Interview with Jill Lane : what is performance studies?.

Interview with Jill Lane, conducted by Diana Taylor, founding director of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. This interview is a part of a series curated by the Hemispheric Institute, articulated around the question 'What is Performance Studies?' The series aims to provide a multifaceted approach to the often difficult task of defining the coordinates of both a field of academic study as well as a lens through which to assess and document cultural practice and embodied behavior. The contingent definitions documented in this series are based on the groundbreaking experiences and the scholarly endeavors of renowned figures in contemporary performance studies and practice. Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics

Jill Lane is Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University, where she teaches courses on performance in the Americas, in relation to the histories of colonialism, neocolonialism, and globalization. Her book, Blackface Cuba, 1840-1898 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005) examines racial impersonation, national desire, and anticolonial sentiment in Cuba. She is presently editing an anthology on Latin American performance with Routledge, and is co-editor with Peggy Phelan of The Ends of Performance (New York University Press, 1998). Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics