Author: Esther Neff

  • Performing Conferencing: SMT’s Words and [  ], a durational conference

    Performing Conferencing: SMT’s Words and [  ], a durational conference

    Esther Neff reflects on “Words and [ ]”, a durational conference produced by School of Making Thinking (SMT) in Montreal, May 6-8, 2016.

  • Relational March: Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Hartford, Pawtucket

    Relational March: Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Hartford, Pawtucket

    Relational March Day 25-31 32 days hath the Relational March, a tour through 24 towns by two performance art duos/collective, Panoply Performance Laboratory (Esther M. Neff and Brian J. McCorkle) and Future Death Toll (Edward G. Sharp and David I. Griess). Through the daily making of new, context-relative performances across sites and contexts, through speaking…

  • Relational March: Akron, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Syracuse

    Relational March: Akron, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Syracuse

    Relational March Day 21-25 In Akron, Ohio, we perform at Rubber City Noise‘s RCNCAVE, curated by Lisa Miralia. On the third floor of an abandoned building, a wall of speakers, low light, and plastic-covered windows set the scene for a mixed-discipline night that begins with the harsh noise of Rot Ton Bone, continuing with From Beyond…

  • Relational March: Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Three Rivers, Detroit, Ohio State

    Relational March: Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Three Rivers, Detroit, Ohio State

    Relational March Day 17-20 In Minneapolis, Emily Gastineau and Billy Mullaney (who work together as Fire Drill) have braved the cold long enough to curate an incredible show at The White Page of primarily “post-dance” works, including a piece by Samantha Johns (involving chocolate milk, dominoes and a question-an-answer session with Justin Spooner and Daniel Luka…

  • Relational March: Lincoln, Iowa City, Madison

    Relational March: Lincoln, Iowa City, Madison

    Relational March Day 10-16 After performances at SPATIVM in Lincoln, NE (part of Parrish Studios), Public Space One in Iowa City, IA and Evolution Arts Collective in Madison, WI and other brief public stunts, PPL and Future Death Toll attempt to respond to clusters of audience members gathering around us and asking “But What Does…

  • Relational March: St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha

    Relational March: St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha

    Relational March Day 7-9 ‘the role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever the scale chosen by the artist’ (Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics p. 13). Critics of relational aesthetics argue that a re-framing/making of art…

  • Relational March: Lexington and Louisville, KY

    Relational March: Lexington and Louisville, KY

    Day 4-6: Lexington/Louisville, KY We are here in Lexington at the University of Kentucky on the invitation of Rae Goodwin and Dmitry Strakovsky. We met Dmitry briefly last year at Grace Exhibition Space, he is (among many other things) a performance artist. We met Rae in July 2013 when she was in Brooklyn as part…

  • Relational March: Columbus, OH

    Relational March: Columbus, OH

    Relational March Day 3: Columbus, Ohio Everybody, regardless of categorical identification across racial, class-based, cultural, and lingual differences agrees: young white people from the Midwest do not belong in Brooklyn. Go back to where you came from, take your contact mics and your kale-chips and get the f*** out. We’re serious. This is partly why…

  • Relational March: Washington, D.C

    Relational March: Washington, D.C

    Day One: Washington D.C In the car on the way from Brooklyn to D.C., the invitation to write a tour blog becomes a reoccurring topic, popping up like a commercial between moments. We begin a kind of joke-trope which beings “Dear Andy…(Horwitz).” Dear Andy: today we ate at McDonalds twice. Dear Andy: we learned today,…