Performance Matters presents Trashing Performance 

Trashing Performance explores the power of creative expressions that wilfully debunk or ignore cultural ideals and hierarchies of critical value. It presents and investigates art and culture often considered too left-field by the proprieties of high minded and elite taste. This programme of talks, shows and films provides a space to think again about the value of irreverent and sometimes overlooked performance practices in public exchanges between different performance audiences and artists, academics, activists, and curators.

Trashing Performance asks what is at stake in calling something or someone ‘trash’, and explores the cultural histories which inform the value of ‘trashy-ness’ in contemporary practice. It explores how some performance artists risk high seriousness by embracing ‘cheap’ aesthetics and popular forms, and considers how underground and avant-garde performers have sometimes made a virtue out of producing work beyond the critical pale.

Trashing Performance is the second themed year of Performance Matters, a collaboration between the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, the Department of Drama, Theatre and Performance at the University of Roehampton, and the Live Art Development Agency. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

A detailed programme can be found at:
http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/events/2956