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Session #9_Preparing for a Mock Assessment

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Endurance Art and Durational Performance

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Endurance Art and Durational Performance

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Performance art, Live art, Action Art, Body Art...

Books on Performance Art (short list - see literature section below for more)

Aravena, Christin ,Henaro, Sol, Moreno, Alejandra, Smith, Brian - Action art in Mexico

Forte, Jeanie - Focus on the Body: Pain, Praxix and Pleasure in Feminist Performance Art

Goldberg, Roselee - Performance Art: From futurism to the Present

Heathfield, Adrian - Live Art and Performance

Howell, Anthony

Jones, Amelia - Body Art / Performing the Subject

La Ribot, Maria - Art and Performance Live: La Ribot

Wark, Jayne - Radical Gestures: Feminism and Performance in North America

History of Performance Art
I have cobbled together a long / brief history of performance art h ere.
Why is this site interested in performance art worldwide?

As an open and experiential form, performance art is highly adaptable to cultural, political, and inter-sectional issues. Looking at how artists in different corners of the globe are approaching and adapting the form explores the boundaries of performance / live art. While performance art as specific form is relatively recent, art that engages, protests, and stretches the limits of what is acceptable in society is as old as civilization. How the live art form compliments and feeds these older traditions creates opportunities for distinct cultural expression in a form that is becoming global. This study also opens up new avenues of exploration for performance artists struggling to expand their voice.

Defining what performance is is slippery. Amelia Jones explains that "Body art and performance art have been defined as constitutive of postmodernism because of their fundamental subversion of modernism's assumption that fixed meanings are determinable through the formal structure of the work alone."

Live Art Development Agency says 'Rather than a description of an artform or discipline, Live Art is a way of thinking about what art is, what it can do, and where and how it can be experienced. Some may experience Live Art in a gallery, others in a theatre, and others still in forests or town squares, or as a process in which they are involved.'

Got it?

OK, Performance art has a basis in body-as-medium and from there deals with site, time and audience interaction. It can be based in visual arts, dance, theater, music/sound art/ installation, film, writing, activism - basically any and all art forms. Often there is a mix of forms.

One thing that this form has in common with conceptual art is the lack of commodification - that is, there is nothing to sell. The structure and even the meaning of the art may be hard to formulate (challenging the assumption that "fixed meanings are determinable through the formal structure of the work alone)", but the experience of the art is key to the form.

While some see action art / live art / action art as the same, not everyone agrees and there are reasons for differentiating these words (and also for not). In non-english speaking countries the terms action art or live art tend to be used more than the term performance art. This may because of meanings in other languages, or because of evolution of performance art or even because it may resist the colonization of the art that is being produced in those area.

From LADA: 'Live Art is influenced by late 20th century Performance Art, where visual artists, in a rejection of objects and markets, turned to their body as the site and material of their practice, and by multiple generations of artists who broke the traditions and expectations of theatre and dance.

Now, it incorporates a huge range of practitioners, from those working at the edges of theatre, dance, film and video, to performance writing, socio-political activism and the new languages of the digital age.

For many artists, Live Art is a generative force. It wants to shock, to destroy pretense, create sensory immersion, break apart traditions of representation, and open different kinds of engagement or interaction.

For others, Live Art can be a means of connecting people, places and ideas, becoming a form of community building and cultural empowerment.'

In this case, the definition of live art and action art could be said to be the same, while looking at performance art as a precursor to where the field is now. I would argue that it is also separating from the European roots of performance art, allowing non-European artists the room to decolonize their art process and work.

I may disagree with the notion that it was only visual artists who "turned to their bodies as site and material". My history has been from dance where as of the mid 20th century, artists like Anna Halprin, John Cage, Kei Takei, Kazuo Ohno, and Growtowski (dance, music, dance, dance, and theater respectively) were all breaking these barriers of form and material. We do hear a lot about the visual artists but there was much cross pollination through the arts.

The reasons and impetus behind performance artists around world is driven by a multitude of different forces, influences and circumstances which result in a regional and local approach to how this form is implemented. At the same time, the globalization of knowledge also creates a connection across the globe.

Questions to ponder as this form is studied-

What does Action art/ Performance Art/ Live Art address that attracts artists to it?

What underlying similarities run through this form around the world?

What personal/regional/genre differences run through this form around the world?

Literature (a not comprehensive list)

Aravena, Christin ,Henaro, Sol, Moreno, Alejandra, Smith, Brian - Action art in Mexico

Barber: The Function of Performance in Post Modern Culture

Belting, Hans, Buddenseig, Andrea, Weibel, Peter ed.: The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds

Besacier, Hubert: Cinc ans D"Art Performance Lyon - Five years of performance art in Lyon 1979-1983

Blocker, Jane: Where Is Ana Mendieta: Identity, Performativity and Exile (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999), 24

Bourriaud, Nicholas: Relational Aesthetics

Brady, Sara: Performance, Politics, and the War on Terror: 'Whatever it Takes' (Performance Interventions) 2012th Edition

Broms, Gustaf: 9Questions, an artist project by Gustaf Broms

Bruguera, Tania: Vigilantes: The dream of Reason

Bueys, Joseph: Image of Humanity

Butler, Judith: Performative Arts and Gender Constitution

Calirman, Claudia: Brazilian Performance Art, 1960s to 1980s: An Aesthetics of the Margins

Calirman, Claudia: Case Study: Antonio Manuel's Body Art and Media Appropriation

Cianetti, Alessandra: Performing Borders - A study room guide on physical and conceptual borders within Live Art

Couillard, Paul: From Ironic to Iconic: The Performance Works of Tanya Mars (2009)

Couillard, Paul: La Dragu: The living Art of Margaret Dragu (2002)

Couillard, Paul and Liva, Alexandra: Alain-Martin Richard: Performances, Manoeuvres and Other Hypotheses for Disappearing (2014)

Finley, Karen: Constant State of Desire

Forte, Jeanie: Focus on the Body: Pain, Praxix and Pleasure in Feminist Performance Art

Fusco, Coco: The Other history of Intercultural Performance

Gilroy, Paul: The Negative Dialectics of Conviviality

Goldberg, Roselee: Performance Art: From futurism to the Present

Gomez-Peña, Guillermo: Ethno Techno

Graver, David: Violent Theatricality: Displayed Enactments of Agression and Pain

Gray, John. Action Art: A Bibliography of Artists' Performance from Futurism to Fluxus and Beyond. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993.

Gubord, Guy: Theory of the Dérive

Heathfield, Adrian: Live Art and Performance

Hincapie, Maria Teresa: Accion, Corporeidad y el Dominio de lo Feminino en Columbia

Howell, Anthony: Being Clothes: The Analysis of Performance Art

Huxley, Michael, and Noel Witts, eds. The Twentieth Century Performance Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.

Irwin, ed. East Art Map: Contemporary Art and Eastern Europe. London: Afterall, 2006.

Jakovjevic, Branislav: Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-91

Jones, Amelia: Body Art / Performing the Subject

Jones, Amelia: Pollackian Performative

Kaprow, Alan: Happenings in the New York Scene

Kaye, Nick: Site-Specific Art Performance Place Documentation

KAJIYA Kenji: Japanese Art Projects in History

KuroDalaiJee or Kuroda Raiji: Video Screening of Performance Art in the 1960s Ja pan

Krauss, Rosalind: he Originally of the Avant-Garede and Other Moderist Myths, MIT press 1986

Kwok Kian Chow: Channels and Confluences - A History of Singapore Art, Singapore Art Museum 1996

Kwon, Miwon: One Place After Another: Notes on Site Specificity Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art pp38-63 University of Minnesota Press

Kwon, Miwon: Genealogy of Site-Specificity

La Ribot, Maria: Art and Performance Live: La Ribot

Lamarque, Peter, Stein Haugom Olsen: Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition: and Anthology, Blackwell, 2004

Langenbach, Ray: Performing the Singapore State 1988-1995 PhD Thesis Center for Cultural Research University of Sydney aug 2003

Lasch, Christopher: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Dinimishing Expectations, W.W. Norton London 1991

Lee Wen: A Waking Dream drawings and poetry 1981 Select Books, Singapore

Lee Wen: The Future of Imagination 3, Catalog, Singapore 2006

Lee Weng Choy: Chronology of a Controversy and A Review of Joseph Ng's Performance edited S.K. Sanjay Krishnan 1996

Lee Weng Choy, Ansar Sadali: Lim Tzay Chuen Makes a Proposition Broadsheet Vol. 33 No. 2 2004 p 33-34

Lippard ,Lucy: Six Years: The dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972 (ny Praeger 1973)

Marcal, Helia, Matos de Oliveira, Fernando, Barques, Bruno, Mourao, Rui, PINA, Osnia, Carmo, Alexandra: Portuguese Performance art: Special Issue

Maretti, Franco: Dialectic of Fear, New Left Review 136 (Nov. Dec>) p 67-85 1982

Martel, Richard ed: Art Action 1958-1998 Quebec 2001

Mbembe, Achille: On the postcolony, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001

McLuhan, Marshall: Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Ginko Press, 1964

Mengesha, Lilian: Indigenous Theater

Metello, Verónica: Fr om first Portuguese Performance Art to Transmission MoMA, Varsóvia, 2015

Meyer, Mónica: Mujeres y Performance en México

Meyerhold: The Biomechanics of worker management theory

Miller, Tim: My Queer body

Miller, Tim and Roman, David: Preaching to the Converted

Muñoz, José: Performing Disidentifications

Munroe, Alexandra: Japanese Art after 1945: Scream Against the Sky, Harry n Abrams NY 1994

O"Donnell, Darren: Social Acupuncture

Petrešin-Bachelez, Nataša: Resilient Practices: A Few Case St udies on Performances in Public Spaces and their Controversies in the former Eastern Europe

Phelan, Peggy: Ontology of Performance

Pope, William: Sandwich Lecture

Ramirez, Mari Carmen, and Héctor Olea, eds. Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.

Sandoval, Rosemberg: artist catalog 2004, Bogota

Schneider, Rebecca: Explicit Body in Performance

Shanken, Edward A., ed. Art and Electronic Media. London and New York: Phaidon, 2009.

Smith and Sawchyn: Fluxus Performance Workbook

Somaya, Sandra: Primer Encuentro Mundial de Arte Corporal (caracas: Ministerio de la Cultura 2006)

Stiles, Kristine: Performance Art

Stiles, Kristine, and Peter Selz, eds. Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings. Rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.

Wagner, Anne: Performance, Video, and the Thetoric of Presence

Wark, Jayne: On the Road Again: Metaphors of Travel in Cultural Criticism in Resident Alien: Feminst Cultural Criticism Cambridge 1995

Wrights and Sites: A manifesto for a new Walking Culture

Wu Hung, and Peggy Wang, eds. Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010.

Resources (completely not comprehensive)

Performance Art Festivals and Presenters

Artists at Risk Resources

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What is Performance Art / Live Art / Action Art? - Performance Art Resources

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Books on Performance Art (short list - see literature section below for more) Aravena, Christin ,Henaro, Sol, Moreno, Alejandra, Smith, Brian - Action art in Mexico Forte, Jeanie - Focus on the Body: Pain, Praxix and Pleasure in Feminist Performance Art Goldberg, Roselee - Performance Art: From futurism to the

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Tehching Hsieh, photographed in New York on July 29, 2020. Credit... Amiko Li

In a time of crisis with no end in sight, durational performance, or endurance art, surfaces in our consciousness. Is this the art of our age?

Tehching Hsieh, photographed in New York on July 29, 2020. Credit... Amiko Li

On the last day of September in 1978 - as the New York City newspaper strike dragged into its second month, Exile's "Kiss You All Over" became the No. 1 song in America and Andy Warhol attended a screening of Jack Nicholson's new western, "Goin' South" - a then 27-year-old unknown artist named Tehching Hsieh began one of the century's most harrowing art pieces.

Hsieh had constructed an 11.5-by-9-by-8-foot wooden cage in his studio in Manhattan's TriBeCa neighborhood, and that day he locked himself inside, vowing that he would remain there for one year. He would do pretty much nothing: not read, write, talk or otherwise engage himself in any activities. A friend, the photographer Cheng Wei Kuong, started regularly delivering food, photographing him and disposing of his waste bag. One year later, on Sept. 29, 1979, Hsieh stepped out of his cage. Just over six months after that, he began the second of what would be five such works, each titled "One Year Performance." This time he punched a clock in his studio at the top of every hour. "It was like being in limbo, just waiting for the next punch," he told The Guardian in 2014.

The curatorial term for Hsieh's work is "durational performance" or "endurance art," which is about, and frequently involves, sustaining something - be it life, thought or action - for a long, long while. Another way to think of it is as waiting art: work that addresses what it means to live with uncertainty and to keep going, often with no clear end in sight.

Hsieh is a pioneer of this medium. "To me, he's a master," the artist Marina Abramovic, another practitioner of long-length performance, said by phone from upstate New York in early May. "I am just a little student of him." For her 2010 piece " The Artist Is Present," which she performed at her Museum of Modern Art retrospective of the same name, Abramovic spent nearly three months sitting on a wooden chair inside the museum for eight or 10 hours a day. People lined up to sit across from her, including Hsieh himself. "Three months - it's nothing next to one year," Abramovic said.

Marina Abramovic, left, in the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art during her 2010 performance piece "The Artist Is Present." Credit... Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

In late March, two weeks into New York's coronavirus lockdown, I emailed Hsieh to see what he made of the situation and how he was spending his time. "Right now, most of us have to be self-isolated in our own cage in order to survive," he replied. He declined to detail his own experience. "I'm sure everyone has their own way to pass time," he said, explaining that his "work is about passing time, rather than how to pass time."

But when I later proposed meeting up for an interview, he agreed. And so, early one morning in May, I met Hsieh near a towering apartment complex, across the street from the cozy cafe and Asian-food store that he and his ex-wife, Qinqin Li, run in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. Hsieh, who is 69 and spry, is retired from art, though since the line between his work and his life was always so thin, there is a feeling that his store is both a nice neighborhood shop and an extended performance, a feeling that was compounded when I saw Ai Weiwei there awhile back, chatting with his old friend and former landlord.

Hsieh, who grew up and painted in Taiwan, had been in the United States illegally for four years when he locked himself in his cage. He had slipped away from the oil tanker he was working on when it was docked near Philadelphia and went by car to New York. He started working as a dishwasher. He wasn't making art objects, but he was doing a lot of thinking. From a certain perspective, he was wasting time. However, he realized he could make that the core of his practice. By undertaking a project that encompassed his whole life, he told me, "if I'm wasting time in art time, I'm working hard 24 hours."

Having to punch the clock every 60 minutes for his second "One Year Performance" meant confining himself within a roughly one-mile radius of his home so that he could make it back in time to perform this task. It's strange to think of Hsieh's work as relatable, but the pandemic made that the case, making New York - and many other cities - smaller in so many ways, keeping people within the few blocks around their apartment and turning borough crossings into complicated journeys. This kind of smallness led to unforeseen problems during Hsieh's performance. He'd be visiting a dentist in nearby Chinatown or attending a party, notice the time, and have to sprint back to his studio on his bike. Waking up every hour meant he also had to give up deep sleep. (Miraculously, he missed only about 1.5 percent of his hourly check-ins.)

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Hsieh in the wooden cage he constructed for his first "One Year Performance," begun in 1978. Credit... Photo by Cheng Wei Kuong © Tehching Hsieh, courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York

"It's not: Try to make it more difficult," he said of the works. "I tried to make it more clear." He wanted to pass time, to live inside of it. "Already, life, for everybody, it's not easy," he said. He hopped up and held his finger aloft. "One nail, right? If your body touched that, it'd be very painful." He glided his hand along the stone beneath him. "But if this is like a bed, a nail bed, I lay down, then you don't feel much pressure. You can stay longer. My work is more like a nail bed in that way."

It's no wonder that art about waiting seems to emerge in periods of trauma and crisis, whether personal or societal. At the very least, it becomes newly resonant at such times. And we have all been doing a lot of waiting these past months - for businesses and public spaces to reopen, for daily infections and death rates to tick downward, for an unemployment check to arrive, for a vaccine to be developed, for the opportunity to touch each other again.

Performance that focused on endurance first emerged as a dominant style in contemporary art in the late 1960s and early '70s, during the ascendancy of both Pop's sleek cynicism and the cerebral, deadpan humor of conceptual art. Durational art was a coalescing of radical protest, gaudy showmanship and absurdist action. One of the great early examples of the genre happened in 1974, when the Vietnam War was in its dark last days. It was then that the German artist - a former Luftwaffe pilot and pacifist - Joseph Beuys landed in New York from Düsseldorf, was wrapped in felt and taken by ambulance and then a stretcher into a SoHo gallery for his work " I Like America and America Likes Me." He spent three days, for eight hours a day, locked in a room with a coyote, before returning home by the same means.

Part of the reason waiting is such a powerful artistic practice is because the act itself is so intensely human, how it often involves the artist losing control - of time, of agency - or intentionally giving it up. The slowdowns, delays, closures and unexpected conclusions that transpire invite reflection both about institutional commitments, as well as about what we owe one another. This kind of art is both a confrontation and a provocation. Abramovic has spent nearly half a century in uncomfortable limbo states, in which waiting becomes a matter of extended drama and aching split-second decisions. In a gallery in Naples, Italy, in 1974, for her piece " Rhythm 0, " she stood for six hours in front of a table bearing dozens of items - among them a knife, a feather, a bullet and a gun - and waited for visitors to do what they wanted to her. Some cut off her clothes, but one person loaded the firearm, placed it in the artist's hand and raised it to her head - before another stepped in, pulling it away.

Hsieh clocking in during his work "One Year Performance" (1980-81). Credit... © Tehching Hsieh. Courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. Photo: Michael Shen

The next year, a young artist named Chris Burden decided to lie behind a sheet of glass leaning diagonally against a wall at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago for a work titled " Doomed." The performance would end once someone intervened in the work in some way, though Burden did not tell anyone this was the case. Hours passed, and then a full day, and Burden was still waiting behind his sheet of glass. "On the second night, I thought, 'My God, don't they care anything at all about me?'" Burden told Roger Ebert, who covered the event for The Chicago Sun-Times. "Are they going to leave me here to die?" Finally, after 45 hours, a museum staff member set down a water pitcher next to him, drawing the work to a close.

Although waiting art found a new voice in the '70s, the challenge of waiting - of forcing the audience to look closer, to listen harder - appears in almost every artistic medium throughout history. In Erik Satie's " Vexations" (1893), which usually runs for more than 18 hours, a brief piano score is repeated 840 times. (The German pianist Igor Levit actually performed it via live video from a recording studio in Berlin during the lockdown.) Douglas Gordon's " 24 Hour Psycho" (1993) slows down the 109-minute Hitchcock classic so that it lasts a full day. Leif Inge's " 9 Beet Stretch " (2002) plays Beethoven's Ninth Symphony over that same period, morphing it into a majestic tone poem - pure atmosphere. What are crucifixion scenes if not early examples of waiting art? Jesus hangs on the cross, awaiting death. Believers gaze upon him, anticipating his return. Waiting has been a central theme in Western art since the "Odyssey," in which Penelope demands that her suitors leave her be until she completes a burial shroud for Odysseus' father. She works on it by day and unravels her progress at night, buying herself three years, during which time the suitors sit around her house, waiting (not exactly patiently) for her to finish.

It was Samuel Beckett who, in the wake of World War II, wrote the essential text about the despair of waiting - the 1952 play " Waiting for Godot," in which two men sit among a desolate landscape, expecting someone who never arrives. "He saw the ruins of Europe," the artist Paul Chan, who staged a 2007 production of the play in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, said via Skype from Framingham, Mass., in April. "He lived through it, and he was in the French Resistance. I think he understood on an emotional and intellectual level and maybe even an aesthetic level what it means to cobble together whatever is available to just go on."

When Chan first visited New Orleans the year after the hurricane, the battered streets of the city's Lower Ninth Ward made him think of "Godot." The play had a history of being performed in the South, as the artist soon learned from local theater veterans like the poet Kalamu ya Salaam and the late John O'Neal, a founder of the integrated Free Southern Theater, which moved to New Orleans in 1965. The F.S.T., which was first based out of Tougaloo College in Mississippi in 1963, had made it one of its touchstone pieces when it toured the South in the '60s. "That was old hat," Salaam, a former F.S.T. member, told me of "Godot." Chan's production, for which he partnered with the public arts organization Creative Time and the Classical Theater of Harlem, was staged five times in two heavily damaged neighborhoods of New Orleans in November 2007. Wendell Pierce and J. Kyle Manzay starred. The project also involved local workshops and a fund that aimed to match the show's budget, which was then given toward hurricane recovery efforts. The play shows "the quiet courage, and also the banter that people go through when they wait," Chan said, "and the kind of little things that we do to keep ourselves interested so that we don't think about the oblivion around us."

J. Kyle Manzay, T. Ryder Smith and Wendell Pierce in the artist Paul Chan's "Waiting for Godot in New Orleans" (2007), which featured a staging of Samuel Beckett's 1952 play in the city's Lower Ninth Ward. Credit... Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Creative Time, New York

Another work that emphasizes waiting that feels especially prescient now, when galleries and museums across the world have shut down, is Robert Barry's 1969 conceptual piece " Closed Gallery," in which he asked three galleries to close for different periods of time. For the work, each gallery mailed announcement cards to patrons and press saying that they would be closed during the show. It was an attempt to pause the churn of commerce - pushing off financial (and aesthetic) gratification for a later date and, more philosophically, an inquiry into where, exactly, art functions. As with today's lockdowns, there was wrangling over the rules. The dealers "said, 'Well, can we do some office work in the back?'" Barry has remembered. "And I said: 'Yes, OK. You can go in the back entrance.'" Viewers were turned away, but business continued - partially, remotely.

The frustration that work encouraged speaks to the reality of the past half-year, where there has been, for many of us, nothing to see or experience, but only questions: How will this work? When will it stop? Perhaps even, on a bad day, what's the point? That there are no good answers to these questions is the point. While one is doing it, waiting is the absence of something - of energy, of time, of something to do. Art takes this absence and makes sense of it, keeping us company through the long duration. "We are no longer alone, waiting for the night, waiting for Godot, waiting for ... waiting," as one character pronounces in "Godot" after two other men traipse onto the stage. "All evening we have struggled, unassisted. Now it's over. It's already tomorrow." Alas, it is not over. Neither one of the new arrivals is Godot. But our protagonists will be able to go on for a little while longer. "One very important rule when you do long durational performance," Abramovic said, "is not to think about time. Because when you think about time, you are lost. You're thinking always about the end of the day." That could apply to any of us who are waiting - in quarantine, or just in life.

Eventually, though, the wait ends, one way or another. On Dec. 31, 1999, his 49th birthday, Hsieh finished a 13-year piece that consisted of not showing the art he made during that time. He created a collage with text that reads, "I kept myself alive," which he issued the next day. He has not presented any new work since then, but when I asked if he missed art, he looked puzzled. I had not understood his position. "My work is not like an art-world definition of art," he said. "It's more like what you think about life."

"To me, art and life, it's no difference," he said at one point. The work is in the living.

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Art About Waiting - and What It Takes to Endure

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In a time of crisis with no end in sight, durational performance, or endurance art, surfaces in our consciousness. Is this the art of our age? Tehching Hsieh, photographed in New York on July 29, 2020. Credit...

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All performance takes place over time, but there are works that specifically address time as a part of the art.

Examples of durational art include Chris Burden's Five Day Locker Piece (1971), Tehching Hsieh's One Year Performance 1980-1981 (Time Clock Piece), and Marina Abramović's The House with the Ocean View (2003), where she lived silently for 12 days without food or entertainment. The physical stamina required for some of these works is significant, and artists like Abramović have even created "boot camps" for participants in her multiple-person performances. Durational performances are often challenging both for the artist and the audience, pushing the limits of attention spans and endurance.

Notable durational artists from South America, include Brazilian multimedia artist Paulo Nazareth, who famously traveled on foot from Minas Gerais to New York as part of his decade-long performance art piece . Another Brazilian artist, Laura Lima, has created durational performances such as "Man falls from building", where a performer descends slowly down the facade of a building over the course of several hours. In Chile, artist Bruna Truffa has staged "immersive durational performances" that invite the audience to participate in activities such as cooking or cleaning. Argentine artist Marta Minujín created a 60-hour performance piece in which she and several other artists built a massive "obelisk" out of books that had been banned by the Argentine government. The piece was eventually burned as a statement against censorship. These are just a few examples among many in the thriving contemporary art scenes across South America.

Marilyn Arsem

Chris Burden

André Lepecki

Paolo Nazareth

Jefferson Pinder

Ernesto Pujol

Oupa Sibeko

Tehching Hsieh

Zhang Huan

Bao, Weihong et al., Reflections onDurational Art, Berkeley: University of California Press Books Division

Bretkelly-Chalmers, Kate; Time, Duration and Change in Contemporary Art (Book), Beyond the Clock - ISBN 9781783209194

Brown, Sierra, Discover endurance art

Coogan, Amanda, Deconstructing and re-constructing instances of live durational performance art : yellow-re-performed

Exit Art, Endurance Art, The MIT Press

Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014).

Forte, Jeanie: Focus on the Body: Pain, Praxix and Pleasure in Feminist Performance Art

Layton, James; Bergson and durational performance : (re)ma(r)king time

Lemon, Ralph; Duration

Mueller, Ellen; Elements and Principles of 4D Art and Design

Oliver, Valerie Cassel; "Putting the Black Body on the Line: Endurance in Black Performance" in Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art Catalogue (Houston: Contemporary Art Museum Houston, 2013), 14.

Oliveros, Pauline; Duration

Pagnes, Andrea (VestAndPage); Two Bodies in Space, Durational Performance: The Quest for Authenticity in the VestAndPage Experience

Prasad, Aarathi, Frida Kahlo: endurance and art

Quick, Sophie, Putting in time : long-durational performance art spectatorship

Karen Gonzalez Rice. Long Suffering: American Endurance Art as Prophetic Witness. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016. 206 pp., 15 b/w ills.

Lara Shalson, Performing Endurance: Art and Politics since 1960.

Suk, Jan; Performing Immanence : 5 Durational Performances of Forced Entertainment

Tankha, Akshaya, An Aesthetics of Endurance Art, Visual Culture and Indigenous Presence in Nagaland, India

Tayler, Diana; Trauma as Durational Performance

Truax, Raegan; Durational Performance: Temporalities of the Untimely Body

Wooden, Isaiah Matthew, Jefferson Pinder and the Art of Black Endurance

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Durational and Endurance Performance Art - Performance Art Resources

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All performance takes place over time, but there are works that specifically address time as a part of the art.

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Dear Friends,
Lloyd Newson has retired and consequently,DV8 Physical Theatre has come to an end.

We would like to thank our audiences, friends, presenters, co-commissioners and funders (especially Arts Council England), who have supported DV8's work since 1986. Most importantly we would like to acknowledge our remarkable artists, technical teams, administrative staff and Board members; to whom we will forever be indebted.

DV8's award winning films (Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men, Strange Fish, Enter Achilles and The Cost of Living) are now available via Digital Theatre and Digital Theatre Plus.

DV8's Archive materials from the 1980s onwards are available at the Theatre Collection, University of Bristol.

Collage images include photographs by Anthony Crickmay, Mark Douet, Hugo Glendinning, Peter Jay, Jane Joyce, Eleni Leoussi, Oliver Manzi, Gergoe Nagy, Matt Nettheim, Jimmy Pozarik, Kris Rozental, Jiri Volek and Robert Workman.

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DV8 and the work of Lloyd Newson - information on the current productions, tours and films.

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Such a shame some people felt they needed to start a conversation with others in the space despite this not being part of their original action.

Other notable distractions - people ACTUALLY using their phone in the performance, interacting with others in the space and not focused on the performance, people stopping doing their "thing"

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Some wonderful examples of repetitive movements/sounds played out over the duration of the performance.

Interesting to see how the actions are minimised over the prolonged timeframe and reduced to their smallest amount of their former self.

Sound in the room was really important, and there was a constant soundscape that shaped the performance space.

Reaction to other actions was interesting to watch from everyone, and how external matters outside of your control affected you.

Disappointing number of people chose to show no levels of risk (either mentally or physically) and played their gesture/action/movement. Kudos to those with quite physical actions (Emily, Harry, Ethan, Jay, George, Az, callum) - It will be interesting to know how you felt after the performance ended - Relief? Pain?

Why did few people want to show levels of risk in what they were doing? Are people that scared to push themselves and move out of their comfort zone and see just how far they can take it?

Remember - you chose your own action/movement/"thing" - if you found this boring - This could have changed if you had chosen to do something that interests or excites you more.

Some actions were really well adhered to against the time - having the clock playing out in the corner of the room allowed people to accurately time their "thing" with the clock.

Did actions just become automatic after a long people of time? Did you have to think about doing it, or did it become inherent to do so?

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ronjafeliciaigerudꨄ Ronja Felicia Igerud ꨄ · 2024-10-13

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Constellations - @Jade LeMac 🎶 solo - egen koreografi💋💃🏽 #dancetok #solodance #dance #constellations #music #foryou #koreografi #trend #trendsong

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153.8K likes, 251 comments. “Funny grinch moments🤣 #fyp #foryou #funny #funnymoments #kids #usa #children #viral #fyp:”

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BLACKPINK JUMP water challenge @Ani Tian @blackpinkofficial #blackpink #jump #blackpinkjump #waterchallenge #jumpchallenge

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Callum – very focused, the repetitive movement didn’t faulter and kept the same throughout. You challenged yourself with something physical. If were to do this again maybe adding a vocal factor would enhance the difficulty of the endurance.

Jay – picked a really difficult option, it faltered as time went on but you did stick to it even if it did slow down over time. You did challenge yourself physically. If were to do this again maybe adding a vocal factor would enhance the difficulty of the endurance.

Katie – couldn’t quite see the repetitive movement – could have chosen a more “out there” movement. If we were to do this again I would challenge yourself by choosing something riskier with larger movements to challenge your endurance.

Lily W – from my perspective the pen movement was not repetitive so to my understanding you may have been doing something different. But you stayed focused on the task and was not distracted. If we were to do this again I would challenge yourself by choosing something riskier with larger movements to challenge your endurance.

Lily T – position changed to the initial decision, repetitive motion slightly noticeable but your body language changed throughout. If we were to do this again I would challenge yourself by choosing something riskier with larger movements to challenge your endurance.

Elle – after the 10 min one the repetition had stopped and where no longer focused on the task. Was also on phone for the start of the hour task. If we were to do this again I would challenge yourself by choosing something riskier with larger movements to challenge your endurance and potentially adding an audible effect too.

Jorjie – very good repetition vocally, a hard one to do but kept up with it. Physically though you did relax and move from your original position. If we were to do this again I would challenge yourself by adding maybe a physical movement to the repetition to enhance the challenge of your endurance.

Lauren – you kept in time with the pace of the piece and the repetition of the clap was the same throughout. Your demeaner did change throughout though and I could see though lack of posture towards the end that it was becoming a challenge. If we were to do this again I would challenge yourself by maybe adding an audible aspect to it or maybe something with more risk.

Mono – the motion/sound was not noticeable to us as an audience and did fade during the 10 minute mark. Discussion was had and aid was given but the motion did not continue after this. If we were to do this again I would challenge yourself by maybe adding an audible aspect to it or maybe something with more risk.

Amelia - position changed to the initial decision, repetitive motion slightly noticeable but your body language changed throughout. If we were to do this again I would challenge yourself by choosing something riskier with larger movements to challenge your endurance.

Caitlyn – the motion stayed strong for the 10 second, 1 minute and 10-minute session but faltered on the hour. Your body language changed, and the click became inconsistent. If we were to do this again I would challenge yourself by choosing something riskier with larger movements to challenge your endurance.

Louis – your action was small but could visual be seen through what you where creating on the paper. Body language did change as it went on but concentration did stay. If we where to do this again I would maintain body language established at the start.

Immi – at the start the movement was repetitive and you stuck to it, choosing a different choice to the rest of the group was a good choice too. But when you moved a think you fell asleep. If we where to do this again I wouldn’t fall asleep and choose maybe something more risky.

Emily – picked a really difficult option, it faltered as time went on but you did stick to it even if it did slow down over time. You did challenge yourself physically. If were to do this again maybe adding a vocal factor would enhance the difficulty of the endurance.

Chloe – started off strongly with the repetitive movement but faulted towards he end of the hour. If were to do this again maybe adding a vocal factor would enhance the difficulty of the endurance.

Beth – the movement seemed to stick for the whole time and was in time with the rest of the class. Attention did wander towards the end. If were to do this again maybe adding a vocal factor would enhance the difficulty of the endurance.

George – the movement was risky adding an element of lack of sight enhanced it. Movement stayed repetitive. If were to do this again maybe adding a vocal factor would enhance the difficulty of the endurance.

Kyle – the movement was small but repetitive. If we were to do this again I would challenge yourself by choosing something riskier with larger movements to challenge your endurance.

Ethan - the movement seemed to stick for the whole time and was in time with the rest of the class. Attention did wander towards the end. If were to do this again maybe adding a vocal factor would enhance the difficulty of the endurance.

Az – chse a difficult option with was audible but through the piano. Started off strong but by the end you could see the visible frustration and tiredness. If we where to do this again I would work on maintaining the energy throughout.

Ava -  the movement seemed to stick for the whole time and was in time with the rest of the class. Attention did wander towards the end and posture did change. If were to do this again maybe adding a vocal factor would enhance the difficulty of the endurance.

Kelsey - very good repetition vocally, a hard one to do but kept up with it. Physically though you did relax and move from your original position. If we were to do this again I would challenge yourself by adding maybe a physical movement to the repetition to enhance the challenge of your endurance.

Ace – chose a different aspect and decided to do lighting. The lighting itself was repetitive, but we couldn’t see yourself with and repetitive or endurance aspect. If we where to do this again I would allow yourself to be seen and show your side of the endurance.

Harry – the movement was repetitive however the rhythm did slow throughout. But you did maintain till the end. if we were to do this again maybe adding a vocal factor would enhance the difficulty of the endurance.

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Cabaret Examples - Pure Emotion over Vocal Quality/Clarity

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Cabaret Examples - Pure Emotion over Vocal Quality/Clarity

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Amy Lennox performs 'Cabaret' from Cabaret | Olivier Awards 2022 with Mastercard

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Session #4 Installation and Performance Art v2

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Understanding the Song & Character

1. Who is your character, and what do they want at this moment in the story?

2. How does the song move the character’s journey forward?

3. What is the given circumstance right before the song begins?

4. Why does your character need to sing rather than speak here?

5. What is at stake if your character doesn’t get what they want in this song?

Emotional Connection

6. Which emotions are at the core of this song?

7. Where in the song does the emotional intensity shift or build?

8. How can you connect personally to what the character is feeling?

9. Does the song include moments of vulnerability, power, or both?

Text & Subtext

10. What is your character actually saying (the text)?

11. What is your character really saying beneath the words (the subtext)?

12. How do repetition, pauses, or changes in rhythm affect meaning?

13. Are there hidden thoughts or feelings not spoken but implied?

Musicality & Storytelling

14. How does the melody reflect the character’s state of mind?

15. What musical shifts (key changes, tempo changes, dynamic contrasts) support acting choices?

16. How can phrasing be used to highlight intention and storytelling?

17. Where in the song does your character’s objective change, and how can the music support that?

Physical & Vocal Choices

18. How might your body language reflect the emotional arc of the song?

19. Which vocal colors or dynamics best match the character’s emotions?

20. How can you use breath and silence as part of your acting?

Reflection & Growth

21. How did your acting choices affect the audience’s understanding of the song?

22. What moments felt most truthful in your performance?

23. If you performed this again, what would you refine?

24. How can you make the song feel like spoken thought sung, rather than just a “performance”?

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22.4K likes, 53 comments. “In 1992, Artist Paul Sermon created a digital portal between two separate beds in different locations using 2 way projections for his artwork “Telematic Dreaming”. Viewers would lay on these beds and a livestream of them was projected onto the opposing bed in the other location. They could interact with each other across this live-streamed portal as newly disembodied, projected forms; hence the title “telematic dreaming”. This process was meant to call into question the nature of digital relationships by blurring the line between presence and absence.”

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LIVING ARCHIVE: AI Experiment with WAYNE MCGREGOR | Google Arts & Culture

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Explore thousands of movements from Wayne McGregor's 25-year archive of choreography #LivingArchive @WayneMcGregor @GoogleArts

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Kian’s Bizarre B&B | Official Trailer | Netflix

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Credit goes to Jordan Wilson for this masterpiece. This truly depicts what growing up from a young teen to a mature adult is like for many. Absolutely beautiful. #photography #growingup #time #photos #everyday #aging 

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@taylortitus
Credit goes to Jordan Wilson for this masterpiece. This truly depicts what growing up from a young teen to a mature adult is like for many. Absolutely beautiful. #photography #growingup #time #photos #everyday #aging
♬ Dream Away - Ramol

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TheArtGorgeous - Making the art world accessible

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Artists Who Work Under Extreme Conditions - TheArtGorgeous

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Here are 7 artists who work under extreme, dangerous, or unusual conditions in order to make their artwork.

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World’s first AI minister will eliminate corruption, says Albania’s PM

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Named Diella, the new minister will help Albania “leapfrog” bigger, more advanced countries, says Edi Rama.

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World’s first AI minister will eliminate corruption, says Albania’s PM - BBC News

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Named Diella, the new minister will help Albania “leapfrog” bigger, more advanced countries, says Edi Rama.

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As an AI music creator, AI song generator, and AI vocals, Mureka.ai make it simple and fun. From AI song writer to AI singer, designed for both beginners and pros.

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Site-Specific Performance - Routledge Performance Archive

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Site-specific performance is produced in non-theatre sites, and aims to engage with the meaning and history or creative impetus of those sites, and reach audiences who might not come to the theatre.

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From Then to Now|Anne HamburgerAnne Hamburger, founder of En Garde Arts, talks about the beginnings of her company, and, with it, the beginnings of site-specific theatre in New York City.

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The Role of Site-Specific Theatre in Contemporary Performance Art

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Introduction to Advanced Editing | 23 September 2025

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You may want to conduct research into one of the following practitioners of Site-Specific Performance.

Punchdrunk

Wildworks

Shunt

Brith Gof

Janet Cardiff

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To be used every week from 26.01.2026 onward.

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Joseph's Coat (from "Joseph & His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat") (Karaoke Instrumental Track)...

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Backtrack Professional Karaoke Band - Topic - Joseph's Coat (from "Joseph & His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat") (Karaoke Instrumental Track)...

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Backtrack Professional Karaoke Band - Topic

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Joseph's Coat (from "Joseph & His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat") (Karaoke Instrumental Track)...

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Joseph's Coat (from "Joseph & His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat") (Karaoke Instrumental Track)...

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Please see below Alfie's technical pack. This must be completed by 13th March.

Please follow the link within the pack, create a folder with you name and add in your completed tech pack and any files in the correct format.

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Whilst you are waiting for your technical rehearsal slot, please be finding any large set pieces and store them in FS004.