Answering the Call

performance, ministry & service

We have been thinking about performance as a kind of service or ministry. These are contested ideas - oftentimes, as artists we are asked ‘but what purpose does this SERVE, this thing you call art or performance?’ Many of us rightfully resist that question. Others - including some of those engaged in direct social engagement - struggle when work is associated with (or pushed towards) community and social SERVICE. MINISTRY might evoke organised religious practice - something many of us are suspicious of, though we might find proximities between art, performance, ritual and belief. In this 5 day workshop, we will interrogate and appropriate some of these associations. We will address questions of purpose by asking what it means to practice Live Art, to minister, to serve, to be of service in our work, especially now in these times of crisis. We will look for ways to enliven calls to community while keeping faith with deep artistic and aesthetic impulses. We will explore what calls each of us to make art that is live, in the presence of others and in response to the moment, and we will explore ways to build both an aesthetic and a social practice that answers that call. Using writing, movement, image making and creative performed response we will work through how we think of service in relation to our work, our audiences, our communities. Lois Weaver Lois Weaver is an artist, activist and Professor Emerita of Contemporary Performance Practice at Queen Mary University of London. She has collaborated with Peggy Shaw and Split Britches since 1980. Her experiments in performance as a means of public engagement include the Long Table, Porch Sitting, Situation Room, Care Café, Public Studio, and her facilitating persona, Tammy WhyNot.

What to expect:
Performance / Live Art