The Producing Director of Performa Biennial, Esa Nickle, visits Helsinki in June under Frame’s expert visitor programme. Founded in 2004 in New York, Performa is the leading organisation dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance and encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century. Esa Nickle will be talking about her practice and the biennial at Frame’s office (Ratakatu 1 b A 9, 6. floor) on Tuesday, June 14 at 3 pm. The event is open for everyone to participate, welcome!
Esa Nickle
Esa Nickle joined the Performa team in May 2005 as the Biennial Coordinator of the Performa 05 biennial and in 2009 expanded her role as the General Manager of the organisation and is line producer of Performa commissions, international partnerships and special events. In 2013, she was appointed as Producing Director and International Affairs and was pivotal to the launch of the international “Pavilions Without Walls” program for the biennial. During her years working in the field she has managed large scale public art events, art education programs, and curatorial projects for the city agencies such as the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival in London. At Performa, she oversees the biennial program and has produced over 100 performances, installations, and film projects by contemporary artists including Isaac Julien, Jesper Just, Francis Alys, Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, Omer Fast, Mike Kelley and Elmgreen & Dragset amongst many others. Esa studied the Sociology of Art at Indiana University and Art History at the City University, London.
Performa
Founded in 2004 by art historian and curator RoseLee Goldberg, Performa is the leading organisation dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth-century art and encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century. Since launching New York’s first performance biennial, Performa 05, in 2005, the organization has solidified its identity as a commissioning and producing entity. As a “museum without walls,” Performa provides important art historical heft to the field by showing the development of live art in all its forms from many different cultural perspectives reaching back to the Renaissance. The Performa Biennial is celebrated world wide as the first biennial to give specialized attention to this remarkable history, transforming the city of New York into the ‘world capital of artists’ performance’ every other November. Performa attracts a national and international audience of more than 200,000 and receives more than 5,000,000 website hits during its three week run. In the last decade Performa has presented 592 performances, worked with 732 artists, and toured commissioned performances in 17 countries around the world.