Where No Wall Remains: Borders in Performance

Built around the Live Arts Bard 2019 Biennial of the same name, “Where No Wall Remains” is a record of performances and interactive art projects by international artists on the subject of borders. The artists mark the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall through an exploration of contemporary borders in kaleidoscopic forms: political, physical, psychological, culinary, autobiographical. As the United States accepts fewer and fewer immigrants, ICE commits human rights violations at the Mexican border, and international borders close due to COVID-19, these newly commissioned performances hold urgent significance. Although the state of the world and its borders is dire, “Where No Wall Remains,” a phrase taken from a love poem by Rumi, invites us to imagine not only our xenophobic present, but a future utopian state of being—a fully unbordered world.
 
Contributors
Basel Abbas, Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Mirna Bamieh, Ali Chahrour, Jason de León/Undocumented Migration Project, Tania El Khoury, Rudi Goblen, Gideon Lester, Alex Ripp, Emilio Rojas, Tom Sellar, Ashley Thomas

Tania El Khoury is a Lebanese live artist and the codirector of the MA Program in Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College. Tom Sellar is Professor in the Practice of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at Yale School of Drama and the editor of Theater.