Cultures Are Not Anyone’s Property Ariane Mnouchkine in conversation with Joëlle Gayot Introduction by Nora Armani C ultural appropriation is a label that has been applied to creations not only in the performing arts, but also in fashion, food, film, books, and other forms of cultural manifestation. When is a cultural element appropriated, and when is it used in a cross-cultural exchange experience enriching both

What Matters Carolee Schneemann In 2006, Katarina Weslien, a visual artist and then director of graduate studies at Maine College of Art, in Portland, asked several artists to write short texts on the most important things in their practice and life for a book to be called “What Matters.” The book was never published but the texts were saved, and Weslien offered Schneemann’s contribution for

Carolee Schneemann at her home and studio in New Paltz, New York. 2017. Foto: Courtesy Bonnie Marranca. In the Beginning is Drawing Carolee Schneemann in conversation with Bonnie Marranca and Claire MacDonald At this sad occasion of the death of Carolee Schneemann on March 6, 2019, PAJ honors the life and legacy of one of the most important artists of our time. Schneemann has been an

Writing and Aging from “Ages of the Avant-Garde” Maria Irene Fornes I think that aging has made a difference in my writing in a very important way. Young writers are usually very deeply involved with their ego and they confuse their writing with their image. They think of their writing as the thing that is going to present them as a person to the world.

Thinking About Maria Irene Fornes Bonnie Marranca A week before we were preparing to send this issue to press, the sad news of the death of Maria Irene Fornes was announced. One of the most beloved of contemporary playwrights and a master teacher, the bohe- mian extraordinaire was an influential voice in the theatre who had spent her professional life mainly in Manhattan’s “downtown” spaces

Laurie Anderson Telling Stories in Virtual Reality Laurie Anderson in conversation with Bonnie Marranca As a performer, visual artist, Komponist, poet, and filmmaker, Laurie Ander- son has been at the forefront in using technology in the arts since the beginning of her career more than four decades ago. Works such as United States I-V (1983), The Nerve Bible (1995), Homeland (2008), Delusion (2010), and Habeas

Reza Abdoh Today Posthumous Reflections Fifty-Five Years after His Birth Joseph Cermatori It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us. Walter Benjamin Do not give me a memorial if I die. Give me a demonstration. David Wojnarowicz June 2018: Two days after my visit to the Reza Abdoh retrospective at MoMA PS1, the United States announces it

Hillbilly Tragedy What’s Not Playing in American Theatres in the 2017–18 Season Paul David Young In November 2016, the forgotten, un- or underemployed, Weiß, Christian, heterosexual, working class male of Middle America elected Donald Trump, so goes the hypothesis. Allegedly, pollsters failed to detect this group and account for its views in presidential prognostication, and the Democrats had “lost” the election because they likewise did

The First Non-Human Action Artist Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik in Robot Opera Sophie Landres ORIGINALE ALL OVER AGAIN Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik began their collaboration while Moorman was producing Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Originale (Originals, or Real People) for her 1964 New York Avant Garde Festival. Written in collaboration with the artist Mary Bauermeister, Originale seemed to encompass the most radical developments in

537 Broadway Performance and Buildings Agustin Schang I Since 1974, like many other spaces in downtown Manhattan, Die 537-541 Broadway cast-iron building became the headquarters of an artists’ commu- nity that worked outside the conventional borders of the art system. Moved by the co-operative housing spirit that took roots in SoHo during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Fluxus leader George Maciunas helped to buy

The Imagination of Catastrophe Caryl Churchill’s Natural History Lessons Bonnie Marranca The other afternoon I heard a French political analyst on National Public Radio describe the political forces sweeping her country as the “wind of history.” That phrase called to mind Witold Gombrowicz’s Operetta, his post-war play in which, after two world wars and a revolution, a character observes of the new society, “It’s the

Shadow. Eurydice Says Elfriede Jelinek Translated by Gitta Honegger I don’t know what’s gliding down my leg, NEIN, it actually seems to come from below, working itself upward, has it reached the heel yet, the knee? Something gliding softly, thin, trickle-like, actually flattering, sort of. Ja, Jetzt! Some- thing’s penetrating, it hurts, something opened up in me, what is it?, I am com- pletely open

Dark Times British Theatre after Brexit Aleks Sierz In the dark times Will there also be singing? Ja, there will also be singing. About the dark times. Bertolt Brecht The UK Referendum vote to leave the European Union—Brexit—took place on 23 Juni 2016, and the result was a triumph of the irrational over rea- Sohn. Natürlich, I am conscious that it is unfair for

Performance In the Cabinet of Curiosities Or, The Boy Who Lived in the Tree Johannes Birringer Dedicated to Herbert Blau Celebrating the creative talent of one of the most innovative designers of recent times, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty1 was announced by the Victoria and Albert Museum in the artist’s hometown of London as the first and largest retrospective of McQueen’s work presented in Europe. Der

Body Surrogates Mannequins, Life-Size Dolls, and Avatars Francesco Spampinato One of the tropes of these early years of the twenty-first century is that of the avatar, a virtual representation of a human being used for enter- tainment, educational, technical, or scientific purposes. The avatar is a product of digital culture, but its origins are coeval with those of the human being and its evolution is

Life and Death Matters Bonnie Marranca Where should I begin? It’s been a difficult stretch in the weeks leading up to completing PAJ 114. Suicide bombings, the Orlando massacre, refugees floating in the sea, Brexit, police shootings, and the death of my beloved mother. As I look over the contributions to this issue, I have before me reflections on the incandescent achievement of Tadeusz Kantor,

Douglas Dunn Shame at looking with pleasure at shape, color, moves, without demanding to know sense; shame that I would invite significance to obtund the sen- sational intensity of immediate perception. Shame at being an older dancer; shame at being ashamed of being an older dancer. Shame that I have become focused on what’s interesting more than on what’s true, the latter evasive, changeable, Die

CardiovasCular Chopin Ending at the Beginning with Guido Van der Werve Michael Maizels and Jenny Johnson “Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Light of the Stars” A s the camera slowly pans down the richly engraved walls, the rising, eupho- nious sounds of the Warsaw Chamber Opera Choir and Orchestra fill the baroque space