septiembre 2020
¡hola, difus@s!
autumn has always been my favorite season, especially where the performing arts are concerned. almost as long as i've been in new york, i've prepared for the season by combing through the calendars of 70+ organizations and mapping the offerings that piqued my interest, and, for the past seven years, i've had the pleasure of sharing those gleanings here.
just over a month ago, i started preparing this september issue as i always have, knowing that this year would be rather different—if not apocalyptic, like everything else in 2020 (except the emmys)—but that difference was more deeply despairing than i'd anticipated. i've since been heartened to see 2020-21 season and other programming announcements from several organizations (e.g., ars nova, baryshnikov arts center, bushwick starr, city center, danspace project, here, invisible dog, kaufmann music center, the kitchen, new york live arts, new york theater workshop, roulette, st. ann's warehouse). many of these initiatives, thankfully, go beyond the reactionary "just stream it!" approach of earlier this year to reflect more critically and creatively on our current conditions—and daniel kitson's new show is, natch, the one i'm most looking forward to.
even so, i remain deeply concerned that we are accepting as given (whether naively, thoughtlessly, or pragmatically) a political economy of technology that we should—no, must—be contesting. witness the lemming-like rush to zoom. have we not learned anything about such blind flocking (it's free! it's easy! it's fun!) from the social and political catastrophe that is facebook (including instagram, whatsapp, and its other divisions)? should we not be questioning the platform capitalism that yields extraordinary private profits during a pandemic and exacerbates inequality in a "k-shaped recovery" (an oxymoron if ever there were)? can we not remember and reclaim the pleasures of prior forms of communication and imagine other forms of community? (apropos snail mail, shouldn't amazon and netflix, whose empires were initially built on the postal service, be pitching in to save it?)
over the past six months, i've been watching these questions play out in the sphere of public higher education (where i work), and my despair there is matched only by my frustration with an art world that, while rightly protesting toxic organizational cultures and sedimented structural inequality, remains in thrall to celebrity culture (which is anti-social) and philanthropic funding (which is anti-democratic), as well as the neoliberal cults of innovation and entrepreneurship (which are sublimated as "artistic" and "social"). i hate to see so much affective intensity, so much radical potential, so painfully limited. the change we need—away from market metastasis and towards some other form of living together—will not, cannot be tweeted, instagrammed, branded.
"i cannot be a pessimist, because i'm alive... so i'm forced to believe that we can survive whatever we must survive..." james baldwin's words—and the anguish in his delivery—haunt me. i have no idea how he could sustain such courage while maintaining such clarity. i have little of the latter and even less of the former, so i'm going to take a break from this newsletter, at least through the end of this year (which, hopefully, won't also be the end of the world)... ¡hasta luego!
un abrazo,
p