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mrpj.org is the online edition of Movement Research Performance Journal. Discover our latest issue, explore our archive and follow a calendar of select events dedicated to contemporary performance.

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Cover of Issue #62

Issue #62

Winter 2026

We Exist in the Ambivalence of Those Motherfuckers

What began as a project responding to the fiftieth anniversary of the ‘end’ of the Vietnam War became a project of inhabiting the Movement Research Performance Journal (MRPJ) from within the landscape of contemporary Vietnamese performance art. The result, Issue #62, is a window onto a community of insiders who reflect a set of concerns, questions, historical trajectories, and aesthetic legacies that differ from what has more often been foregrounded in our U.S./New York City-centric publication. Like other documents of this kind, which endeavor to portray a performance scene that will be foreign to many readers, the texts from this group of intergenerational, contemporary artists demonstrate a careful navigation of the dialectics of inside and outside, self and other, performer and audience, seeing and being seen, that informs every exchange across cultural difference. The texts are also not monolithic, suggesting a range of relations to the Vietnam of the past and present, from within Vietnam’s national borders and among the diaspora. Especially for contributors living and working in Vietnam, writing has also been a practice of choreographing words within a political landscape where to speak publicly, in itself, is a performance of negotiated risk. Embracing the complexities of these differing positions has been the focus of our editorial process—one that has asked the editorial team to embrace the limits of our own knowledge, to recognize we will not be able to recognize all valences others may discover in these texts, and not to edit these layers out of the works that follow.

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Calendar

Tundra by Aimee Grumbach

Pageant Presents: Tundra by Aimee Grumbach Performed by Dorchel Haqq, Tess Neill, Iliana Penichet-Ramirez, Solange Rodrigues, and Lucia Tozzi

Malpaso Dance Company

The Havana-based Malpaso Dance Company takes the stage for its eleventh engagement at The Joyce, delivering a dynamic program that embodies the pulse of contemporary Cuban dance. Since its founding in 2012 by Daile Carrazana, Osnel Delgado, and Fernando Sáez, Malpaso has become a powerhouse of bold innovation, pairing exquisite technique with an unyielding commitment to fostering new voices in contemporary dance and Cuban choreography.

kNoname Artist | Roderick George: The Grave’s Tears

The Grave’s Tears is a full-length choreographic work that expands on themes first explored in kNoname Artist’s Venom (2024), taking a deeper and more expansive look at the psychological toll of systemic oppression and the hatred directed toward the LGBTQIA+ community. Begun with seven male dancers, the work centers queer bodies as vessels of memory—sites where grief, resistance, intimacy, and survival coexist.

Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet: Remembering

Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet, a leading dance-theater company devoted to social justice, presents a multimedia production exploring the Middle Passage, slavery, and emancipation. Inspired by The MAAFA Suite and the teachings of Bishop Rev. Dr. Johnny Ray Youngblood, Remembering blends contemporary and African dance with spoken word, music, and African drumming, bringing American history to life through African voices and dynamic audiovisual elements.

Trinity Irish Dance Company

“Sophisticated and commanding” (Los Angeles Times), Trinity Irish Dance Company (TIDC) has pioneered a movement genre that “ushered in a new era for Irish step dance” (Chicago Tribune). Led by Founding Artistic Director Mark Howard and Associate Artistic Director Chelsea Hoy, this Chicago-based company celebrates 35 years of genre-defying innovation with a program representative of Howard’s unique vision to fuse vibrant Irish traditions with ever-evolving American innovation.