If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want to Be Part of Your Revolution

 

Reading Group
Hosted by Art Metropole, led by Jacob Korczynski
Ongoing until Spring 2012 

If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want to Be Part of Your Revolutionwww.ificantdance.org is an itinerant group dedicated to exploring the evolution and typology of performance and performativity in contemporary art. Initiated in 2005 by curators Frederique Bergholtz, Annie Fletcher and Tanja Elstgeest they work from a spirit of open questioning and long term enquiry with artists, through long-term collaborations with artists, researchers and partner organizations, that  take form in two-year editions of commissioned productions that develop over time and are presented at different institutions in the Netherlands and abroad. Currently Edition IV is centred upon an investigation of affect and is anchored by commissioned projects by Jeremiah Day, Sung Hwan Kim, Wendelien Van Oldenborgh, Hito Steyerl and Emily Wardill.

If I Can't Dance defines its way of working as 'contemplation, interrupted by action', a quote borrowed from artist Hanne Darboven. Each edition is an ongoing process of research—of 'contemplation'—segmented by moments of presentations at the subsequent venues enabling public exchange - opportunities for 'action'.

One of the primary platforms for contemplation is the reading group organized by If I Can't Dance in conjunction with each edition. For the first time they have initiated a parallel reading group outside of The Netherlands that will take place in Toronto from September 2011 to February 2012 centred upon the research field of affect, hosted by Art Metropole and led by Jacob Korczynski.

Related publications by Sharon Haynes, Eve Kosofky Sedgwick, Henry James, Michael Hardt, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Brian Massumi and others will soon be available at Art Metropole.