Sarah Maxfield
SARAH MAXFIELD (www.sarahmaxfield.wordpress.com) investigates contemporary performance and its history through practice, discussion, and critical theory. Maxfield's performance and curatorial work has been presented by numerous venues in New York City and beyond. Maxfield contributed Context Notes for the Dance Theater Workshop's final season (2010 - 2011). She serves on the New York Dance and Performance "Bessies" Awards committee. Among numerous other projects, she currently curates two ongoing performance series, and she is conducting an oral history of experimental dance and performance in New York, which will be compiled into a book titled Nonlinear Lineage.
What makes a performance live? Is it a shared energy in a single space at the same time? Is it the smell of sweat? Is it simply an agreement between performer and audience?
I chose to begin in front of my apartment. I was alone, and I felt a bit silly. It was raining. I was reminded of my great-grandmother, sitting on her porch in Small Town, Illinois. Watching. Day after day after day. This is no longer something that many of us do.
