Race & the Colonial Impulse: Queer Performance Practices

The Helix Queer Performance Network presents
Race & the Colonial Impulse: 
Queer Performance Practices
A Long Table Conversation

Performance artists M. Lamar and Dan Fishback host a Long Table conversation reflecting on the contributions of people of color (POC) in various queer performance communities, and examining the presentation of those performance practices. This discussion will explore ways in which the colonial impulse may exist in queer artists and presenters alike. From the appropriation of queer POC by white queer culture, to racially exclusive booking practices, to why queer people of color are exploited for artistic innovation but unrewarded within predominantly white institutions, this discussion will also explore how POC are empowering themselves outside of these institutions. Whose legacies are whose to claim in terms of appropriation or influence? How can arts institutions better support queer artists of color? How can NYC’s queer arts landscape become more integrated while maintaining the integrity of safe POC space and avoiding easy traps of tokenization and orientalization?

Conceived by performance artist Lois Weaver, The Long Table format experiments with participation and public engagement by re-appropriating a dinner table atmosphere as a public forum, and encouraging informal conversations on serious topics. It is literally a very long table set up with chairs, where anyone and everyone is welcome to come to the table, ask questions, make statements, leave comments, or simply sit, listen and watch.

Joining the conversation will be Susana Cook, Arthur Aviles, Juliana Huxtable, Kia LaBeija, V.S. Tobar, Erica Cardwell, and more…

The Helix Queer Performance Network presents
Race & the Colonial Impulse: 
Queer Performance Practices

A Long Table Conversation 

Wednesday, November 13, 2013 
7 – 9pm

20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor, NYC
FREE admission

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