FADO E-BULLETIN
August 2025

1. FADO INVITES YOU TO JOIN THE ARTISTS’ UNION & MARCH WITH US!
   DATE LABOUR DAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2025
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE FADO & ARTISTS’ UNION

Monday, September 1, 2025
9:30AM–1:00PM
Rally point TBC

RESERVE YOUR SPOT and march with us!

This Labour Day, join FADO as we march with the Independent Artists’ Union, a collective of artists including Karl Beveridge and the late Carole Condé (founding members of the IAU) and many others, who have been marching in Toronto’s annual Labour Day parade for more than 35 years.

“The Independent Artists’ Union (IAU), otherwise known as the IAU, transformed artists’ material conditions through their advocacy for a living wage for artists. Active from 1984 to 1989, the IAU began as a small group of media artists meeting in one another’s kitchens and backyards, and grew to 700 active members spread across Ontario at its height. Its advocacy work and interaction with other actors and institutions endure as an important moment in the development of Canada’s art scene and the understanding of artistic labour.” (Lauren Medeiros, Labour & Ontario’s Visual Arts Sector)

Join us on Labour Day as the fight for artists’ rights marches on! All welcome.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

• FADO + ARTISTS’ UNION march with OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union).
• The parade moves along Queen Street West from University Avenue to Dufferin Street, where it turns south towards the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE).
• We will have signage/banners to distribute.
• We are not able to provide a vehicle for those not able to walk the parade route. However, email us with your access questions and we will do our best to accommodate.

Questions? Email us at info@performancart.ca

MORE INFORMATION

2. NEW DOCUMENTATION POSTED ON THE FADO WEBSITE
   DATE NOW AVAILABLE
   LOCATION ONLINE
   SOURCE FADO

A few new documentation treats have been added to the website. Have a gander at the galleries (found at the bottom of each programming page), loaded with photos by Henry Chan, and video edits by Peppercorn Imagine. [To view the videos, scroll through the images and click the start button on the last image.]

EMERGING ARTISTS SERIES (2025)

• On View, curated by Jordan King
• not knowing is the most intimate, curated by Shalon Webber-Heffernan

FROM THE ARCHIVES (2013)

• iPerformance by Andrés Galeano
• Sing, Sync, Sink by Ieke Trinks
• Step by Step by Andrés Galeano and Ieke Trinks

ENJOY!
x, fado

3. EVENT SUMMER LOVE-IN
   DATE JULY 28–AUGUST 9, 2025
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE THE LOVE-IN

Summer Love-In is here!

Happening Monday July 28 to Saturday August 9 we have something special to offer you. Summer Love-In is a two-week festival offering in-person & online physical training, somatic sessions, and dance workshops. Join Janice Jo Lee, Chimerik 似不像, Lara Kramer, Juan Jaramillo & Raoul Wilke for week 1 of the festival, with Johanna Bergfelt, Christopher House, Bobby Pocket Horner leading us through week 2.

Oh, and don’t forget about our annual experimental dance show PS: we are all here ON August 9 at 7:00pm! Keep reading for more details on each session & accessibility information.

In community,
Leelee, Lauren & Johnny
Co-Artistic Directors and Communications Director

MORE INFORMATION

4. EVENT BLURBORDERS INTERNATION PERFORMANCE ART EXCHANGE
   DATE AUGUST 1–13, 2025
   LOCATION BANGKOK & PHATTHALUNG, THAILAND
   SOURCE SINEAD O’DONNELL

Blurborders International Performance Art 2025: HUMANTOUCH

This year, we are part of the #14 Performance Art Project, curated by the Multidisciplinary Arts Department of the Bangkok Art and Culture Center and supported by the Contemporary Art Promotion Funds, Office of Contemporary Art and Culture, Ministry of Culture, we have also collaborated with Peras de Olmo – ARS CONTINUA, the Argentine Institute of Performance Art, to organize an artist exchange between Thailand and South America.

We have also invited artists from Japan, Poland, Ireland, Canada, Italy/Spain, and Thailand to join the festival and we going to Phatthalung for do performance art from 4 – 13 August 2025.

As a creator of performance art, blurborders has driven continuous activities for more than a decade amidst the volatility of natural phenomena, deadly diseases, disasters, turbulent atmospheres, political turmoil from the local to the national level, and even global politics. As human beings who live, eat, drink and breathe, we cannot remain indifferent and let our human values ​​decline and collapse, sinking alone in the crisis, and remain indifferent to the debates and destruction, no matter what the mechanisms are.

ARTISTS
Andrea Cardenas / Javier Sobrino / Graciela Ovejero Postigo: Argentina
Noel Langone: Uruguay
Fausto Grossi Terenzio: Italian/Spain
Sinead O’ Donnell: Ireland
Marta Bosowska: Poland
Paul Couillard: Canada
Tokio Maruyama: Japan
Chomphunut Phuttha / Gib Pannaporn / Anucha Hemmala / Mongkol Plienbangchang: Thailand
Guest Artist: Chumpon Apisuk

MORE INFORMATION

5. CALL FOR PARTICIPATION MUSCLE PANIC WITH HAZEL MEYER AT AWE
   SUBMISSION DATE UNSPECIFIED
   LOCATION WINDSOR, CANADA
   SOURCE HAZEL MEYER

Call for Participation: Muscle Panic performance with Hazel Meyer at AWE

Art Windsor-Essex (AWE) is seeking five Windsor-based performers to participate in Muscle Panic, a 45-minute performance by Canadian artist Hazel Meyer. This work explores the world-making possibilities of sport through queerness, movement, and collaboration—perfectly aligned with the themes of SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS, an exhibition that brings together artists and athletes to reimagine physical expression and challenge traditional narratives of competition, gender, and play.

Performed on and around a 11-foot-high scaffold, Muscle Panic is a choreographed score of drills, gestures, and improvisations drawn from a custom playbook. View past iterations here.

Performance Date: September 18, 2025
Rehearsals: Two 1.5-hour sessions earlier that week (dates/times TBD)
Location: Art Windsor-Essex (AWE), as part of the exhibition SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS
Compensation: Financial remuneration provided (CARFAC rate of $367 per performer)

We welcome applications from 2SLGBTQI+ individuals aged 18 and above, of all abilities, who have a connection to movement, whether through sport, dance, performance, or personal practice. Rehearsals will be held at AWE in the week leading up to the performance. Dates and times will be coordinated with selected performers.

MORE INFORMATION & TO APPLY

6. PERFORMANCE GAYLORD | SUMMERWORKS
   DATE AUGUST 6 & 10, 2025
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE SUMMERWORKS

GAYLORD by Johnnie McNamara Walker
The Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance, Toronto

Wed Aug 6, 7:00pm
Sun Aug 10, 8:30pm

Co-presented with Citadel + Compagnie
Performers: Johnnie McNamara Walker with Brandon Ash-Mohammed, Aldrin Bundoc, Joshua Browne, Keith Cole, Graham Conway, Margo MacDonald, and Sebastian Marziali

Will Munro changed Toronto forever with his iconic Vazaleen parties, his beloved Queer bar The Beaver, and his infamous underwear-based art. Writer-performer Johnnie McNamara Walker presents a new play-in-development inspired by the legendary figure: GAYLORD is a love letter (and a séance) for a just-out-of-reach moment in our city’s past.

Entering its 35th year, SummerWorks Performance Festival returns with a landmark season of bold performance, intimate creative experiences, and daring artistic interventions exploring time – personal and collective, real and imagined. From August 7–17, 2025, artists and audiences will gather across Toronto for 11 days of theatre, dance, music, and live art in theatres, in public parks, in galleries, at transit hubs, and in the spaces between.

MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS

7. EVENT SUMMERWORKS 2025
   DATE AUGUST 7–17, 2025
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE SUMMERWORKS

SummerWorks Performance Festival 2025
Back to the Future | Forward to the Past

August 7–17, 2025
Across Toronto

Marking 35 years of radical artistry, experimentation, and creative collaboration!

Entering its 35th year, SummerWorks Performance Festival returns with a landmark season of bold performance, intimate creative experiences, and daring artistic interventions exploring time – personal and collective, real and imagined. From August 7–17, 2025, artists and audiences will gather across Toronto for 11 days of theatre, dance, music, and live art in theatres, in public parks, in galleries, at transit hubs, and in the spaces between.

This year’s Festival theme, Back to the Future | Forward to the Past invites reflection, imagination, and disruption with bold creative expressions that dive deep into temporality, exploring and questioning the past, present, and future, with a gentle curiosity and a critical ferocity. Inspired by the words of Dr. Elder Duke Redbird, and curated by Artistic Director Michael Caldwell, the 2025 edition features works that dive into our memories, our legacies, our bodies, and our relationship to time.

With 35+ projects and over 200 artists, SummerWorks 2025 is a space to gather in curiosity, conversation, and complexity – to mark the past, anchor in the present, and move collectively into imagined futures. Uncover your next magical experience at the 2025 Festival!

TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

8. EVENT CONVERGENCE: A BORDERLESS ROMANCE 2025
   DATE AUGUST 8–10, 2025
   LOCATION NORTH TIPPERARY, IRELAND
   SOURCE DEEJ FABYC

Live Art Ireland, in partnership with p(art)y Here and Now, is proud to announce CONVERGENCE: A BORDERLESS ROMANCE 2025, a ground-breaking three-day festival taking place from August 8–10, 2025.

This is our 3rd Convergence Festival since 2022, and it takes place biennially. This extraordinary celebration represents an art and music festival like no other, bringing together the latest in live art practice with local and national musicians, complemented by an extensive range of workshops designed to foster creative exploration and cultural dialogue.

At its heart, CONVERGENCE embodies the concept of “A Borderless Romance” – a passionate love affair between artistic disciplines, cultures, and creative voices that transcends geographical, stylistic, and conceptual boundaries. This romance speaks to the intimate connections formed when artists from different backgrounds come together to create something entirely new.

CONVERGENCE 2025 aims to celebrate and promote diverse artistic talents from around the world, serving as a vital platform for artists to showcase their innovative works and foster meaningful cross-cultural exchange. Curated by Deej Fabyc and Rachel Macmanus, the festival’s curatorial vision represents artistic excellence from various corners of the globe, creating a truly borderless creative experience. The festival’s unique approach combines cutting-edge live art performance with musical collaborations, creating an immersive environment where traditional boundaries between art forms dissolve. Attendees will experience a carefully curated line-up that showcases the very best in contemporary performance art, sound art, and experimental music.

FEATURING
Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens
Sandra Johnston
Denys Blacker
Maja Zeco
Katharine Meynell
Monstera Deliciosa
Fergus Byrne
Paul Regan
Shirani Bolle
Marianne Araujo Marcote
Juliette Murphy
Marie-Chantal Hamrock
Renn Miano
AND MUCH MORE

Live Art Ireland is dedicated to the development, promotion, and support of live art practice in Ireland. The organization provides vital resources for artists working in performance, time-based, and interdisciplinary arts, fostering innovation and excellence in contemporary artistic practice.

MORE INFORMATION, PROGRAM, TICKETS, WHERE TO STAY

9. EVENT SITE PUBLIC PROGRAMMING WITH KATE WONG
   DATE AUGUST 9, 2025
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE MERCER UNION

SITE Toronto
Kate Wong

July 12–September 20, 2025
Mercer Union, Toronto

Organized under the groundwork program, Mercer Union invites curator Kate Wong to develop SITE Toronto, an ongoing research and co-creation project focused on understanding how art institutions can more meaningfully respond to the social, economic, and political realities of our time.

PUBLIC PROGRAMMING
I. Why are Toronto’s Arts Institutions in Crisis?
Saturday, 9 August 2025, 2pm

This session opens with a conversation between Kate Wong and Mercer Union on how legacy models for arts institutions are misaligned with the needs of artists, communities, and publics in Toronto. Wong argues that institutional frameworks inherited from other times and places have become exclusionary, and that exclusion has material consequences. The talk will lead into a participatory forum where attendees are invited to share their experiences of arts institutions in Toronto—what’s working, what’s broken, and what’s missing—and discuss the value of art and culture within society more broadly. Participants are asked to prepare at least one response to the question: why are Toronto’s arts institutions in crisis?

All SITE Toronto events are free, with registration capped at 40 participants. Each builds on the last, so attendees are encouraged to take part in all three. This session runs for 2.5 hours and includes a 30-minute break to stretch and refuel. Refreshments will be provided.

This program will be followed by two subsequent events:
II. What Alternative Funding Models are Possible?
III. What Kind of Arts Institution Does Toronto Need in the 21st Century?

MORE INFORMATION & TO REGISTER

10. EVENT LEGS
    DATE AUGUST 9, 2025
    LOCATION QUÉBEC CITY, CANADA
    SOURCE STVN GIRARD

LEGS
August 9 | 12PM–8PM

Le Lieu, centre en art actuel
345 rue du Pont, Québec City

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
1. stvn girard
2. Carol-Ann Belzil-Normand
3. Robie Schuler
4. Laurence Beaudoin Morin & Johann Schlager
5. Stéphanie Nuckle
6. Kloé Montreuil
7. Guillaume Dufour Morin
8. virginie fauve
9. Thomas Duret
10. Laurence Gravel
11. Fannie L’Heureux
12. Mathieu P. Lapierre
13. les nelly roussy
14. Calum Eccleston
15. Roger Langevin
16. Maria Nanu
17. Gauthier Kriaâ
18. lo bil
19. Élyse St-Amour
20. Laetitia de Coninck
21. Maxime Sauvage
22. Nancy Benoit
23. Tatiana Koroleva
24. Aden Laflamme
25. Ileana Hernandez Camacho
26. Marie-Claude Gendron & Rosalie Chrétien
27. Félix Chartré-Lefebvre
28. Camille Cléant
29. Marguerite Arbour
30. Mariana Marcassa
31. Najoua Bennani
32. Camille Duchaine
33. Fernando Belote
34. Marika Chartrand-Ly
35. Nadège Grebmeier Forget
36. Lé
37. Renata Paciullo Ribeiro
38. Audrey Laflamme
39. Alexandra Alary
40. Kristel Tremblay
41. Alegría Gobeil
42. Danny Gaudreault
43. Katherine-Josée Gervais
44. Carolann Rancourt
45. Yan St-Onge
46. Caroline St-Laurent
47. Les amateurices (Hugo Nadeau & Julie Isabelle Laurin)
48. Victor Gagnon & Nova-Katarina Gubash
49. Vincent Lacasse
50. steph provost
51. Laurie St-Onge Dostie
52. Rhys Buhl
53. Mai Bach Ngoc Nguyen
54. Loie Enfuite
55. Diane-Andrée Bouchard
56. Simon Tremblay
57. Michelle Lacombe
58. Échappe La Pas (Coralie & Chloé)
59. Alice Pellerin
60. Phile Després
61. Morgan Allan Ouellet
62. Sébastien Goyette Cournoyer
63. Juan David Molina Velasco

LEGS is a series of relay performance events originally initiated by the performance art community in Montréal and since 2015 has been carried by various performance art communities around the world.

LEGS is characterized by a questioning of curatorial and institutional financial models to allow for greater freedom of action and deployment. The first iteration of LEGS was presented in Montréal on February 7, 2015, at Le Cercle Carré. The score and format of the event was initially imagined by an informal collective of artists (including Christian Bujold, Michelle Lacombe, Marie-Claude Gendron, Nadège Grebmeier Forget, Katherine-Josée Gervais and Jean-Philippe Luckurst-Cartier) and was created with the intention of activating and making-visible the often fragmented local performance art community.

It is a durational, independent and flexible performance event open to everyone, regardless of level of experience and artistic approach. Participating artists are suggested by other participating artists, snowballing a self-organizing event that is disinterested in traditional curation. Each LEGS event is a minimum of 7 hours and a maximum of 9 hours long; the durational for each work is decided by dividing the total chosen time with the number of participating artists in order to realize a continuous performance relay without pause. The order of the performances is arbitrary.

MORE INFORMATION

11. PERFORMANCE THE CHAINS BY EVAN WEBBER | SUMMERWORKS
    DATE AUGUST 12–13, 15–17, 2025
    LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
    SOURCE SUMMERWORKS

The Chains by Public Recordings
Trinity St Paul’s Centre, Toronto

Tue Aug 12, 6:00 PM
Wed Aug 13, 4:00 PM
Fri Aug 15, 7:00 PM
Sat Aug 16, 11:00 AM
Sun Aug 17, 2:00 PM

The Chains is a play written in the second-person singular—a performance in the shape of a personality test. Its questions survey three teenagers in Toronto at the opening of the 21st century: love, despair, the ethics of violence, Sophocles’s Antigone, Mike Harris’s “Common-Sense Revolution,” and the great lacuna of the War on Terror. As a member of the audience, you are a test-taker: you read the multiple-choice questions, circle the answers that are most correct, and then find out which character you are. The questions are all about you, so answering is easy—assuming, that is, that you know who you are, what you believe, and what makes different from everyone else.

Writing & Performance: Evan Webber, in collaboration with Ame Henderson, Fan Wu
Stage Design: Sherri Hay
Graphic Design: Jeremy McCormick
Sound: Matt Smith
Production Management: Dylan Tate-Howarth
Production: Evan Webber and Public Recordings

Entering its 35th year, SummerWorks Performance Festival returns with a landmark season of bold performance, intimate creative experiences, and daring artistic interventions exploring time – personal and collective, real and imagined. From August 7–17, 2025, artists and audiences will gather across Toronto for 11 days of theatre, dance, music, and live art in theatres, in public parks, in galleries, at transit hubs, and in the spaces between.

MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS

12. CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS DANCEMAKERS | DANCE CURATORS
    DEADLINE DATE AUGUST 15, 2025
    LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
    SOURCE DANCEMAKERS

Interested in Curating a project with Dancemakers?
Apply to be a Guest Curator for our 2025–2026 Programming Season!

Dance Curators are encouraged to ‘dream projects into being’ that may not be programmed in traditional performance venues, companies or festivals.

Priorities include: Site-specific projects in specific locations/settings, projects that engage with and integrate communities/audiences and projects that deeply consider the curatorial context of the work and projects that engage with a range of dance forms and traditions.

Dance Curators play a vital role in responding to larger contextual realities and urgent needs related to dance and presenting dance in Canada. We are explicitly looking to support various dance forms, performances that engage with land, social issues and that centre BIPOC voices. We are interested in curatorial projects that are clearly able to answer, ‘why this now’? Each Curator will be expected to engage with audiences through a full production or a work-in-progress showing along with discussions, workshops, participatory events, community-building and/or other porous approaches that includes community interaction.

MORE INFORMATION

13. EVENT INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM THEATRE FESTIVAL
    DATE AUGUST 15–19, 2025
    LOCATION NARVA, ESTONIA
    SOURCE LIISA LIKSOR

From August 15 to 19, 2025, the third edition of the International Freedom Theatre Festival will take place in Narva (Estonia), amplifying the voices of creators from different countries who, despite restrictions on their freedom of speech or artistic expression, dare to explore the theme of freedom through their work.

This year’s program features performances from nearly ten countries, including Estonia, Ukraine, Chile, Pakistan, Turkey, Georgia, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. The festival focuses on themes of power, memory, and identity. Several productions are based on documentary material. The program has been curated from nearly one hundred submissions.

Narva is the ideal location for an international festival with this thematic focus. Situated at the crossroads of two civilizations, it is, on one hand, the last city of the free world — and on the other, the first. The festival programme is shaping up to be diverse, engaging, and full of exciting content — including performances, talks, and networking opportunities. We are working hard to bring together artists and experts from across the region and beyond, with new elements still being added to enrich the experience.

MORE INFORMATION

14. CALL FOR INTEREST CURATING THE VILLAGE
    DATE AUGUST 15, 2025
    LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
    SOURCE SHALON WEBBER-HEFFERNAN

Call for Interest: Curating the Village

Curating the Village is a small pilot project led by Shalon T. Webber-Heffernan, supported by Balancing Act Canada and MOTHRA: Artist-Parent Project through the Level UP! initiative.

From September 2025 to March 2026, participants will meet as a kind of study group to explore questions such as: What might it mean to curate with children, not around them? And what models of working could emerge if we started from lived entanglements, rather than separation and compartmentalization? Sessions will be relaxed, flexible, and child-inclusive. Modest honoraria, childcare, and access support will be included. Outcomes may include zines, conceptual sketches, or tools for future intergenerational exhibitions.

Interested? Send a note of interest to Shalon by August 15 to shalonwh@gmail.com

15. EVENT SILT: FRESHWATER
    DATE AUGUST 25 & 26, 2025
    LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
    SOURCE CHRISTOPHER PETERSEN

Silt: Freshwater, an evening of performance.

August 25 & 26, 2025
7:00PM
Gerrard Art Space, 1475 Gerrard St East, Toronto

FEATURING
Arte Flamenco
raniyafarahballerina
Ankita Alemona, Aaloka Mehndiratta & Justin Pitters
Tania D’Amico
DEPT OF LOSS

MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS

16. PERFORMANCE FINDING BALANCE BY LEENA RAUDVEE
    DATE AUGUST 27, 2025
    LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
    SOURCE LEENA RAUDVEE

Finding Balance, a residency by Leena Raudvee

Residency: August 8–31, 2025
Public Event: Wednesday August 27, from 4–6:30pm
Doors open for viewing and conversation: Friday, August 29
Location: Tangled Art+Disability Gallery, 401 Richmond St. W., Suite 122, Toronto

Finding Balance, a residency by Leena Raudvee at Tangled Art+Disability, concludes with performance event on August 27 and an opportunity for viewing and conversation on August 29.

Continuing from her past work, this residency will focus on Raudvee’s physically disabling body. In Finding Balance, Raudvee will explore some of the vulnerable gestures, difficult for her, of asking for and negotiating help from others for two simple tasks that she can no longer do alone: walk without falling and draw. To walk without falling is a central part of her everyday life, affecting every decision she makes, every step that she takes. Drawing is a practice she uses to document and transform the memories of her moving body.

Artists and researchers Lo Bil and Jose Miguel ‘Miggy’ Esteban will join the artist at times. Together they will set up contracts that will address mutual respect and interdependence and how (self)-care, risk, responsibility and empowerment relate when one is disabled. Artist, film maker and past collaborator, Alexandra Gelis, will join them with her image and sound magic, to weave into the residency another layer of documentation. Together they will explore and create within the Finding Balance residency at Tangled Art+Disability Gallery.

MORE INFORMATION & ACCESSIBILITY INFO

17. CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS PERFORMANCE RESEARCH ON DESCRIPTION
    DEADLINE DATE SEPTEMBER 3, 2025
    LOCATION THE WORLD
    SOURCE PERFORMANCE RESEARCH

Performance Research Volume 31, Issue 4 – On Description
Deadline: September 3, 2025

Issue Editors: Helena Grehan & Caroline Wake

If the history of performance is punctuated by description, then so too is the history of performance studies. The field understands description not only as an object of study but also as a method: a mode of attention and apprehension. Indeed, it is perhaps the method most central to the field, so naturalized, accepted and taken for granted that it merits no separate entry in the most recent book on methods (Davis and Rae 2024), though it is mentioned in reference to actor-network theory, affect theory, content analysis, material and object theory, reception theory and speech-act theory (Davis 2024: 16–25) and later fieldwork (Tinius 2024: 191). Unlike scholars in, say, literary studies, those in performance studies can never assume that their readers have – or had – access to the same text: for even if we read the same play, we did not necessarily see the same production; even if we saw the same production, we did not necessarily see the same performance; and in some modes, such as immersive theatre, even if we saw the same performance, we did not see the same scenes; and even if we saw the same scenes, we would describe what we saw differently. Description is thus a methodological necessity, which can be foregrounded or backgrounded but rarely avoided, as scholars in other fields might claim to do.

[Read the full call for submissions text on the Performance Research website.]

Submissions are invited on (but not limited to) the following themes:
Printed descriptions, such as stage directions
Performed description, such as diegetic speech and reported action and its problems and possibilities
Pre-emptive descriptions, such as publicity blurbs, content warnings, social stories and trailers, and how they influence the audience’s horizon of expectations
Contemporaneous descriptions, such as audio descriptions, and their impact on the audience experience
Retrospective description, including types of criticism
The role of figures such as messengers, envoys, reporters and witnesses
The functioning and importance of modes of audio theatre and performance
Descriptions that produce mental images in the mind’s eye and, conversely, audiences with aphantasia or the inability to visualize mental images
Theatre and performance databases, data models, and metadata as description
Archival practice and reparative descriptions within theatre and performance
Famous or infamous descriptions and their significance
Description as method, whether as part of fieldwork or as central to a work
Pedagogies of description and how these change over time and location

Schedule:
Proposals: 3 September 2025
Outcomes: October 2025
First drafts: January 2026
Final drafts: January 2027

MORE INFORMATION & SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

18. FOR RESEARCH LUNDER INSTITUTE SUMMER THINK TANK
    DATE NOW
    LOCATION ONLINE
    SOURCE LAUDER INSTITUTE

Through its Summer Think Tank, launched in 2023, the Lunder Institute has worked to move the field of American art and its practitioners toward an inclusive representation of American art and the complex experiences and histories it reflects. The Summer Think Tank builds on the Lunder Institute’s track record of convening artists and scholars to instigate new thinking and practice in the field. This conversation-based program raises pressing questions in the field of American art with the aim of advancing new ideas, methodologies, and relationships.

As an incubator for research and practice, the Summer Think Tank provides a platform for fostering, documenting, and sharing knowledge. The conversations are not open to the general public, but each discussion is recorded and preserved in our audio archive for researchers to access.

For its third iteration, the 2025 Summer Think Tank explores the role of performance art within our understanding and stewardship of American art at large. Taking a wide view of our contemporary arts ecology, the think tank invites participants to contemplate performance in relation to practices of archiving, documentation, exhibition making, collecting, and pedagogy as they take place within the museums, universities, galleries, and other alternative spaces.

Six of the leading curators, artists, and scholars working in performance have been invited to serve as guest curators. Each curator is assigned a week of the think tank and is responsible for assembling a cohort of interlocutors and cultivating a specific prompt or question to guide their conversations. All of the conversations that unfold during the think tank are recorded and eventually published as part of our audio archive, which will be launched this spring.

MORE INFORMATION