To ask “what is performance practice” is to set into motion a whole host of questions. What is it? Where and how does it occur? Where does it ultimately settle, and what can marking those coordinates tell us about who it ultimately designates as its interlocutors?

In the shared affective moment of a performance, artistic or political, which always has the potential to provoke and galvanise, is this provisional body a group of spectators? Are they witnesses? Are these formations collectives, publics, or counterpublics? What does it mean not just to watch but also to take action? And what does doing/acting entail?

Convened by Alkazi Theatre Archives and Khoj International Artists’ Association, Of the Body Public: Through a Performance Archive brings together artists, scholars, and thinkers to critically reflect on the reciprocal entanglements of performance practice and its myriad publics, both through and beyond Khoj’s extensive performance archive.

This research symposium anticipates an exhibition of/from Khoj’s extensive performance archive in early 2027. less