The
first edition of the Performance Biennial will take place on 23 June
to 4 July in Greece. Emerging from DIY self-organised cultural
practices appearing during these past years in Athens, in a present
without a future, this event seeks to critically interrogate the role
of performance, historically and in the present, in relation to
political and social materialities and imaginaries. Playfully
subverting the term ‘biennial’ into a self-organised practice,
the event will test self-instituted forms of culture and politics.
Under the title “No Future” this guerrilla biennial will bring
together forms of artistic, political and theoretical practice and
discourse questioning the potential of a collective refusal to a
referred futurity.
The
Performance Biennial in its first iteration will begin in the
occupied cultural space of Green Park, Athens, open out to embrace
the park of Pedion tou Areos (transl. to Field
of Mars – one
of two central parks in Athens), and then depart via boat from
Piraeus to the island of Cythera that
geographically belongs to the Prefecture of Athens. Seeking to
problematise the role of performance in the neoliberal narrative we
will collectively engage in ongoing disruptions between the
institution and the self-instituted, between buildings and parks,
between the centre and the periphery, between urban and rural. The
event will bring together both conventional and non-conventional
investigations including: performances, talks, lecture-performances,
workshops, discussions, interventions, city walks, community works,
actions and screenings.
The
notion and the myth of the future based on normative regulatory
culture and a capitalist imaginary embraces a drive for ongoing
progress, improvement and expansion. The operation of “debt” also
implies a bet on the future as Lazzarato argues “by training the
governed to “promise” (to honour their debt) capitalism exercises
“control over future” … possessing the future in advance by
objectifying it’ (2012: 46). What happens to political and cultural
practice when it turns its back on “the future”? When the
relation to the future appears fugitive? When continuity of the
canonical is disrupted and a promised futurity cannot yet be
imagined? Can this ruptured futurity offer us new possibilities to
engage with the present and produce new relations with time? Can such
impotential practices of a “here and now” offer new ways to
engage with a “then and there” that in turn sketch different
worlds to come?
Building
on DIY experiments such as the reactivation of Embros theatre and
Green Park in Athens, this inaugural Performance Biennial proposes a
series of paradigm shifts in the modes of practicing, and of taking
part in the political and cultural in order to critically interrogate
the potential for radical experiments in cultural production. This
guerrilla Performance Biennial will operate through a practice of
“self-curating” as assembling. Resisting hierarchies and
categorisations the programme consists of timezones of conflictual
“fields” and practices that will be co-curated with the
participants in a changing here and now.
Participants
WHW
(What, How & for Whom), Ant Hampton, Adrian Heathfield, Britt
Hatzius, If I Can’t Dance (Frederique Bergholtz & Susan
Gibb), Joe Kelleher, Alan Read, Nick Ridout, PA Skantze & Matthew
Fink, Joulia Strauss, Ash Bulayev, Jonas Staal, Snejanka
Mihaylova, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Collective Skart, Miguel
Robles-Duran, Urban School of Ruhr (Feredica Menin & Laura
Lovatel and others), Andy Field, Ilan Manouach, Kristine Hymoller &
Dina Roussou, Thierry Oussou, Gary Anderson, Wayne Lim – Sonia
Kazovsky – Giulia Crispiani, Dieuwke Boersma, Katrin Wölger,
Andreea Micu, Akoo-o Collective, Chrysanne Stathakos, Kleoni
Manousakis, Alice Colquhoun, Mette Sterre, Sakina Shakur, Maria
Mavridou, Maria Sarri, Vasia Paspali – Angeliki Chatzi –
Alexia Karavela, Extra-Conjugale, KangarooCourt, Platon
Mavromoustakos, Chrysanne Stathacos, David Whelan, Chryssa Tsampazi,
Tasos Stamou, Georgos Makkas, Elpida Orfanidou, Giorgos
Sampatakakis, Evi Prousali, Iliana Fokianaki, Eypraksia, Despina
Panagiotopoulou, Demosthenes Agrafiotis, Letitia Calin, Maria
Schina, Elpida Rikou, Chryssa Tsampazi, Alejandro Alonso Diaz,
Margarita Athanasiou, Maria Lalou, Maria Gorgia, Lisa Alexander
& Hari Marini, Mediterranean Declaration, Natasha
Papadopoulou – Yiannis Loukos – Eleftheria Togia –
Stephanos Theodorakis Erica Scourti, Adam Gallagher, Wen
Chi, Sara Hamden, Teresa Maria Diaz Nerio, Giorgos
Papadopoulos,Vicky Kyriakoulakou, Sofia Touboura, Michalis
Adamis, Dora Economou – Kostas Tsioukas – Leda Dallas,
Kostis Velonis, Georgia Karydi & Hypatia Vourloumis, Sofia
Simaki, Ioanna Gerakidi, Despina Sevasti, Franscesco Kiais,
Chara Kolaiti, Demosthenis Agrafiotis, Christos Giovanopoulos,
Ioanna Kleftogianni, Evangelia Ledaki, Marina Gioti, KOSTADIS, Alyssa
Moxley, Stefanos Chytiris, Eleni Kalara, Mary Zygouri, Eirene
Eftathiou, Iro Apostolelli – Agni Papadeli Rossetou – Danae
Papazian, Iliana Dimadi, Nelli Kounelli, Thalia Raftopoulou, Dimitra
Kondylaki, Theophilos Tramboulis, Michalis Moschoutis, Nektarios
Pappas, Stefanos Pavlakis, Stefanos Chandelis & Eva Koliopantou,
Evi Kalogiropoulou, Το Κοριτσι κοιμαται,
Geo Kakoudaki and more.
Initiated
and organised by Gigi Argyropoulou, Vassilis Noulas and Kostas
Tzimoulis
In
collaboration with an expanding collective of people including
Natasa Siouzouli, Emi Kitsali, Elisabet Xanthopoulou, Eleni
Kalara, Stefanos Mondelos, Elina Mandidi, Hypatia Vourloumis, Sofia
Dona, Myrto Xanthopoulou and more.
Performance
Biennial :“No Future”
24
June – 4 July 2016 Athens & Cythera Island
A
Self-Organised biennial for Performance, Art and Politics
More
Info: https://performancebiennial.org
