An event dedicated to performance
Emerge

In November 2019, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Montreal EUNIC cluster (European National Institutes for Culture) have invited the public to EMERGE, an event dedicated to contemporary performance, featuring a dozen European and Canadian artists and participants invited to present recent works that address the multidisciplinary direction taken by some of today’s most engaging practices.

Performance produces a poetry of transgressive forms in which the the body is the raw material of the work and the artist’s instrument, it is also part of a history where the performing arts, writng and image-based practices intersect. It is this live dimension that this particular programme seeks to show. Thus the very title of the event refers to the song Emerge by the group Fischerspooner, which questions the issues of contemporaneity, the question of being and doing in the present times.

Echoing the performance program, workshops punctuated by conferences and exchanges were held during the week. On the last day, Saturday, a forum has brought together the public, artists, curators, art critics, and theorists from here and abroad, giving opportunity to share thoughts on current events and performance issues.

 

l'art du temps, de l'espace et de la présence

To the question "what is performance?" the artist Esther Ferrer answered "it is the art of time, space and presence". Artists, experts and amateurs are together trying to elucidate this phenomenon that has grown in the world at the turn of the millennium.
 
Performance art questions, fascinates and divides: what is emerging in contemporary performance art?
 
Chantal Pontbriand is the conductor of the discussions held at the closing of the EMERGE Festival at the Musée d'art contempain de Montréal. During these five episodes, the performance will be questioned, whether in form (at the crossroads of the performing arts, writing and image) or in substance (militant art, politics) by the message it conveys.

Download the complete program of the festival as a fanzine: 

Forum:

The performance in the arts

© Clara Lacasse

A militant art

© Clara Lacasse

A political art

© Clara Lacasse

Performance and its mediation

© Clara Lacasse

The body in the performance

© Clara Lacasse