Performance intensive

Performance Intensive participants in a workshop with artist and choreographer taisha paggett. Photo by Rå Vitche-Boul.

The Performance Intensive was an eight-day performance laboratory structured around three primary activities: public performances and a public lecture offered by three visiting artists, taisha paggett, Wilmer Wilson IV and Jibz Cameron (aka Dynasty Handbag) and one visiting scholar, Tavia Nyong’o, workshops led by Sharon Hayes, Weitzman School of Design and Brooke O’Harra, School of Arts and Sciences and the development and presentation of “proposals” by the 18 emerging artists who participated in the Intensive. These 18 participants were selected through a nomination and application process. We had three MFA students from Penn, three PhD students from Penn, one from Communications, one from English, one from Music. There were three local Philly artists and then 9 out-of-town artists, from Boston, from Oakland, from Berlin, from Virginia, from New York. 

Alex Velozo (with back turned) and Malcolm Peacock in a morning workshop in the Performance Intensive. Photo by Rå Vitche-Boul.

The Performance Intensive was committed to fulfilling three primary aims: One was to allow emerging artists working with performance, across different genres, to come together and learn from each other. The second was to provide a temporal frame for learning, exploring and experimenting that allows for longer and more sustained time than that of a class period. The third was to seed the beginnings of an infrastructure for engaged, in-depth innovative research in performance praxis.

​The Performance Intensive is a model that may continue, but also one that can serve as a magnet to attract relationships with other scholars and practitioners across different schools at Penn and beyond who are interested in elevating performance as a praxis and a site of research.

Performance Intensive Participants

This list includes 3 PhD students from Penn (one each from English, Communication and Music), 3 MFA students, 3 local Philadelphia artists (one of whom is a Penn alum) and nine from outside of Philadelphia. Of those 9 out-of-town artists, CEE supported travel stipends for two: Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju, based in Berlin, and Gabriel Christian, based in Oakland, CA. Short bios for those artists follow the participant list below.

Bashezo
Jordan Baum
Gabriel Christian
Julia Gladstone
Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju
Amber Rose Johnson
Larissa Johnson
Mia Kang
Nick Moncy
Malcolm Peacock
Gabby Preston
Guava Rhee
Emmanuela Soria Ruiz
Kristine Rumman
Noemi Charlotte Thieves
Erik Thurmond
Roopa Vasudevan
Alex Velozo
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