performaCITY

4 keynotes, 8 panels, 75 face2face discussions, 7 walks, 1 film

How does the urban society of today build the culture of tomorrow? Which role does the performative practice play in the development of an urban mode of life? Which choreographies of daily life does the city produce? Can we create collective memory by artistic means? 

These are some of the questions raised by the interdisciplinary conference performaCITY, which takes place from June 12 to 14, 2014 at the Kaserne Basel and in the urban space of Basel. In various panels, keynotes, face-to-face talks and discussions, performaCITY will examine the reciprocal relationship of performative, artistic practice and the built-up, vibrant city, particularly in regard to the production of a future urban culture. We understand the city as a major producer of a future society's collective, cultural memory, and the performative practice as an important catalyst for this process.

The conference will be based on an interdisciplinary approach that brings together renown thinkers, scholars, artists and practitioners from around the world: Aleida Assmann (cultural studies, Konstanz), Knut Ebeling (philosopher, Berlin), Erdem Gündüz (choreographer, Istanbul), Ant Hampton (theater maker, London), Jen Harvie (performance studies, London), Gabriele Klein (sociologist of movement, Hamburg), LIGNA (artist collective, Hamburg), Stefanie Lorey (theater studies, Hamburg), David Pinder (urban and cultural geographer, London), Saskia Sassen (sociologist, New York), Dries Verhoeven (director, Utrecht), Sophie Wolfrum (urbanist, München), zURBS (socio-artistic laboratory, Zürich) ... and many more.

The conference takes place in the overall frame of the festival performaCITY (June 6 to June 15, 2014 / Kaserne Basel and urban space of Basel), which also includes artistic/performative interventions in public space and communication in the form of performative walks and socio-artistic activities.

Three artistic interventions from the European theatre network SECOND CITIES - PERFORMING CITIES (Dries Verhoeven: "Ceci n‘est pas ...", LIGNA: "Walking the City", Ant Hampton: "A voice - lest we see where we are") will be performed in the urban space, and the production "Saving the World" by the German-British performance group Gob Squad will be presented in the Kaserne.

Socio-artistic activities will accompaign performaCITY with a series of workshops and an audiowalk that engages the residents of Basel and the audience in the making of an alternative city archive that experiments with ways to trace, document and (re)present the lived experiences of the present in order to build visions and ideas of shared futures.

Registration, Programme & information: www.performacity.net

Curated by trans4mator.