Performance Studies international # 30

Different senses of crossing animate PSi#30. First as a written mark, the three Xs of the Roman numeral that represent “30” here cast the reading into a polysemic realm of competing/collaborating linguistic and cultural forces: secrecy, mystery, incognito, redaction, overwriting, an algebraic variable, an unknown value, non-binary gender, refusal, aphasia, disorder, error, intersectional pathways, intersecting diagonals, proliferating angles, multiplication, lack, blocked, out, hardcore sex, danger, a sacral point, a “something”, a “thing”, the unspecified, a target, a treasure, the vote, the kiss.

The undecidability of the x-thing is held onto here as a sign of complexity, not imprecision. It imparts a critical quality of inconclusiveness that bespeaks the diversified and often conflicting modes of reception and mobilization of Performance Studies in Latin America. For some, another colonizing trend from the academic elite; for others a fresh, rebellious framework enabling the torsion of academic coloniality. From the standpoint of the crossroad, which this conference intends to embrace, the vibrating energy produced by the paradox is way more fertile than the attempt to settle for a conclusion.