Reflection upon the collectif TouVA Residency

TouVA

The following text by the group of artist-researchers collectif TouVA (Sylvie Tourangeau, Victoria Stanton and Anne Bérubé – formerly known as the Three Graces), is a reflection upon their experience as Researchers in Residence at Artexte.  The research residency took place from October 2008 to April 2009.

In the beginning we were three individual researchers connected by a common project. During our residency, however, we became a collective with a shared goal. Having begun in the spirit of scholarly research, our residency quickly became a kind of performative research.

We, whom Artexte referred to affectionately as The Three Graces, began our residency with the idea of gathering information (both current and historical) for a book on the performative. This goal did not change. Our residency, though, became much more than an opportunity to carry out research in the databases and documents placed at our disposal. We burrowed and read far and wide, frenetically and with delight. While our initial interest was to familiarize ourselves with what had been written about on our topic, our preconceptions, as conceptual as they were from the outset, were quickly transformed into a veritable participative and evolving project. As we entered into a dialogue with the content of our readings, and let them find a place in our own artistic, pedagogical and intellectual projects, they increasingly began to resonate. Here, then, is a shortlist of some of the most interesting things we read in the course of our journey:

TOP 5 picks for the Performative

Perform   Performance   Performance Research   On Edge  Profile- Vito Acconci

  1. Perform, Joan Jonas et Jens Hoffman, New York, Thames & Hudson, 2005.
  2. Performance : A Critical Introduction, Marvin Carlson, 2e éd, New York et Londres, Routledge, 2004.
  3. Drobnick, Jim. « Deborah Hay: A Performance Primer », Performance Research, vol. 11, nº 2, 2006, p. 43-57.
  4. On Edge : Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century, C. Carr, Hanover et Londres, University Press of New England et Wesleyan University Press,1993.
  5. « Vito Acconci », Profile, vol. 4, nº 3-4, été 1984.

Read their list of Top 25 [PDF]

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