AVATAR in Chicago at the Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival June 13, 2014

AVATAR performance in Chicago as part of Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival http://rapidpulse.org/

PHOTO: JI YANG, PERFORMER: FREYA BJÖRG OLAFSONINTIMACIES: SELF-SACRIFICE AND PRESERVATION, MODERATED BY YOLANDA CESTA CURSACH

• Panel discussion

• SATURDAY JUNE 14: panel

• Intimacies: Self-Sacrifice and Preservation:

In performance, the vulnerability of the self is exposed, creating an intimate experience that simultaneously strengthens access to one’s own body. Can Intimacy be a strategy enacted for both self-sacrifice and self-preservation?

MODERATOR: Yolanda Cesta Cursach

PANELISTS: Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn, Diaz Lewis, Anna Brown, Freya Björg Olafson, Teoma Naccarato

DESCRIPTION: The body may be understood as a framework for intimacy, where intimacy is affective closeness — a heightened relational intensity. In performance, intimacy is often enacted as a strategy for self-sacrifice and self-preservation however, these modes of identification are not always so clearly delineated. The overflow or giving up of in sacrifice, and protective nature of preservation, commingle in intimate contact. The relationship between sacrifice and preservation then becomes porous and reciprocal, opening up a space for bodies to assert their inherent validity on their own terms. Panelists will discuss intimacy as a strategic practice in interrogating received notions of what other bodies “should be like” and how we interact with them.