Adrian Piper: Performing Objects I Have Been, 1972–2018 is a collection of documents from, or potentially relevant to Adrian Piper’s performance Some Reflective Surfaces (1975–76) edited by art historian and curator Rhea Anastas. In this early live piece, Piper dances under spotlights to Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’, additionally staging video feedback and filmed images of herself dancing, and two sound recordings—‘Respect’ itself, and a voice-over narrative. Some Reflective Surfaces was produced in New York in the Fine Arts Building, New York University in 1975 and then at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1976. The performance has not been staged since. The documents of Some Reflective Surfaces include writings by, and audio transcripts of Piper. The publication is illustrated with photographs of Piper’s performances and other works.

Edited by Rhea Anastas with contributions by RoseLee Goldberg and Adrian Piper. Designed by Will Holder.

Edited by Susan Gibb and Becket MWN.

Event and Duration is a collection of texts that offer various perspectives on the notions of ‘event and duration’, and suggest ways that time can be thought and measured otherwise. The selection of texts are drawn from the field of performance studies, philosophy, psychoanalysis, science fiction and the visual arts among others, all of which were read in If I Can’t Dance’s reading groups in Amsterdam, São Paulo and Toronto as part of the artistic programme VI: Event and Duration (2015–16).

Contributors: Octavia E. Butler, Paul Chan, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Elizabeth Freeman, Amelia Groom, The Invisible Committee, R.D. Laing, Henri Lefebvre, Jota Mombaça, José Esteban Muñoz, Peter Pál Pelbart, Paul B. Preciado; and artist pages by Becket MWN.

Edited by Anik Fournier.

This publication documents and shares the trajectory of If I Can’t Dance’s engagement with ‘Social Movement’ as the field of inquiry for its seventh biannual programme (2017–18). Social Movement: Through the Lens of Performance and Performativity investigates how performance ontologies around bodily experience, affect and the relational better one’s understanding of social movement – and in turn how that understanding expands performance vocabularies.

Contributors: Giorgio Agamben, Selçuk Balamir, Anne Boyer, Judith Butler, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Nell Donkers, Pascale Gatzen, Édouard Glissant, Ayesha Hameed, Sands Joseph Horwitz-Dijks Murray-Wassink, Shannon Jackson, Rudolf Laban, Gregory Lennon, Audre Lorde, Ros Murray, AnnaMaria Pinaka, Tina Reden, Marjan Sax, Rebecca Schneider, Taka Taka, Simone Weil, Nagaré Willemsen; and postcard insert by Reza Mirabi.

Amateur is the first comprehensive publication about Wendelien van Oldenborgh‘s moving image works, and their accompanying installations. Developed over the past ten years of her practice, Wendelien van Oldenborgh’s works explore communication and interaction between individuals, often against the backdrop of a unique public location, in order to cast attention on repressed, incomplete, and unresolved histories. Through the staging of these encounters on film, van Oldenborgh enables multiple perspectives and voices to coexist, and brings to light political, social, and cultural relationships and how they are manifested through social interactions.

Designed by Julia Born.

Since the late 1970s, American artist Matt Mullican has developed a practice of performing under hypnosis that extends from his investigations into representation and subjective projection. The evolution of this body of work offers perspectives on repetition and renewal in performance practice. This book is the outcome of an extensive research project into Mullican’s hypnosis performances and a shared exploration of character construction, undertaken as part of the If I Can’t Dance project together with invited researcher Vanessa Desclaux. In her essay, Desclaux addresses the question of personification in light of her analysis of Mullican’s creative process.

A series of booklets produced on the occasion of If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution’s 2013–14 Commissions.

Gerry Bibby’s booklet introduces the process of writing his novel The Drumhead and includes redacted editorial correspondence with novelist Natasha Soobramanien. Sara van der Heide’s booklet on her work Mother Earth Breathing includes an essay by Nikos Papastergiadis. Snejanka Mihaylova’s booklet about her work Inner Stage includes an annotated bibliography and part of the musical score to her performance A Song. Emily Roysdon’s booklet includes the original textual score to her new work Uncounted*.

Designed by Maureen Mooren.