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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

Milo Rau & Servane Dècle: The Pelicot Trial

“Shame must change sides.” With these words, and her courageous decision to make her trial public, Gisèle Pelicot ignited an international reckoning in the fight to end violence against women. What began as the Mazan rape case, in a small town in southern France, revealed how ordinary men across ages and social backgrounds could commit an unthinkable crime, the repeated assault of an unconscious woman. This urgent evening of readings revisits examinations, pleas, and commentaries from the trial.

Ivy Baldwin Dance + Jeanine Durning

NYU Skirball unveils a world premiere double bill featuring bold new works from two of contemporary dance’s most fearless voices: Ivy Baldwin and Jeanine Durning. Each choreographer takes the stage with a distinct vision, Baldwin with her rigorously inventive physical landscapes, and Durning with her radical experiments in movement and language, together offering a night of unforgettable contrasts and cutting-edge performance.

A.I.M by Kyle Abraham: Cassette Vol. 1

Nostalgia isn’t just a feeling, it’s a rhythm, a groove, a dance that lives in the body. Weaving together the pop, R&B, and New Wave sounds of his youth, Kyle Abraham crafts a work that moves between camp and critique, honoring the influences that shaped him, from M/A/R/R/S to Prince, from Trisha Brown to Bill T. Jones.

Tapestries

Tapestries is an evening-length dance theatre piece told through the curious narrative of the Unicorn Tapestries (1495 - 1505) and a queer reimagining of Ukrainian folklore. It consists of eight vignettes, each representing a different tapestry and folklore, threaded together to tell the tale of the Magical Unicorn.

Symara Sarai: Angelic Architectures

Angelic Architectures is a powerful dance play, developed by Symara Sarai during their Abrons Performance AIRspace residency, that showcases the inner anarchy of Black queer femininity. Featuring three dancers and a musician, the show blends movement, sound, and improvisational scores to explore desire, autonomy, and one’s full range of emotion