(NON)POLITICAL (NON)PERFORMANCE: A Study Day with André Lepecki
5th Nov 2019 10:00am-6:00pm
Location: Studio 5 (top floor), Jubilee Building, University of Roehampton, Roehampton Lane, London SW15 5PU
Curated and organised by Helena Botto, Tim Cowbury, Georg Doecker, Will Osmond, Jonas Schnor, Jenny Swinger, and Siegmar Zacharias.
With the support of TECHNE (AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership), Roehampton University, and the Department of Drama, Theatre and Performance.
This one day workshop aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse on social practice in performance by suggesting and putting up for discussion the conjunction of the nonpolitical and the nonperformative, or nonperformance. The nonpolitical here is understood in the terms outlined by Cedric J. Robinson in his seminal study The Terms of Order from 1980, whereas nonperformance refers to Fred Moten's more recent coinage from 2015. Both notions invoke the critical potentials of the prefix of the “non” or negation, a rhetorical strategy that might be perceived, against the backdrop of a Nietzschean genealogy, not so much as a reactive tendency, but much rather as the destruction of the nihilism of the reactive forces working in and through dominant concepts of the political and performance. The nonpolitical, in this sense, refers to the conceptual as well as experimental affirmation of social life forms able to maintain themselves without recourse to the political order of power, the modern state and its institutions, including its complicity with capital, antiblackness, colonialism, and patriarchy. In a similar vein, nonperformance articulates the “presence of the flesh” and “'bare' materiality and sensuality” (Moten), a mode of perceiving and being perceived that operates, if only in precarious moments and interstices, outside the logics of performativity, recognition, and subjectivity.
In bringing together the nonpolitical and nonperformance—and thus social theory, Black Studies, philosophy, and performance studies—the workshop proposes to collectively sketch out the conceptual and experiential spaces shared by other than political sociality and other than performative performance. What social modes of relation might nonperformance exclusively bring forth, and inversely, what nonperformances might emerge from social forms of togetherness? Can we think of (non)performances of primordial incompleteness, of relationality and kinship, and if so, what would be the technologies and procedures capable of sustaining them? How might nonpolitical social arrangements change the apparatus of performance, the creating and producing, the presenting and sharing of performance? But also, and against an innocent embrace of the proposed notions: what are the battle lines and weapons, the conflicts and resistances corresponding to nonpolitical nonperformance?
These and further questions shall be addressed and discussed in an intimate setting of 15 participants facilitated by the organisers and guest speaker professor André Lepecki from NYU. André Lepecki's current research investigates (non)performances of sociality, with a particular focus on Hélio Oiticica’s oeuvre, which he analyses through Black Studies, as well as through authors such as Roland Barthes, Paul Preciado, Sara Ahmed and José Quiroga. He will be present for the entire day, presenting a lecture in the morning and chairing a close reading session in the afternoon. More details on the schedule for the day are listed below.
This event is made possible through the generous financial support of TECHNE consortium and the logistical support of Roehampton University and its Department of Drama, Theatre and Performance.
Schedule:
10.00 am: Registration
10.30–11.00 am: (Non)political (non)performance – Introduction by the organisers
11.00am–12.30pm Gimme Shelter - sociality in the nest – Lecture by André Lepecki and follow-up discussion
12.30–1.30 pm: Lunch
1.30–3.30 pm: Cedric J. Robinson's The Terms of Order and Fred Moten's Some Propositions on Blackness, Phenomenology, and (Non)Performance – Collective close reading
3.30–4.00 pm: Coffee break
4.00–6.00 pm: Methods, Outlines and Perspectives – Collective open discussion of the raised issues with respect to the participant's individual research projects and interests
Participants:
André Lepecki is a leading scholar in international dance and performance studies. A full professor and chairperson of Performance Studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, his research is situated at the intersection of critical dance studies, curatorial practice, performance theory, contemporary dance and visual arts performance. André Lepecki is the editor of the anthologies Points of Convergence: alternative views on performance (MoMA-Warsaw and Chicago UP, 2016, with Marta Dziewanska), Dance (Whitechapel, 2012), Planes of Composition: dance, theory and the global (Seagull press, 2009, with Jenn Joy), The Senses in Performance (Routledge 2007, with Sally Banes), and Of the Presence of the Body (Wesleyan UP, 2004). His single authored books are Exhausting Dance: performance and the politics of movement (Routledge, 2006), currently translated in 10 languages, and Singularities: dance in the age of performance (Routledge, 2016).
Helena Botto, Tim Cowbury, Georg Doecker, Will Osmond, Jonas Schnor, Jenny Swinger, and Siegmar Zacharias are PhD students from Theatre and Performance Departments at the University of Roehampton, University of Surrey and Royal Holloway, University of London. In 2018, they formed a self-organised study group in the context of which they investigate the nexus of politics and performance. The study day with André Lepecki has been designed on the basis of their collective interests and discussions. Tim Cowbury, Georg Doecker, Will Osmond, Jonas Schnor, Jenny Swinger, and Siegmar Zacharias are funded by TECHNE consortium; Helena Botto is funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal.
Registration:
If you are interested in participating in the event, please sign up via eventbrite. The event is particularly designed for TECHNE students, but all are welcome to join.
There is a maximum capacity of 15 participants for the event. Places will be allocated to the first 15 people to sign up. When registering, please indicate whether or not you are a TECHNE student (full member or associated). Since the event is funded by TECHNE, we will have to ask all non-TECHNE participants for a five pound donation.
Please note that the event will be documented via audio recording and photography. By registering, you consent to being audio recorded and photographed during the event. Photography may be used for the TECHNE and Roehampton University's websites.
Preparatory Reading:
André Lepecki. “The Non-time of Lived Experience: The Problem of Color in Hélio Oiticica’s Early Works.” Representations 136.1 (Fall 2016;): 77-95.
———. “Choreographic Angeology. The Dancer as Worker of History (or, Remembering is a Hard Thing.” In Singularities. Dance in the Age of Performance, 143-169. London/New York: Routledge, 2016.
Fred Moten. “Some Propositions on Blackness, Phenomenology, and (Non)Performance.” In Points of convergence. Alternative views on performance, edited byMarta Dziewańska and André Lepecki, 101-107. Warsaw/Chicago, IL: Museum of Modern Art/Chicago UP, 2017.
Cedric J. Robinson. “Introduction” and “The Order of Politicality.” In The Terms of Order. Political Science and the Myth of Leadership, 1-6, 7-38. Chapel Hill: North Carolina UP, 2016 (1980).
Sylvia Wynter. “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom. Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument.” CR: The New Centennial Review 3. 3 (Fall 2003): 257-337.
Participants will be forwarded PDFs of all texts after registration. Please read all texts prior to the event and prepare questions, comments, concerns, objections for the discussions.
Lunch:
Lunch is not included, however there will be coffee, tea, and snacks, and there are affordable lunch options available on campus.
Accessibility:
Unfortunately, the location
does not have free access for anyone with reduced mobility, but if you would
like to participate and do have special accessibility requirements, please do
contact us here.