THE PERFORMANCE SHOP CONCEPT ®
The main question that the project explores is:
which values and practices does performance offer in our times
that are needed towards an equitable world ?
“The value of performance exists in its values”
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It is the concept that performance and artistic practices can be offered in the forms of services or products available to the world to use and enjoy.
Α store that offers live performances, long durational actions, performance services 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 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 socio-political inequalities can be challenged and revealed and can trigger realisations in relation to ways of coexisting in the world.
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-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 ethic
-Works that question the use or abuse of technology and other addictions
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–Because a shop in a downtown street is a space familiar to most people, inviting them to come in contact with performance and perhaps stimulating their curiosity to explore it further.
–Because a space of this sort can host a variety of performances of diverse themes, genres and styles which can be held simultaneously.
–Because it offers the choice to individuals to consciously choose a performance experience as a valuable purchase.
–Because the frame of a shop invites us to question the relationship between art and consumerism and triggers questions like: To what extent does a performance constitute a product? What is the relationship between the transitory and the necessary? Can the experience of a performance be an investment of some sort? What kind?
–Because practising performance at a shop window gives visibility to durational performances and actions in a new way accessible to all.-Because it can host performances as services.
–Because it can become a meeting point for artists and spectators and, thus, allowing the artists to meet their audience, rather than only the other way round.
“The Performance Shop aims to make performance services available
to ignite conversations about how art can support life and vice versa.”
“The extraordinary is the ordinary”
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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’.
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“Performance as an agency for transformative experiences”
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Press
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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info@liaharaki.com
“Performance as an integral part of everyday life”
“To perform is to dare transform”