Publish? Perish? Does Anyone Care? by ELIZA BENT in AMERICAN THEATRE MAGAZINE
A recent panel discussion and performance at the Martin E. Segal Center was titled “Publishing Performance in the 21st Century: Ugly Duckling Presse.” The theme of the evening centered around ways of archiving performances that may defy the usual methods of preservation. “How do you notate a dance?” one of the panelists, dance critic Claudia Larocco who founded the Performance Club, asked. Another panelist, playwright Sylvan Oswald who, along with playwright Jordan Harrison, publishes Play A Journal of Plays on a poly-annual basis, proclaimed he felt oppressed by the traditional ways in which plays appeared on the page, which led him to publish a journal of his own. Literary agent Antje Oegel, who co-edits 53rd State Press, argued for the importance of engaging the audience with the text. The panelists continued a convivial debate led by Matvei Yankelevich who publishes both Ugly Duckling Presse and Emergency Index, a nascent annual artist-driven publication of performance documents (the deadline to submit tid bits of your own is Jan. 3 2012). Later in the evening three artists, Jim Findlay, Julia Jarcho and Aki Sasamoto, responded via performance to reviews they had received about earlier performances they had created.