The Performative Turn
Open Museum 2011

The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw invites to “The Performative Turn”- the first edition of meetings dedicated to the relationship between theatre, dance and visual arts.

Theatre, performance and choreography nowadays enter into an intensive dialog with the visual arts. More and more often we take part in choreographed exhibitions, lecture performances, arranged situations, and spectacles. We are witnesses to a phenomenon which has for some years now been defined as the “performative turn”. It is a paradigm present in the humanities and social sciences, consisting in the arrangement of everyday reality and its evaluation through the category of experience.

Furthermore, this turn impacts the presence of “live art” in museums and galleries. Our series of meetings explores the interdependencies between theatre, dance, choreography, and the visual arts — from Judson Church and the attempts of democratizing movement via new forms of the “performance of knowledge”, the role of the audience as partners of artists’ activities, and the use of performative strategies in actions taking place in the shared zone of arts and politics. We will also attempt at working out a common vocabulary of the performative arts. Each meeting has its unique form that pushes the boundaries of a traditional educational event.