Issue #05

Fall/Winter 1992

Environments

Cover of Issue #05

We began to solicit articles for this issue of the Performance Journal in the wake of the Los Angeles riots and the hype surrounding the Earth Summit in Brazil. The juxtaposition of these events underscored what we have known for a long time—that our global ecology and urban environments are collapsing and that our government refuses to do anything but worsen both crises. Los Angeles in flames represented the betrayal of cities across the U.S.; the politics of hypocrisy on display in Rio ensured a continued course of environmental devastation for the sake of corporate interests. Performance Journal #5 is created by artists who are compelled by the ways in which contemporary environmental issues affect their lives, communities, and art. Because we believe that artists are able to both powerfully critique and put forth healing visions, the Journal unites the perspectives of the dancers, choreographers, performance artists, writers, visual artists, and musicians who make up our communities.

Taking environment and its impact on art, culture, and community as a common point of departure, contributors to this issue have framed their concerns broadly and diversely. Patricia Hoffbauer, Marina Zurkow, Charles Uwiragiye, and Livia Daza-Paris all traveled to Rio in June for the First Worldwide Conference of Indigenous People and the Earth Summit. While their reports diverge with their experiences, each offers a strikingly sociocultural take on environmental issues that proves representative of the Journal as a whole. Again and again, an insistence upon the continuity and interconnection between ecological and social realms emerges as a common theme and commitment (see, among others, Jacki Apple, Rachel Rosenthal). For example, the intersections between environment and oppression are manifestly clear-cut in both the widespread "first world" practice of dumping toxic waste on developing countries (see Shu Lea Cheang and Jessica Hagedorn) and, in this society, the space of violence that surrounds women and their bodies (see Laurie Weeks). Relatedly, the insidious way in which power, authority, and violence are themselves naturalized feeds the repressive machinery of social determination and control (see Mark Sussman and Jenny Romaine, the Desert Storm trading cards).

[Excerpt from Letter from the Editors]

Editorial team

Editor-In-Chief

Cathy Edwards Kate Ramsey

Design

Esther Kaplan John Walker/Dinglasan

Contributing Editor

Patricia Hoffbauer Guy Yarden Esther Kaplan

Advertising

Christopher Caines

Copy Editor

Christopher Caines

Articles

Carta con Son

I have wanted to dance many things tonight. A part of my life. A merengue. Razones . I go to the rehearsal space. I feel good, moving around. Much music...

Earth Day

daily, once we arrive we should ask ourselves what are we doing to make the earth glad that we are here walking its face breathing and being does our living...

Prowess in the Wilderness

Pat Hall Smith, Bernadine Jennings , Thea Martinez, and Roberta Stokes, where? You mean all together? Who could gather all these foremothers and sisters together in one place around one...

Agoraphobia

A little girl's pussy is so mild. When you're six years old it’s just a thing you have, a dolphin's friendly smile. Is it connected to things that scare you,...

On Susan Sgorbati

Susan Sgorbati is a site dance artist —the first site dance artist that I ever knew. Interviews with her and several of her former students from Bennington College offer a...

Anatomy of a Dance

Susan Sgorbati created a dance for the Sara Delano Roosevelt Park in the Bowery in New York City in the spring of 1987. Jack Moore, then also teaching dance at...

Notes

La Promenade (1992) explores the concepts of environment, structure, self, and other. With a group of three we bridged the public and private spatial characteristics of the rooftop environment—brick facades,...