Open Collections

Atkinson, Wendy

University of British Columbia

Programmers in the performing arts, particularly settler programmers, can use the concepts of curating and the curatorial as mechanisms to take steps towards decolonization, beyond inclusion and representation and particularly beyond the performance on stage. In this thesis I have taken a theoretical approach to argue that the concepts of curating and the curatorial can be used by performing arts programmers to support activities aimed at decolonization. I discuss three cases of university programmers booking Indigenous artists that serve as examples to support and illustrate my claims about the usefulness of the concept of curating. First, I outline how the concept of curating has been theorized in the visual arts literature and examine the role of curating to further social justice and decolonization in the visual arts. Second, using examples from the literature, my professional experience as a performing arts programmer and two examples of performances booked by programmers in university venues, I examine how social justice and decolonization goals have been taken up in the performing arts. I also review how performing arts scholars have written about the benefits and drawbacks of using the concept of curating in the performing arts. My study considers the limitations of programming by itself to further decolonization goals and I outline how the concepts of curating, and even more so the concept of the curatorial, offer programmers practical and theoretical direction to address decolonization in their practice. In the final chapter I explore the educative potential of the concept of the curatorial, in particular as characterized by Rogoff as an event of knowledge, and how the educational theories of Dewey, Rancière and Biesta connect with ideas of the curatorial. I argue that the concept of the curatorial offers opportunities for knowledge production and action in the pursuit of decolonization in the performing arts and that a curatorial approach opens up opportunities to take steps to decolonization that programming and curating do not offer.

Text

2023-12-21

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/87000

Educational Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/