Performative Urbanism Lab for Spatial,
Social, and Scenographic Experimentation
Performing Grounds
unsettling cultural landscapes
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Performing and performance space generally involves an event of ‘taking place’… but where, what, and whose place? What does it mean to design and construct performance space in a precarious world pushed to its limit by climate catastrophe, mass migration and unruly pandemics that threaten established borders and the territories they contain?
It seems more urgent than ever to critically reconsider the necessary and entangled relationship between space and performance, between site and action, between theatre as built form and theatre as art form. Architecture continues to serve the Western knowledge systems responsible for the conditions that dominate our cultural landscapes; evidenced by a proliferation of cookie-cutter auditoria reinforcing colonial legacies, binary thinking and neoliberal capitalism. Performers and audience remain separated within the dead air of theatre as a disciplinary machine, while the very lands these venues occupy – transformed from earth into property – reinforce the narratives of discovery, conquest and occupation. However, within indigenous epistemologies lies the possibility to rethink our relationship to the cultural landscapes we share, as well as how we gather, exchange, and perform diverse cultures.
Performing Grounds: Unsettling Cultural Landscapes is an online gathering that invites thinkers, designers and artists from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific (Moana Nui a Kiwa) and Turtle Island (Canada) to share their indigenous knowledges and reparative approaches to unsettling and reconfiguring grounds for performing identities, technologies and stories. The event was hosted by PULSE in association with the IFTR Theatre & Architecture Working Group as part of the 4th Space Residency program, Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke/ Montreal.
Un espace de performance implique habituellement un événement qui « prend place »… mais où, quoi et la place de qui ? Qu’est-ce que ça veut dire de concevoir et de construire un espace de performance dans un monde précaire poussé à bout par les catastrophes climatiques, la migration massive et les pandémies incontrôlées qui menacent les frontières établies et les territoires qu’elles contiennent ?
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Il semble plus urgent que jamais de reconsidérer d’un œil critique la relation essentielle et enchevêtrée entre l’espace et la performance, entre le site et l’action, entre la forme construite et la forme artistique du théâtre. L’architecture continue de servir les systèmes de connaissances occidentaux responsables des conditions qui dominent le paysage culturel, à preuve, la prolifération d’auditoriums identiques qui renforcent l’héritage colonial, la pensée binaire et le capitalisme néolibéral. Les interprètes et le public restent séparés dans l’air stagnant du théâtre, machine disciplinaire, alors que les terres mêmes qu’occupent ces lieux, transformées de terre en propriété, renforcent les récits de découverte, de conquête et d’occupation. Il existe cependant dans les épistémologies autochtones la possibilité de repenser notre relation avec les paysages culturels que nous partageons ainsi que la façon dont nous rassemblons, échangeons et présentons des cultures variées.
Performing Grounds: Unsettling Cultural Landscapes est une rencontre virtuelle qui invite des penseurs et penseuses, concepteurs et conceptrices et artistes de Aotearoa Nouvelle-Zélande, d’Australie, du Pacifique (Moana Nui a Kiwa) et de l’île de la Tortue (Canada) à partager leur savoir autochtone et leurs approches réparatrices pour décoloniser et reconfigurer le terrain pour la présentation d’identités, de technologies et d’histoires. L’événement etait présenté par PULSE en association avec le groupe de travail Théâtre et architecture de l’IFTR dans le cadre du programme de Résidence Espace 4 de l’Université Concordia, Tiohtià:ke/Montréal.
Performing Grounds: Unsettling Cultural Landscapes was an online gathering that invites thinkers, designers and artists from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific (Moana Nui a Kiwa) and Turtle Island (Canada) to share their indigenous knowledges and reparative approaches to unsettling and reconfiguring grounds for performing identities, technologies and stories.
Latai Taumoepeau, Amanda Yates, Shannon Foster & Jo Kinniburgh (Bangawarra), Tanya Lukin Linklater, and Tiffany Shaw Collinge.
The event was hosted by PULSE in association with IFTR’s Theatre & Architecture Working Group as part of the 4th Space Residency program, Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke/ Montreal.
