By Stephanie Acosta

To lay in wait of your own responses, to lie in the weight of shared experiences, head full or floating, as you consider and contemplate the ramifications of a happening, of your witnessing—not a review, but rather a retrieval. To keep critical beyond critique—to listen not only to what is said but to what is done, to its resonance-to listen as an expansive act. To read, to write, to return to what cannot be re-tread.

These are the elements that bring me to discourse, to these writers and to our series of readings for American Realness 2018.

As I approached this evolving gathering I wanted the writings to act as a series of responses, discursive moments that allow us to revisit what we’ve seen through the eyes of makers, thinkers, dancers, performance artists and scholars. I know these inspiring individuals might shake and shed some of what you witnessed. I hope they will keep shaping what you see in the artists and works, that you find here new ways of looking, and that their impressions ripple through your own pools of thought. I hope you see not only what was but is, in the aftermath and the afterglow.

Coming forward, a group of six writers spanning aspects of performance in NYC will bring their dynamic views to bear on a select group of works presented this January as part of American Realness.

How did the work live? How might works keep living? Why create this work if not to think and feel more deeply?

Thankfully, we have six chances to do both.

Photo By Ian Douglas