Histories, Narratives, and the Collective
Site-specific Dance and Its Role in Urban Renewal and Development and Tourism
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carolyn Pavlik, Carolyn Pavlik
Site-specific choreographers push the boundaries of art by stepping out of the proverbial box of conventional theatres and creating dance works in a multitude of sites. These works can physicalize the sites by highlighting formal properties, inscribe or reveal new meanings, narratives and histories, reclaim public space, and educate and mobilize a community around social, political, or environmental issues. In recent years, some cities have been engaging and/or funding more site dance artist to create in urban environments, particularly in connection with urban renewal and development and tourism. One such artist, site dance choreographer Sally Jacques, Artistic Director of Blue Lapis Light, a site-specific aerial dance company in Austin, Texas, focuses on exploring the intersection of dance and the downtown architecture. Another site artist, Martha Bowers, artistic director of Dance Theatre Etcetera, collaborates with the Red Hook, Brooklyn community to create cultural site dance events that integrate with urban renewal efforts in this waterfront neighborhood. Through personal interviews and literature review I will investigate how the work of these two dance artists intersects with urban renewal and development and tourism, and illustrate the impact site dance can have in attracting audiences, developing community and bringing focus to urban areas.
Art: An Effective Tool for Reconciliation in a Post-conflict Context
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maria Jimena Herrera
In this investigation, I want to explore the ways in which the visual arts can contribute to the construction of memory in the context of reconciliation in times of post-conflict: memory which is understood as a collective exercise where all Colombians take part, regardless of their viewpoint and ideological perspective. The idea is to comprehend art as a tool to generate empathy so that people’s narratives are assumed in the path towards reconciliation. For this purpose, I propose the analysis, presentation, and application of the artistic project already in progress, La Marcha Final. In the first chapter, I begin by explicitly explaining why forgetting is not the appropriate path and then I briefly define how reconciliation can be understood in this text. Secondly, I evidence the enormous risk run if only the hegemonic version of facts are publicly accessible and will then outline the importance of putting together a collective memory that distances itself from the official memory constructed from the interests of the powerful. Thirdly, I explain why art is a valuable tool that should not be dismissed when exploring and constructing a collective memory. In the second chapter, I expound upon the artistic proposal, La march final, that aims to think of art as a tool supporting the reconciliation process in the context of the post-conflict. In this chapter, the project’s advancements are explained along with an exploration of the importance of removing the stigma associated with former FARC ex-combatants and actors of the state armed forces due to the arms they held and the camouflaged uniforms they wore in order to collectively progress towards the political growth of our country.
The Search for Organization: Art’s Entry into the Public Sphere from Impressionism to Modernism
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gordon Shockley
In this essay, I trace the search for organization from state-run salons and academies in the nineteenth century; the rise of dealer-critic system and anti-salon alternative organizations and exhibitions of Impressionism; through the new institutional forms of Modernism. The state-run organization of the arts in the nineteenth century provide the backdrop to the organizational innovations of the Impressionist painters, such as the Salon des Refusés (1863), Société Anonyme des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs (1874), and Groupe des Artistes Indèpendants (1884). New institutional forms continued to proliferate within Modernism before and in the immediate aftermath of the Great War, such as Bauhaus (established in 1919 in Weimar, Germany); formal artist groups such as Der Blaue Reiter (1910-16) and Die Brücke (1905-1914); and epic, alternative exhibitions such as the Armory Show (1913). Further, artistic movements like Futurism, Cubism, Russian Futurism and Suprematism, and Constructivism all included to conceptions of space and organization. Yet, it is not simply the search for organization that defines this period. The success of the search for organization would also transform the function of art in society, introducing art into the Habermasian public sphere.
