THE PERFORMANCE SHOP CONCEPT ®
2014, 2015, 2018
The main question that the project explores: Which values, services, and practices does live art offer that the world needs right now in order to support a fairer and healthier environment for all?
The Performance Shop is a pop up store that offers live performances, long durational actions, performance services, experiences and practices of different genres, from the fields of live art, performance, dance, music, and theatre. In the capitalist system, the performance shop plays the game of consumption by giving value to works and services that deal with what is missing in human coexistence in order to have healthy functioning societies. The works, made by local and international artists, included in the shop make important issues that are usually hidden in societies more visible, and values that should have been common in the contemporary way of life matter. In
The Performance Shop, performances act as mediums for connection, awareness, and transformation. Through the performance experiences, ideologies related to sociopolitical inequalities can be challenged and revealed, and can trigger realisations in relation to ways of coexisting in the world.
The shop supports
– Works that deal with essential connections of human to human, based on empathy, emotional and mental communication, and notions of belonging.
– Works which encourage practices that not only provoke society’s taboos and its problematic hierarchy but propose ways of being and functioning in the world by embracing difference and not to the expense of others.
– Works related to themes of inclusivity in life and art, to politics of non-discrimination, to the elimination of social, political, and financial inequalities.
– Practices that challenge social norms, gender roles, racial and age politics.
– Works that challenge the limits of what is considered art or life, amateur or professional, product or process and support the practice of fair work ethics.
– Works that question the use or abuse of technology.
– Works related to ecology and well-being.
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The Performance shop is an artistic project conceived by artist Lia Haraki and organized by her and her collaborators. The pop up shop initially opened in Nicosia in November 2014 (part of the pop up festival NiMAC) and in Limassol in December 2015 (partly funded by the Ministry of education and culture) and in Athens 2018 (part of the Athens and Epidaurus festival ). In 2016 it was selected as one of the 25 best dance practices in Europe in the frame of the by the EDN (European Dancehouse Network) conference of ‘how dance can become relevant’. In 2019 the shop was officially registered in Cyprus as a brand with the name ‘The Performance Shop Concept’.
How it begun - a note from Lia
The shop begun as a project of need. Cyprus, was going through a huge financial crisis (2013) and so was I and many other locals. During that time I had no means in bringing food to the table and so I decided to do what I knew how to do best, ‘performance’. I remember an open call at the pop-up festival in Nicosia where shops were given to artists to present their works. Together with other performers we created 'Τhe Performance Shop' in which we were presenting performances in the window of the shop and one on one services. The idea was highly successful to attracting audiences but was not very profitable. I used the following years to find ways to guide creatives and artists to use their creative practices as services and products to societies and individuals while becoming sustainable themselves through my workshop 'Arts t of service'
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The Performance Shop as one of 25 best practises by EDN (European Dance Developemnt Network) after a conference and research with the theme HOW TO MAKE DANCE RELEVANT.
Why Cyprus Is Europe’s Most Exciting Art Hub Right Now Artist-run spaces abound as many return to the Mediterranean island from stints abroad. Art News
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