Walking Around New York with Performa

"Wark narrated the journey with queer and trans stories about nightlife and survival, stopping at the sites of bars and clubs that no longer exist, like La Mama, Mercer Arts Center, The Loft, and Lucky Cheng's on 24 First Avenue where-referencing the restaurant's appearance in the pilot episode of Sex and the City -she described "how the culture that originates in the bars and clubs here ends up in television and film, until there's nothing left.""

"Tied to a landmark performance in Performa's history like all of this year's walking tours, Raimundas Malašauskas's From Jankowski to Brown and Never Back began at Performa Hub on Broadway with a joint introduction by Performa's founder and director RoseLee Goldberg that recounted the making of Christian Jankowski's Rooftop Routine for Performa 2007 (when more than two dozen dancers hula-hooped on Chinatown rooftops) and Trisha Brown's Roof Piece, 1971."

Twelve walking tours formed a notable strand of the biennial, occupying a space between performances and talks and mixing prepared and improvised elements. The walks highlighted alternatives to conventional performance definitions through site-specific narratives, histories, and embodied storytelling. McKenzie Wark led a route along Avenue A and East Houston Street, narrating queer and trans stories about nightlife and survival and stopping at former bar and club locations like La Mama, Mercer Arts Center, The Loft, and Lucky Cheng's. Raimundas Malašauskas traced connections to landmark performances, began at Performa Hub with an introduction recounting Christian Jankowski's Rooftop Routine and Trisha Brown's Roof Piece, and led participants to a Canal Street perfume vendor to sample copycat scents paired with poem fragments.

Read at Artforum