Contact: Performing Proximity

Friday-Sunday, February 19-21, 2021
Zoom
Register at https://www2.tft.ucla.edu/cps/contact-performing-proximity.cfm
Registration is free and open to the public. Please register individually for each online event to receive the web links via email. Please note that all events are in Pacific Standard Time (PST).

Join us to explore the theme of “Contact” with our keynote speakers,
graduate student panels, and featured perfomances.

From its Latin roots, contact describes encounters facilitated by and through touching (con-tactus). In an increasingly globalized and mediatized world, touch between audience and performer, the human and non-human, the material and the virtual, the past and the present, all evoke explorations of how contact is shaping and is shaped by performance, both within the everyday and the aesthetic realm. From the #MeToo movement to the rise in global protest following the murder of George Floyd, from the increased detention of immigrants to the COVID-19 pandemic and its myriad repercussions, contact reverberates with possibilities for connection, violence, reconciliation, and desire.