History and Impact

Performing the World (PTW) is a bi-annual three-day international gathering sponsored by the East Side Institute. Begun in 2001, PTW is dedicated to advancing the global performance movement for human development and social change. The first three conferences (2001 and 2003 in Montauk, NY, 2005 in Tarrytown, NY) attracted a total of 1,000 participants from 35 US states and 27 countries in North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Indian subcontinent. We estimate that each participant brings what they have learned back to an average of 1,000 adults, children and families in their communities and countries, totaling more than one million people who reap the benefit of this global performance community.

Who Attends

The Conference brings together grassroots practitioners, scholars and researchers who engage social problems with a theatrical, performance or improvisation perspective. They come to explore the potential of a performance approach to unleash and nurture the human capacity to create, collaborate and change the world. They leave inspired by having touched and been touched by other people and other cultures, and having learned new ways to relate to human beings, to culture, to community, and to social change.

The Performing the World Community and the Performance Movement

The growing PTW community is widely diverse, counting among its members performers, educators, artists, social scientists, health and helping professionals, psychologists and therapists, youth workers, social entrepreneurs, business professionals, activists, and community organizers. From these many professional locations, they are tackling the toughest social problems of our day – poverty, violence, AIDS, literacy, mental illness, poor health, intolerance, and social justice.

In linking performance to community, Performing the World 4: The Performance of Community and The Community of Performance will explore how ensemble creativity, improvisatory play and “stage-making” — represented in thousands of innovative and effective performance projects taking place in urban centers, towns and villages the world over — are contributing to the rebirth of community and to peaceful social change.

Performing the World conferences have played a very important role in organizing, publicizing and expanding the performance movement. New models of learning, development and community building designed specifically for the current times must be fostered. The performance movement is one such, very effective, model.

For more information see announcement.