Performance Curators Initiatives (PCI) is the first network of curators, dramaturges, practitioners, researchers, managers, organizers and community workers working on the emerging and expansive field of performance curation in the Philippines, with close partnerships in Canada, Australia, Europe, Asia and the US.
This video offers an introduction to PCI and its goals and principles.
PCI Symposium 2020: Conversations on Curation and Performance in the Time of Halting and Transformation
When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 2020 (“Archived: WHO Timeline”) the world as we know it came to a halt — “whole countries are in a lockdown, many of us confined to our homes facing an uncertain future in which, even if most of us survive, economic mega-crisis is likely.” (Zizek 85)
In the midst of the world coming to a halt, artists and other creatives were some of the first to respond and ‘tangibly’ grapple, paradoxically speaking, with our current predicament in the form of artistic productions in and during quarantine, whether these responses come in the form of montages of ballerinas dancing from home, musicians doing lockdown concerts, festivals and other performing companies shifting to the virtual platform as a mode of (re)presentation, literary workshops via webinars, or countless visual artists, photographers, and filmmakers thoroughly documenting their spaces and conditions of living in isolation.
Despite the tremendous resilience that artists and other creatives have shown as a response to the condition, the performing arts remains one of the art fields that have been mostly affected by the pandemic, especially with the restrictions on live gatherings, enforcing physical distancing, and limited mobility that came with lockdowns all over the world. In the past six months, we have seen the devastating closures of emerging and long-standing performing companies alike throughout the globe and a multitude of performers, cultural workers, and creatives in the field of performance being displaced, unemployed and losing their sources of income.
Amidst this time of halting, there is also a brewing transformation that is ongoing in the field of arts and performance. For instance, performing artists and creatives were quick to utilise a range of online platforms to share their experiences and converse with and amongst various perceived ‘publics,’ about the precarious condition that COVID-19 has hurled the world in. But more importantly, we are seeing the increasing role of curation in organising and bringing these new platforms for performance together.
The Performance Curators Initiatives (PCI) was formed primarily to foster platforms for edgy conversations on the intersections and/or intricate relationship between performance and curatorial practice, and the influence of each field in shaping the other especially in the contemporary setting.
This event is an attempt to capture this timely and crucial conversation on the increasing importance and vital role of curation in rethinking and reimagining performance, including notions of liveness, archiving, documentation, and so on and so forth, in the time of forced isolation, physical distancing, and non-live interaction, as strategies for moving in this time of halting, but more importantly, as an active participation in reimagining new directions in this time of transformation.
Below is the link for the Closing Provocation of the weeklong virtual symposium.
Closing Provocation: Curating Immersion, Gathering and Community Art in the Time of Forced Isolation
The closing provocation centered on how connections on the ground and most especially with communities were explored in the time of pandemic. While many strategies have quickly used the digital platform in reimagining new presentations for performance, this session revolved around the challenge of maintaining community relations in the time of physical distancing and forced isolation.
Co-convener of the artist-activist organisation Sama-samang Artista para sa Kilusang Agraryo (SAKA), Donna Miranda, shared their experiences and strategies in utilising creativity to advance peasant rights and struggles; while AARPS collective member Angela Lawenko-Baguilat focused on the concept of immersion and embodiment in community creative collaborations amidst the distance and alienation from their community partners during the pandemic. PCI Artistic Director Roselle Pineda ended the session as well as the PCI Symposium 2020 with a Closing Provocation on the role of curation in reimagining new strategies, conceptions, and directions for performance in this time of halting and transformation.