Siting Performance Philosophy: Positions, Encounters and Reflections at Beirut: Bodies in Public

Authors

  • Ella Parry-Davies King's College London/National University of Singapore
  • Eliesh S.D. Independent artist and researcher

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21476/PP.2015.1116

Abstract

Beirut: Bodies in Public was a three-day workshop that took place in Beirut, Lebanon from 9-11 October 2014, supported by a Performance Philosophy grant for interim conference events. The workshop integrated academic research with performances, movement workshops, film, and site-specific responses to the city, and welcomed disciplinary perspectives from a broad range of fields. In this article, the convenors Ella Parry-Davies and Eliesh S.D. reflect on the central issues and encounters foregrounded by the event, and the disciplinary or methodological implications of the project for performance philosophy. Taking as its central provocation the controversial statement: “Art in public spaces doesn’t exist anymore”, the workshop sought to address the role of embodied practice in Beirut’s precarious public sites. Insofar as philosophy can be ‘performed’, it is grounded in the particularities of its social space, an utterance shaped by its historical and geopolitical locality. As a practice of performance philosophy, then, Beirut: Bodies in Public triangulated these two forms-of-knowing with a third: the interrogation presented by the site itself - its potentialities, contingencies and challenges.

Author Biographies

Ella Parry-Davies, King's College London/National University of Singapore

[email protected]

Ella Parry-Davies is a doctoral candidate jointly funded by King’s College London and the National University of Singapore. She is co-convenor of Beirut: Bodies in Public, and also of a student-led research development programme called Research with Reach. Her thesis interrogates the performative dimensions of the relationship between urban spaces and collective memory.

Eliesh S.D., Independent artist and researcher

Eliesh S.D. is co-convenor of Beirut: Bodies in public and founder of the NGO “Organisation De Développement Durable” (ODDD) in Beirut. He is a graduate architect and completed a Master of Advanced Studies in Architecture & Sustainable Development (MAS ADD) from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) and Ecole National Supérieure en Architecture de Toulouse (ENSAT).

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Published

10-04-2015

How to Cite

Parry-Davies, Ella, and Eliesh S.D. 2015. “Siting Performance Philosophy: Positions, Encounters and Reflections at Beirut: Bodies in Public”. Performance Philosophy 1 (1):255-64. https://doi.org/10.21476/PP.2015.1116.

Issue

Section

Siting Politics