Mapping the Afterlives of Performance
A calm, practical pathway that turns performance’s echoes into living archives, care practices, and legacy tools for artists and cultural workers.
What “Afterlives” Means
Performance does not disappear. It persists. It recurs in documentation, archives, institutions, and communities. Afterlives are the ways live works return through records, memories, and reactivations, which is why artists need frameworks that shepherd those returns with care.
This project translates that discourse into plain tools for practice within Black, queer, and BIPOC+ creative lifeworlds.
Our Group Experience will Cover
The path that fits your practice. Each element is practical, repeatable, and light to implement.
Modules: performance archiving basics, consent and documentation ethics, reactivation planning, and estate considerations.
Templates: metadata sheets, rights and access notes, oral history prompts, file-naming, and folder maps.
Rituals: gentle, embodied check-ins that keep care and rest present in the workflow.
Workflows: capture, store, describe, share, and re-present your work without extractive strain.
Primers: community agreements, IP basics, and steps for legacy planning.
Community Care: prompts that align project pace with rest and sustainability.
The offer aligns with Jaamil’s practice of weaving performance, writing, ritual, and healing-centered pedagogy.
Who It’s For
Artists and cultural workers, independent choreographers, small collectives, estates and archives, teaching artists, and curators seeking an artist-centered way to design living archives and legacies. This session centers BIPOC+ life-worlds.
The Approach: Soul Work + Systems Work
Attune: practices that honor memory, body, and spiritual grounding while reducing extraction.
Organize: lightweight systems for description, storage, and sharing that fit small teams.
Sustain: pacing, care, and access policies that protect the artist and the archive.
About Jaamil
Pew Fellow in the Arts, with work spanning dance, poetry, film, education, and curatorial practice.
Visiting and teaching roles at leading programs, including Bennington and UCLA.
Programming and curatorial work tied to New York Live Arts, 651 Arts, and The Watermill Center.
Internationally presented performance works and publications rooted in Black study and embodied poetics.
FAQs
What outcomes can I expect?
You leave with a simple archive map, filled templates, and a plan for future reactivations.
What about rights and IP?
We include plain language guidance and resource links. For complex issues, we point to legal resources.
How much time does this take?
Most artists complete the core setup in a weekend, then maintain it in short sessions.
Can this integrate with my existing drive or DAM?
Yes. The templates are platform-agnostic.
Is there sliding scale or scholarship?
When available, we share sliding scale and partner-supported seats. See the inquiry form for current options.
How do you handle documentation ethics?
We frame consent, access notes, and community agreements as core design elements, not add-ons.
What if I work in a collective or estate?
We include roles, shared folders, and a light governance outline.
Will this help with curation or teaching?
Yes. Outputs translate into teaching materials and proposals.
Mapping the afterlives of performance starts here.
Join the Project or Talk to the Team to shape a sustainable archive and legacy, on your terms.
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