Tangente, Québec’s first dance presenting organization. She also co-founded the CanDance touring network, and co-founded and co-programmed the Festival international de nouvelle danse de Montréal from 1985 to 2005. She has taught at the Université du Québec à Montréal for over 25 years.