Encuentro Collections
Every two years, the Hemispheric Institute hosts an Encuentro—part academic conference, part performance festival—in a different site in the Americas. Fostering experimentation, dialogue, and collaboration, each Encuentro brings together approximately five hundred scholars, artists, activists and students to take part in a ten-day program of keynote lectures, work groups, performances, installations, roundtable discussions, visual arts exhibits, video screenings and hands-on performance workshops. Past thematic topics of the Encuentros have been: “Performance and Politics in the Americas” (2000), “Memory, Atrocity, and Resistance” (2001), “Globalization, Migration and the Public Sphere” (2002), “Spectacles of Religiosities” (2003), “Performing 'Heritage': Contemporary Indigenous Performance and Community-Based Practices” (2005), “Corpolíticas/Body Politics: Formations of Race, Class and Gender in the Americas” (2007), and “Staging Citizenship: Performance and Politics of Cultural Rights” (2009). 'Heritage': Contemporary Indigenous Performance and Community-Based Practices” (2005), “Corpolíticas/Body Politics: Formations of Race, Class and Gender in the Americas” (2007), and “Staging Citizenship: Performance and Politics of Cultural Rights” (2009), " Cities | Bodies | Action: The Politics of Passion in the Americas" (2013) “MANIFEST! Choreographing Social Movements in the Americas” (2014) and "eXcéntrico: dissidence, sovereignties, performance" (2016) (Coming Soon).
Encuentro 2014: “MANIFEST! Choreographing Social Movements in the Americas” – Montreal, Canada
Our 9th Encuentro sought to explore the multiple valences of the term MANIFEST! How are performances mobilized and syncretized in civic, community, and cultural contexts to create manifold forms of political expression?
Each photo thumbnail will take you to the corresponding Encuentro website which includes detailed summaries, photo galleries and video clips of events. A curated selection of complete videos can be found on HIDVL by clicking here.
Encuentro 2013: " Cities | Bodies | Action: The Politics of Passion in the Americas" - São Paulo, Brazil
Our 8th Encuentro sought to examine the broad intersections between urban space, performance and political/artistic action in the Americas.
Each photo thumbnail will take you to the corresponding Encuentro website which includes detailed summaries, photo galleries and video clips of events. A curated selection of complete videos can be found on HIDVL by clicking here.
Encuentro 2009: "Staging Citizenship: Performance and Politics of Cultural Rights" - Bogotá, Colombia
Our 7th Encuentro investigated cultural rights and their complex relationship to citizenship in both historical and contemporary contexts.
Each photo thumbnail will take you to the corresponding Encuentro website which includes detailed summaries, photo galleries and video clips of events. A curated selection of complete videos can be found on HIDVL by clicking here.
Encuentro 2007: “Corpolíticas/Body Politics: Formations of Race, Class and Gender in the Americas” - Buenos Aires, Argentina
Our 6th Encuentro focused on body politics: the politics of the body, political bodies, bodies politic, and the relations between them.
Each photo thumbnail will take you to the corresponding Encuentro website which includes detailed summaries, photo galleries and video clips of events. A curated selection of complete videos can be found on HIDVL by clicking here.
Encuentro 2005: "Performing 'Heritage': Contemporary Indigenous Performance and Community-Based Practices" - Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Our 5th Encuentro explored the production and circulation of notions of identity, traditions, authenticity, rights, cultural access and ownership in the age of globalization.
Each photo thumbnail will take you to the corresponding Encuentro website which includes detailed summaries, photo galleries and video clips of events. A curated selection of complete videos can be found on HIDVL by clicking here.
Encuentro 2003: "Spectacles of Religiosities" - New York City, United States
Our 4th Encuentro examined the ways in which religious traditions since the Conquest have transmitted worldviews and identities through embodied practices.
Each photo thumbnail will take you to the corresponding Encuentro website which includes detailed summaries, photo galleries and video clips of events. A curated selection of complete videos can be found on HIDVL by clicking here.
Encuentro 2002: "Globalization, Migration and the Public Sphere" - Lima, Peru
Our 3rd Encuentro focused on the public sphere in the age of globalization. While products and goods circulate "freely" across borders, human bodies are subject to increasingly complex migratory flows and crossings.
Each photo thumbnail will take you to the corresponding Encuentro website which includes detailed summaries, photo galleries and video clips of events. A curated selection of complete videos can be found on HIDVL by clicking here.
Encuentro 2001: "Memory, Atrocity and Resistance" - Monterrey, Mexico
Our 2nd Encuentro explored the role of embodied practice and memory in the turbulent, often violent, histories of the Americas.
Each photo thumbnail will take you to the corresponding Encuentro website which includes detailed summaries, photo galleries and video clips of events. A curated selection of complete videos can be found on HIDVL by clicking here.
Encuentro 2000: "Performance and Politics in the Americas" - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Our 1st Encuentro encouraged an interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between performance and politics from diverse cultural perspectives across the Americas.
Each photo thumbnail will take you to the corresponding Encuentro website which includes detailed summaries, photo galleries and video clips of events. A curated selection of complete videos can be found on HIDVL by clicking here.